Maybe there's something in the water

Selling Ecco Park condominiums to people going to the Takoma Street Festival
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

I am a big fan of guerrilla marketing, so the fact that this condominum development took the opportunity to have a booth and pass out water to people walking up to the Takoma Park Maryland Street Festival is something to be admired.

It's about one block from the Takoma red line station, and a short block to the Maryland side of the Takoma area.

Frankly, I'm starting to think that the best way to promote transit-oriented development around subway stations is to "require" much less if no parking, and building participation in carsharing programs. Such housing would attract people who want transit connectivity and don't think about their mobility totally and completely within the automobility mindset.

Developers likely would love it because they could build more housing, instead of devoting more space to parking, and they would make more money.

That's about the best incentive to promote transit oriented development that I can think of.

But you have to have great places so this can work. There needs to be more retail and more places to walk to, within a 1/4 to 5/8 mile radius so that residents would be attracted to these car-less buildings, without feeling stranded.