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Can commuter rail save our suburbs?

https://www.curbed.com/2019/10/8/208...opment-suburbs

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- Amid recent reinvestments in Olde Town Arvada, a neighborhood of brewpubs, independent stores, and restaurants, the arrival of a rail link to Denver this past spring, after years of delay, is another catalyst in the suburb’s growth. Arvada has already seen $400 million in investment since 2006, including streetscaping and downtown redevelopment, according to Daniel Ryley, executive director of the Arvada Economic Development Association, but it’s the arrival of the rail link that has fueled even more new development and a spike in economic activity. Sales tax revenue in Olde Town grew 75 percent between 2013 and 2018 as new businesses opened in anticipation of the train’s arrival.

- Within a half-mile of the station, more than 1,100 new apartments, condos, and townhomes have gone up in the last few years, according to Maureen Phair, executive director of the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority, as well as a Hilton Garden hotel. An additional 250 units will break ground next year right next to the station. “What we don’t want to do is contribute to sprawl, traffic, and pollution,” says Phair. “The best way to avoid that is building density around these stations, and really building a place, so people can ride to work and walk to dinner.” The new rail line, Ryley says, and the 20-minute ride to downtown Denver, is making it easier for businesses to retain and attract workers.

- Growing metros in the West and the Sun Belt are betting big on improved suburban transit, including expanding light-rail lines and building new commuter rail services. It’s a trend that’s taken off over the last 15 years, according to Paul Lewis, vice president of policy and finance at Eno Center for Transportation. The American Public Transportation Association says commuter rail use has been steadily increasing since the late ‘90s, and grew 9.2 percent, or by more than 42 million additional trips, in the last decade alone.

- Mimicking the commuter rail lines that stretch out from Northeast cities like New York, these new suburban transit options tend to be renovations of underutilized or unused freight lines. Similar plans propose or plan to open new lines in the next five-plus years in Seattle, Houston, Massachusetts, Dallas, and Miami. “As cities grow and want to be world-class and compete on a global scale, they need to show a map with transit and rail lines,” says Lewis. The price is certainly right: By repurposing existing lines, transit agencies forgo costly land acquisition and rail construction costs and focus on stations, parking lots, and passenger cars.

- Texas cities also have high hopes for rail-led development. Houston will ask voters to approve a $7.5 billion expansion of transit, including more light rail and a rail link to Hobby Airport. Dallas’s Silver Line, a $1.2 billion investment in a radial line linking northern suburbs and other existing rail services, aims to better intertwine a crescent-shaped swath of emerging cities and job centers from Plano to the stockyards near downtown Fort Worth. According to Leininger, the former DART exec, the suburbs see commuter rail as a significant infrastructure boost, and have responded with investments and policies stimulating new development.

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