Existing Land Use Trend Report

Thank you for pulling this together! I would also suggest that the county evaluate land use trends related to the county's identified "Designated Growth Areas" and "Development Potential Areas," and would further suggest that the county then define a "Transit-Oriented Development Area" that includes any "Designated Growth Areas" or "Development Potential Areas" within a public transit station area. The Montgomery County Planning Commission has written, in its model TOD policy that "MCPC encourages municipalities with transit access, especially Regional Rail stations, to consider planning for and encouraging a greater density of development and mixture of land uses around transit resources." SEPTA is caught in a long-run financial crisis and critically needs ridership near its stations. Furthermore, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant criteria weighs the number of residents and jobs within a transit line's 'station area' (which they define as within a half-mile of the station). DVRPC has also created a TOD station area planning tool. In other words, MCPC, SEPTA, DVRPC, and the FTA all agree that transit-oriented growth is critical to supporting better transportation outcomes. Yet Montgomery County does not currently appear to track how the county is performing on directing growth toward station areas, rather than areas that have little to no direct transit access. We need to track this information so that we can all work from a common understanding when planning for future TOD needs. Are we encouraging growth in areas with access to transit? Or are we directing growth to areas where most people will need to drive, thus making traffic congestion and various other outcomes worse? There's several ways you could do this analysis. I would recommend at least a half-mile walkshed around Regional Rail and High-Speed Rail stations, based on the FTA's 'station area' definition. It may also be appropriate to include a quarter-mile or half-mile walkshed around bus stops if the bus route features 30-minute or better headways. Or, most permissively, you could include a half-mile around any bus, rail, or high-speed rail station. The county's current "Designated Growth Areas" or "Development Potential Areas" do *not* adequately capture these TOD needs. Even if you use the most permissive 'station area' definition above -- a half-mile around *any* bus, rail, or high-speed rail station -- about half of the "Designated Growth Areas" or "Development Potential Areas" do *not* have easy access to transit service. And that's if you include stops without frequent service and do not account for barriers to walkability, etc. All of this should be easily accomplished in GIS, and SEPTA and DVRPC already have foundational datasets from which the county can work. I would highly recommend creating a "TOD Area" and analyzing how much of Montgomery County's growth has occurred within this area versus outside of it over the past decade -- and then continue to track this metric going forward. Thank you for your consideration!