CT Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Capacity Study
New Britain, Newington, West Hartford & Hartford, CT
As part of the TOD planning on-call with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, I supported the team to examine potential for TOD along the newly opened CTfastrak Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor in Central Connecticut. Opened in March 2015, CTfastrak is the Northeast’s newest BRT system and provides Central Connecticut a more efficient means of transport between the densely populated cities of Hartford and New Britain. CTfastrak runs on a dedicated guideway, which makes it one of the only true BRT systems in the US.
|
This transit investment provided tremendous opportunities to reinvest in New Britain, Newington, West Hartford, and Hartford. These opportunities are driven by CTfastrak’s impressive average weekday ridership of 16,000 people, and by a growing preference among Baby Boomers and Millennials in Connecticut for higher-density, walkable, and mixed-use communities. This Study assessed the degree to which there is a “capacity” for TOD on the corridor. In other words, it will identied the extent to which the keys to successful TOD implementation were in place along the corridor by examining each CTfastrak station area’s physical suitability, regulatory environment, political willingness, developer interest, community support, interjurisdictional cooperation, and local level TOD planning. Following an extensive evaluation of these success factors, this Study outlines an implementation action plan tailored to each community’s needs and current capacity to carry out TOD along the Corridor. This study identied opportunites to reinvest in the communities that CTfastrakserves, and be a model for transit-oriented development (TOD) in the US.