Draft Status: Draft

Transit-Oriented Communities Policy

The Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy (MTC Res. No. 4530) applies to locations within one half-mile of existing and planned stops and stations served by rail, light-rail, bus rapid transit, or ferries. The TOC Policy specifies requirements for 1) average minimum residential and commercial office densities for new development (applicable only to parcels that are NOT currently occupied by dwelling units); 2) affordable housing production, preservation and protection, and stabilizing businesses to prevent displacement; 3) parking management; and 4) transit station access. TOC Policy areas are categorized by the level of transit service, or Transit Service Tier. More information about the TOC Policy, including the full text of Res. No. 4530, can be found here:.

Project Management

• Asana Task (MTC Only)
• Box Link (MTC Only)

Table of Contents

• Analysis Parameters
  • Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area
    • Where will the TOC policy apply?
    • Where will the TOC policy not apply?
    • Residential Densities
    • Commercial Densities
    • Parking Management Requirements
• Methodology
  • Create Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area

Analysis Parameters

Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area

Where will the TOC policy apply?

The TOC policy will apply in the follow areas:

• within the half-mile station/stop/terminal area of existing or planned fixed-guideway transit.
• Fixed-guideway transit:
  • Regional rail
  • Light Rail Transit
  • Bus Rapid Transit
  • Commuter rail
  • Ferry terminals

Where will the TOC policy not apply?

The TOC policy will not apply around airport air tram stations, including stations at San Francisco International Airport and at Oakland International Airport. Additionally, the policy only applies to areas within 1/2 mile of existing or planned fixed guideway transit service (regional rail, light rail, commuter rail, ferry, and bus rapid transit). In the case of planned fixed-guideway service, compliance with the TOC Policy is required prior to the endorsement or allocation of regional discretionary capital funding. As such, stops or stations associated with the following longer term projects were excluded from analysis. Additionally, given its limited capacity, stations served only by Tideline Ferry service were also excluded from analysis. The ReX express project was also excluded from the analysis as the project does not qualify as a BRT.

Residential Densities

Residential and commercial minimum and maximum densities will be determined by level of transit service. Density requirements apply to new development only.

• * Applies to the following stations: Downtown San Francisco (Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, Civic Center, Transbay); Oakland (19th, 12th, Lake Merritt); San Jose (Diridon)
• ** Tier 3 cities with a population of 30,000 or less my comply with Tier 4 density requirements.

Commercial Office Densities (Based upon Commercial office uses)

• * Applies to the following stations: Downtown San Francisco (Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, Civic Center, Transbay); Oakland (19th, 12th, Lake Merritt); San Jose (Diridon)
• ** Tier 3 cities with a population of 30,000 or less my comply with Tier 4 density requirements.

Parking Management Requirements

• * Applies to the following stations: Downtown San Francisco (Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, Civic Center, Transbay); Oakland (19th, 12th, Lake Merritt); San Jose (Diridon)
• ** Tier 3 cities with a population of 30,000 or less my comply with Tier 4 density requirements.

Methodology

Create Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area

Notebook: Create Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area

Inputs:

• Transit Stops - Existing and Planned
• San Francisco Bay Regional Water (Area)
• San Francisco Bay Region Jurisdictions (Incorporated Places and Unincorporated Lands)

Outputs:

• Transit Oriented Communities Policy Area (MTC Access Only)
• Transit Oriented Communities Exploratory Map (TOC Team Access Only)

1. Preprocessing
   • Pull all input datasets and convert to geodataframe; project to EPSG:26910
2. Create dataframe of fixed-guideway stops
   • Fixed-guideway stops: ['Rail', 'BRT', 'Tram, Streetcar, Light Rail', 'Cable Tram','Ferry']
   • Remove other stops where policy does not apply
   • Drop duplicate route/stop combinations
     • A number of stops are served by routes with the same route id for both directions. These need to be dropped to accurately count the number of unique routes that pass through any given station in later steps.
3. Create station areas
   • Find stops that are nearby:
     • Cable Tram and BRT within 75 ft (22.86 meters) of other stops are considered same stop
     • Tram, Streetcar, Light Rail; Rail; Ferry within 300 ft (91.44 meters) of other stops are considered same stop
   • Dissolve stop areas to create station areas; this creates a multi-part geometry.
   • Explode multi-part station areas to single-part station areas
   • Create station area id
   • Assign station id to stops
4. Drop duplicate routes from stations
   • After stations were identified in the previous step, some stations had duplicate route ids. These need to be dropped to accurately count the number of unique routes that pass through any given station in later steps.
5. Count BART and Caltrain routes by station
   • Add BART and Caltrain route ids to planned routes
   • Group transit routes by station and agency
   • Add count columns to station geodataframe w/ point geometry
6. Flag service tiers
   • Service Tiers
   • Station rank: Rank rail routes from 1-4 with 1 being the highest rank. This will be used along with tier to sort and drop duplicate routes, preserving stations with highest Level of Service and Route Rank.
     • Rail, Ferry: 1
     • Tram, Streetcar, Light Rail: 2
     • BRT: 3
     • Cable Tram: 4
7. Create Transit Oriented Community Areas
   • Create 1/2 mile buffer (804.672 meter) around stops/stations (point geometry)
   • Erase San Francisco Bay Regional Water (Area)
8. Add City and County to TOC Areas
   • Run identity overlay operation to assign county and jurisdiction to TOC from San Francisco Bay Region Jurisdictions (Incorporated Places and Unincorporated Lands)
9. Dissolve layers & remove overlaps
   • Dissolve or consolidate features by county, jurisdiction, service tier, and status
   • Remove overlaps between existing and planned areas. Existing TOC areas take priority over planned areas; where there are overlaps between the two keep existing areas and remove planned areas.
   • Remove overlaps between service tier. Higher tiers take priority over lower tiers. Where there are overlaps, keep higher tier area and remove lower tier area.
10. Publish Layers to ArcGIS Online