TOD News

Paul Bubny | Globe Street

With the Urban Land Institute’s Fall Meeting in full swing here, a pair of surveys cosponsored by ULI predicts the industry’s current momentum will carry over into 2015. The 2015 edition of ULI’s annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, co-published by PwC US and issued Wednesday at the conference, cites the rise of markets outside the coastal gateway cities, with Houston leading the way. Similarly, the semi-annual ULI/EY Real Estate Consensus Forecast issued last week predicts continued strengthening in the capital markets and in commercial real estate fundamentals.

Commenting on the PwC/ULI report, ULI global CEO Patrick L. Phillips notes that investors are “looking closely at opportunities beyond the core markets. These cities are positioning themselves as highly competitive, in terms of livability, employment offerings and recreational and cultural amenities.”

While it may be difficult to think of the nation’s largest commercial property market as old news, New York City is not in the top five among markets ranked by survey respondents in the PwC/ULI study. Nor is it in the top 10; Manhattan ranks number 14 and Brooklyn number 22. With the energy sector continuing to drive market growth, Houston was ranked number one for development and investment expectations, and number two for its housing market expectations. Read more

Jasen Lee | Deseret News

Following approval by the board of trustees, the Utah Transit Authority will move ahead with its second transit-oriented development to be located in West Jordan.

On Wednesday, the board approved the conveyance of land surrounding the Jordan Valley TRAX station.

The $40 million first phase of the Jordan Valley Station TOD, to be called Bangerter Station, will be a model development with 267 housing units, retail shops and structured parking within walking distance of the light-rail station.

Upon completion, Bangerter Station will boast almost 1,400 residential units, 83,000 square feet of office space, structured parking, along with nearly 35,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space. Read more

Scott Whipple | New Britain Herald

While working on the New Britain Downtown Station, a CTfastrak construction worker hums the theme to “The Jetsons.” Lisa Rivers, transit manager for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, knows why.

“He says the lampposts look like flying saucers,” she said. “We used a lot of stainless steel here. It’s easy to maintain and it has a modern look”.

With the station nearing completion and needing only finishing touches, Rivers gave a visitor a tour of the site Friday.

Rivers said construction teams have been getting the 9.4 mile busway and its stations built. “Now we’re making sure what we built works for our customers,” she said. She was especially proud of the level platform, so riders can enter and exit buses easily.

“We adjusted the bellows on buses to ease the berthing,” Rivers explained. “A finishing touch will be a rub rail along the curve so drivers can use their mirrors to line up the bus with the platform. The rub rail bumps the tires so the bus can’t get too close.”

Opening day is scheduled for Saturday, March 28, 2015. However, there could be an earlier soft opening showcasing express buses. Signs will tell riders when their bus will arrive and its ultimate destination. People with visual impairments can push a button and hear the message on the sign.

All stations will be completed on time, though, at this point, downtown New Britain is farther along than stations closer to Hartford.

“The other stations started later, and we‘ve been using those locations as a lay-down area [storage for construction.],” Rivers said.

The solar panels for the platform will be installed next weekend, and later the ticket vending machines. Over the winter, more bits and pieces will be added. Read more

Brian Martucci | The Line Media

As everyone knows by now, it’s great to be a cyclist in the Twin Cities. From folks ditching their cars for bikes, to Minneapolis and St. Paul creating nation-leading bikeway plans, pedal power has a lot of momentum here. As transit-oriented developments hits its stride along the Green Line and other key corridors, the bicycle looks to figure even more prominently into our local transit mix.

The Twin Cities isn’t only a leader in bicycle use, however, but also a major innovator in bicycle design and technology. The seven inventions profiled below have, or will have, an impact on the local and global cycling industry. And the pace of innovation shows no sign of slowing down.

Bicycle maintenance 

Park Tool: Bike Repair Stands

Two generations ago, repairing a bike meant getting on your hands and knees. No more. In 1963, cycling-crazy St. Paulites Howard Hawkins and Art Engstrom invented the world’s first bicycle repair stand, Model PRS-1. Suddenly, accessing bike chains, spokes, gears and especially tubes was a snap. The duo formed a company, Park Tool, and began marketing their innovation to bike shops and riders around the Twin Cities and Upper Midwest. Schwinn Bicycle Company was an early customer.

PRS-1 was a simple design: The device’s clamps lock on to the seat tube and raise the bike off the floor, allowing arm-level access. “The original version actually held the bike upside down,” says Paul Schoening, Park Tool’s marketing director. The next version, PRS-2, flipped the bike right side up for the first time. Read more

Staff | CTfastrak

A vibrant community is a livable community. One that connects people to everything they need – jobs, housing, business opportunities and health care centers—making their lives better and easier. Beginning early 2015, central Connecticut will have exactly that. Introducing CTfastrak. CTfastrak is Connecticut’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, providing state-of-the-art transit service on a bus-only, traffic-free roadway. This valuable system will do so much more than reduce congestion along I-84. It will become an economic engine that will drive central Connecticut to a more vibrant community.

1. Reduced transportation costs

Between high prices for gas, insurance and downtown parking, everyday driving can get expensive. On CTfastrak, riders can avoid these costs. A trip will cost the same regular low fare as CTTRANSIT buses—currently $1.50 local fare and distance-based $2.70 to $5.15 express fare. CTfastrak will save money in other ways too. With fewer cars on the road, there will be fewer emissions and less wear and tear. Which means less money spent cleaning up air and highways, and more money spent where people need it most.

2. Expanded regional access

Using CTfastrak, passengers will travel between New Britain and Hartford in 20 minutes. Express buses from Bristol, Waterbury, Cheshire and Southington will use the bus-only roadway to get downtown faster, while circulator and connector routes allow passengers to get to and from destinations within nearby communities. Working together to create a fast-paced network that connects communities and provides a variety of people with easy access to jobs, dining, shopping, health care, education and entertainment throughout the region, including:

– Major downtown employers, like Aetna, Travelers and many others

– Central Connecticut State University

– UConn Health Center

– Westfarms Mall

– St. Francis and Hartford Hospitals

– Buckland Hills area

– Bushnell Park

– XL Center

3. State-of-the-art transit

CTfastrak is more than an innovative solution to a complicated traffic congestion problem. The system incorporates many state-of-the-art technologies designed to provide an efficient, convenient, user-friendly and eco-friendly transportation alternative. Read more

Lauren Hepler | Silicon Valley Business Journal\

On the outside, the SpinDx technology pioneered at Livermore’s Sandia National Laboratory looks like little more than a beige cube with a retro CD player on one end.

But the “lab-on-a-disk” tool developed with $4 million in federal funding has been hailed as a potential game changer in the detection of biological warfare agents, like anthrax, for its capability to manipulate and identify unknown substances.

Now, startups in the Tri-Valley area of the East Bay — a region immediately northeast of Silicon Valley, centered around the cities San Ramon, Danville, Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton — want to harness the technology’s healthcare potential to diagnose cancer or conduct in-home fertility testing.

The technology represents the crystallization of the type of public-private business development work that Tri-Valley officials and economic boosters want to use to foster a growing local tech industry.

In addition to research spun out of national research centers in the area like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, they cite the region’s highly-educated workforce, strong base of corporate tenants, an emerging startup scene and increasing economic ties to Silicon Valley as variables working in their favor.

Though the Tri-Valley’s billion-dollar research tenants offer a potential leg up, the business push also comes as outlying regions from Santa Cruz to the San Joaquin Valley up to Davis also look to strengthen ties to Silicon Valley. It all adds fuel to demographers’ predictions that Northern California will likely look like a 24 million-resident “Megaregion” in just a few decades. Read more