Location, Location . . .

On his brief swing through Southern California last week, President Clinton stopped long enough to praise a Sylmar housing project that developers hope will be a model of high-tech building and smart planning. Although Clinton touted Village Green’s energy-efficient design and environmentally friendly materials, the project also scores high marks for its location: Right next to the Sylmar Metrolink station.

In car-dependent Southern California, building homes, shops and offices next to--or even on top of--rail stations offers the best hope of making trains cheap and easy to use. Transit-based development recognizes and exploits the huge public investment in the region’s rail network. Only when taking the train becomes as easy as backing out of the driveway will commuters turn to the rails in any great numbers.

Research by the National Transit Access Center suggests that residents living near a rail station are five to seven times more likely to use trains for commuting than others in the same community. And nearly 30% of residents who live near a station and take the train previously drove to work alone. Western cities such as San Jose and Seattle understand the connection and encourage development near light-rail stations and bus transfer stops.

The idea is simple. By putting grocery stores, day-care centers, offices, apartments and houses near rail and bus lines, people are less likely to drive around clogging streets and dirtying the air. Despite efforts by transit planners in Southern California, though, most train stations offer not much more than a lot of parking lot and a little shade. So even after train riders finish a rail commute, many hop into their cars to grab dinner, pick up the kids and drop off the laundry. Those short-haul, start-and-stop car trips send more pollutants into the air than driving at freeway speed.

But there’s progress. In Sylmar, the Village Green project will put 186 homes next to a station that already boasts a day-care center. In Chatsworth, plans are afoot to develop a retail complex to complement the coffee shop and child-care center already at the station. In Hollywood, planners want to build atop a Red Line subway station. Those are all good starts. But that’s all they are.

Getting the most out of the billions spent on Southern California’s rail network requires incorporating it into everyday life. That means taking advantage of the opportunity it offers by building dense, walkable neighborhoods around stations, creating what one researcher refers to as a “string of pearls” linked by rail.