Learning the right and wrong lessons from best practice: Hong Kong is Transit Oriented Development on steroids

Transit oriented development is a term from the last couple decades for linking denser development with high frequency transit, most usually rail (although sometimes it includes bus rapid transit). 

Ironically, it's the resuscitation of an approach that originated more than a century ago, about linking transit to development, and having higher density development immediately around stations and terminals. Mega-cities like New York or Paris or London or Tokyo couldn't operate if they were dependent on automobile transportation.  High capacity transit moves thousands of people efficiently and quickly.

The concepts are captured in a long out of print publication by DC's Office of Planning, which updates these principles for today:

-- Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in DC: Design Handbook
-- Center for Transit Oriented Development
-- Ten Principles for Successful Development Around Transit, Urban Land Institute

NotionsCapital points us to the Guardian article, "How public transport actually turns a profit in Hong Kong," about how the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) in Hong Kong is super profitable because they capture land value from transit adjacency in development and generate ongoing revenue from this development."

Half the revenue in the system is from property development, ownership, and management.

Historically, transit lines were created by land developers to make new residential development popular and successful.

In Washington, DC, for example, not only was a streetcar line built on Connecticut Avenue to Chevy Chase, Maryland, the streetcar franchise operators were required to build the street too. 

The streetcar line on H Street NE where I used to live was built because developers weren't able to sell lots without it.

Railroads had massive residential recruitment promotional programs.

The Van Swerigen Brothers who built Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights outside of Cleveland actually bought a railroad to get the right of way they needed to provide high speed transit service to their new developments ("Train Dreams," Belt Magazine).

The London Underground had great promotions in association with new lines, especially the "Metroland"of Suburban London.

In the US, transit became publicly owned because it was no longer profitable.

In large part this was because relatively deconcentrated and small scale development was tough for transit to serve efficiently and economically.

Especially when combined in a massive increase in auto ownership + regulatory oversight which was focused on keeping fares low.

In Asian cities, many transit systems are privately owned today because they are profitable. 

Or they are run by public agencies, like MTR, but are managed to be revenue positive.

What's different about Hong Kong, many communities in Japan especially Tokyo ("Why Tokyo's Privately Owned Rail Systems Work So Well," CityLab), Seoul, and Singapore among others, is that these communities are massively dense in both building mass and housing. And most housing is multiunit.

Hong Kong.

So not only does MTR make a lot of money from development, lots of people live or work in Hong Kong and near transit stations, and so the ridership levels are huge as well--at levels far beyond what happens in most North American cities except for Mexico City and New York City.

Surprisingly, mass transit ridership in HK is about what it is in NYC, but they also have higher usage of buses, a still extant double deck tram system, and a great deal of walking, facilitated by a public system of walkway connections ("City of stairs: the interconnecting walkways of Hong Kong," Guardian) and public escalators.

Counter examples.  The development at DC's Fort Totten Metrorail station in mostly a maximum of four stories, and maybe has 1,500 residents.  Although there are taller buildings at other sites, such as Petworth which has one building about 8 stories high, and multiple taller buildings around the Columbia Heights and NoMA Metrorail stations.  But DC's height limit puts a severe limit on the ability to build around transit.

Fort Totten.  (Although development a block or two away is more dense, about double in size.)

When I was writing the piece yesterday on Atlanta, I was shocked at the low ridership--only two stations of 38 in the MARTA system has more than 9,000 daily riders.

By contrast the Union Square development discussed in the Guardian article is 33 acres with 12 million s.f. of development and buildings as tall as 118 stories.

The built area includes 5,866 residential units, 2,230 hotel rooms, and 2,490 serviced apartments, alongside a shopping mall, Elements, of almost 1 million s.f.

Civic Square in West Kowloon. The shopping mall, apartments and two five-star hotels were all developed or are now owned and managed by the MTR. Photograph: Photogenic/Alamy.