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# Trend in transit-oriented real estate development gains speed
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/trend-in-transit-oriented-real-estate-development-gains-speed/
- Published: 2005-06-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:15:50.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import

*By JODI SUMMERS*

Currently there are about 3,340 fixed transit stops across the country. Studies by the nonprofit organization Reconnecting America show plans for an additional 630 stations by 2025\. It is estimated that 14.6 million households may be looking for housing within a half-mile radius of fixed-guideway transit stations by 2025, compared with about 6 million households in 2000\. Fixed-route transit is defined as rail systems, streetcars, trolley buses, bus rapid transit and cable cars.

Santa Monica is scheduled for a light rail system connecting our fair city to downtown Los Angeles, but no one will give dates as to when it will happen. According Rick Thorpe, the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s chief management officer, the MTA is focused on the “first phase of the project,” the Mid-City Exposition Light Rail Transit Project, which will run from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City.

The “first phase” of the westside edition of the Los Angeles light rail system will call for 9.6 miles of light rail and 11 stations, three of which will include park-and-ride lots. The MTA expects the $444.5 million project to be completed in 2010 and estimates that by 2020, 45,000 riders will use it every day.

The second phase of the project will connect Culver City to Santa Monica. Still in the planning stages, no start date has been set and its station sites have not been identified, though rumor has it that the Santa Monica station will be the site of the Sears automotive center on the southeast corner of Fourth Street and Colorado Avenue.

The Los Angeles light rail system is one of dozens of transit projects across the country that is in final design stages, or awaiting federal money. Currently there are 27 metropolitan regions operating some form of fixed-route transit, according to the Reconnecting America report. In 2003, 25 new transit projects were being built under full-funding grant agreements with the Federal Transit Administration. Metro areas building fixed-guideway transit systems for the first time include Charlotte, N.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Fort Collins, Colo.; Las Vegas; Nashville, Tenn.; and Reading, Pa. Metro areas with major expansion plans include New Orleans, Seattle, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Phoenix and New York, among others. Additionally, 52 projects are in some stage of federal approval, and about 151 additional projects were named in the last federal transportation bill.

> “Transit is trendy. There is a growing demand for real estate development close to transit,”

> “Transit-oriented development has the potential to become an unprecedented catalyst for community growth,” — notes Jennifer L. Dorn, administrator for the Federal Transit Administration. she recently said

Transit-oriented development has become an international trend. The United Nations projects that urban population growth will make up about 90 percent of the world’s population growth. It estimates that in 20 years, 85 percent of the population in the United States will live in urban areas; in Europe, 83 percent; in Asia, 55 percent; and Africa, 54 percent.

In the decades that followed World War II, the American Dream for many people was an affordable home away from urban areas. Suburban living has now gone out of fashion.

“We have already seen that American home buyers are creating a new version of the American Dream. Their interpretation of the American Dream doesn’t involve a home in the suburbs,” the FTA’s Dorn noted.

Studies by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America have come to describe the ideal smart growth community as a mix of apartments, con-dos, townhouses and single-family detached houses on various sized lots with sidewalks and places to shop, eat, read and go to school within walking distance. It also was described as a community where public transportation is nearby and a one-way commute is less than 45 minutes.

When individuals were queried about what they want in their neighborhood, 79 percent of respondents said that commute times of 45 minutes or less were important factors in deciding where to live. Seventy-five percent said easy highway access was important and 72 percent said a walkable community is important. Sixty-five percent said it is important to live in a community with people of all ages, and 60 percent said it is important to live in a place that is away from it all. Fifty-seven percent said it is important to have a large house on more than one acre of land. Fifty-one percent said it is important to be within walking distance of stores and restaurants.

Minorities are more likely than other Americans to choose a walkable neighborhood that has a shorter commute, with 59 percent of women, 57 percent of Hispanics and 78 percent of African Americans selecting urbanized communities over communities with bigger lots and longer commutes. Most survey participants said they favored the attributes of walkable, smart-growth communities over sprawling communities with longer commutes.

Ironically, home-ownership rates tend to be lower in transit zones. The average home-ownership rate in transit zones is about 31 percent, while the property ownership rate for U.S. metro regions overall is about 66 percent. (Jodi Summers is director of the investment division at Boardwalk Realty Santa Monica. Contact her at, or call 310-309-4219.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 15, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061505.pdf?ref=smdp.com)