Location, Location . . .

The Simi Valley City Council has given a cautious green light to a developer who wants to build a residential neighborhood at Los Angeles Avenue and Stearns Street.

Although the project needs some tweaking to improve its emergency access and landscaping, it scores high marks for its location:

Right next to the Simi Valley 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.

Of late, there’s been progress. In Sylmar, the Village Green project that won praise from President Clinton last week 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.