High Density Makes Sense
A proposal to develop land around the North Hollywood Metro Rail subway station as high-density housing reveals that--contrary to popular belief--transit planners really do understand how to maximize the public’s multibillion-dollar investment in rail. Early plans for an 11-acre site adjacent to the station envision construction of shops, restaurants and as many as 1,000 housing units, some of them artists’ lofts. The plan makes sense.
The North Hollywood station, set to open next year, will be the last built for the foreseeable future because voters last November rejected further extensions of a rail system plagued by cost overruns. The trick then becomes how best to capitalize on a relatively small network linking North Hollywood and Universal City to Hollywood and downtown. In a sprawling, low-rise city built around the automobile, a subway has always been a hard sell to riders and virtually impossible to justify economically.
The equation changes, though, when density around stations increases. In other words, build ing more--more apartments, more condominiums, more shops, more offices--around stations naturally tends to increase transit ridership. In addition, dense neighborhoods encourage more walking. Naysayers suggest that Southern Californians will never give up their cars and that plopping dense neighborhoods onto the existing landscape will only snarl traffic and make it even more difficult to find a parking space.
That’s the aim, though. Getting more people onto public transit--whether subways, light rail or buses--is equal parts carrot and stick. No transit scheme will work if it remains easier, cheaper and more convenient to drive alone. Sound like social engineering? Maybe so. But consider the subsidies lavished on motorists, such as abundant free parking. It costs about $2,000 to build a space in a standard outdoor asphalt parking lot and 10 times that to build an underground space.
What transit-oriented developments do is give people a choice about how they live and commute. For all its promises of individual freedom, Southern California offers precious few options for those who don’t want the standard single-family home on a quarter-acre lot with a 45-minute commute. As envisioned, the North Hollywood development would put hundreds of families within an easy subway ride of downtown and create a truly urban neighborhood, unlike most in the San Fernando Valley.
City law allows denser neighborhoods around transit stations and permits concessions such as requiring fewer parking spaces of developers. But the City Council should more actively encourage the kind of development proposed in North Hollywood--a joint venture between the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Urban clusters around stations make it easier to plan for long-term necessities such as sewer pipes, power lines and other infrastructure.
As the Valley and Los Angeles grow, solutions such as transit-oriented development must be examined more carefully and executed more often. Where hundreds of thousands of new residents will live and how they will move around the city will be a critical issue in the next 20 years. However small it may be, a backbone of rail has been built. Using it to establish new models for development not only capitalizes on a huge public investment but also helps alleviate pressure on freeways and neighborhoods already bursting at the seams.
