Reinventing the Urban Interstate: A New Paradigm for Multimodal Corridors (2011)

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10 Transportation agencies throughout the United States are faced with myriad challenges. People are stuck in traffic— consuming oil, polluting the air, and wasting time. Our transportation infrastructure is aging and inadequate under the weight of increasing travel demand. Our automobile- dominant transportation system becomes inefficient and ineffective during peak hours and emergencies—the times when it is most needed. Public transit is often too slow and limited in coverage to win over automobile users. Transit needs to be a truly competitive travel alternative, but building effective, high-capacity transit lines in developed, automobile- oriented urban areas is expensive and difficult. In response, many U.S. cities have built multimodal freeway corridors (hereafter referred to as multimodal corridors)— freeways and high-capacity transit lines (either fixed rail or bus rapid transit [BRT]) running parallel in proximity to each other. These corridors were developed to take advantage of existing right-of-way (ROW) and minimize land acquisition costs. Over time, multimodal corridor configurations have yielded mixed results. All things being equal, transit and freeways tend to flourish within their own, distinct land use and urban design environments. With a few notable exceptions high-capacity transit lines built in freeway corridors are generally designed with transit stations that optimize automobile access and circulation, often leaving transit, pedestrian, and bicycle access to stations as an afterthought. Although ROW costs may be lower for transit lines built in freeway corridors, it has proven difficult to attract transit riders to these automobile-dominated environments. Research Goals and Objectives The objectives of this research were to (1) evaluate the potential for rehabilitating and reconstructing portions of interstate freeways and other similar facilities in the urbanized areas in the United States as new paradigm multimodal transportation facilities and (2) develop strategies to plan and implement these facilities. These facilities might be better used by people, if the facilities offer passenger mobility by multiple modes and are better integrated into communities. A New Paradigm for Building and Operating Multimodal Corridors This report presents a new paradigm for planning, designing, building, and operating multimodal corridors. This new paradigm emphasizes building transit lines and supporting pedestrian and bicycle facilities in existing freeway corridors. New paradigm transit facilities are built with the following goals: • Enhancing corridor transportation capacity and perfor- mance without adding freeway capacity, by building and operating transit lines (including bus rapid transit, light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail) in existing freeway corridors • Building and operating successful transit systems in freeway corridors that attract high transit ridership levels and encour- age corridor livability and environmental sustainability • Transforming a corridor’s land uses and activities to a more transit-oriented pattern. Our Deteriorating Interstates— The Opportunity In 2006, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System cele- brated its 50th anniversary. This system, along with the increasing availability of automobiles, provided this country with the mobility it needed to fuel the post-World War II economic expansion. Today, its importance cannot be over- stated: it accounts for only 1 percent of U.S. highway miles but carries 24 percent of all highway traffic.1 Much of the urban C H A P T E R 1 Multimodal Corridors—An Overview 1AASHTO (2007) “Transportation Invest In Our Future: Future Needs Of The U.S. Surface Transportation System,” February, Available at: http://www. transportation1.org/tif1report/TIF1-1.pdf

11 landscape of the nation was shaped by the interstates as well, creating the double-edged sword of economic growth and low-density, suburban sprawling development. Now that the Interstate Highway System is exceeding its design life and with the limited availability of rights-of-way in congested urban corridors, we can coordinate freeway rehabil- itation and reconstruction with high-capacity public trans- portation investments, changing our travel patterns and the character of our urban areas in the process. These high-capacity multimodal transportation facilities could represent a new paradigm for corridor transportation planning. Rebuilding portions of our freeways2 as multimodal facilities could increase transit mode share, reduce automobile dependence, ensure long-term mobility, refashion portions of our suburban areas to be more transit-supportive, and reduce the environmental impacts of automobile travel. However, our understandings of how to select, redesign, and retrofit freeway corridors with transit systems that will generate sufficient ridership are in their infancy. The focus of this report is on identifying the key concepts that can guide the location of high-capacity transit facilities in or near freeway rights-of-way. Freeways and Transit— Inherent Conflicts and Potential Solutions The degree to which transit competes directly or works cooperatively with its freeway neighbor is the critical deter- minant of transit success in a multimodal corridor. Multimodal corridor transit and freeway systems often are built to compete directly with each other. When this happens, one mode can dominate, and the freeway typically attracts the most patrons. As a result, the surrounding land uses and activities will be shaped to serve the freeway, leaving transit underpatronized. In the past, the inherent conflicts between transit and free- ways were not addressed systematically. Multimodal config- urations have focused on maximizing the cost-effectiveness of transit investments by minimizing construction costs. The emphasis has been on alignment of the right-of-way, while the implications of coordinated access across modes have not played a large role in planning decisions. Future investments in multimodal corridors need to address these cross-modal conflicts directly and consistently. Although multimodal corridors with coordinated access will never compete with the best-performing transit-only corridors in terms of transit ridership or land use benefits, they may offer an important tool to address the diminishing returns of single-mode freeway corridors—a condition that describes most suburban travel corridors in the United States today. In this sense, coordinated, high-capacity, multimodal trans- portation systems would represent a new paradigm in corridor planning. Previous research has given us a solid understanding of the factors that lead to successful freeway facilities—factors such as geometric design, access ramp configurations, and surrounding land uses.3, 4 Similarly, the post-World War II struggles of the transit industry to stem the tide of losses in ridership have led to a wealth of research and professional experiences on what makes transit systems succeed or fail.5–15 This literature is explored and evaluated in Chapters 3 and 4 of this report. Unfortunately, past research gives little information about how to weave freeways, transit, pedestrians, and bicyclists together into truly multimodal corridor facilities. Frequently transit and freeway systems are built and operate separately and independently within the same physical corridor. There are benefits to be found not only from colocating transit and freeway facilities, but from the coordinated planning, design, and operation of these facilities and their surrounding built environments in a complementary fashion. This study focuses on developing a new understanding of and approach to planning and implementing multimodal corridor 2Out of necessity and based on direction from TRB, the scope of this investigation is limited to corridors with freeway facilities (as opposed to other highway types). 3AASHTO (2004) AASHTO Green Book: A Policy on Geometric Design of Freeways and Streets, 5th Edition. 4Skabardonis, A., et al. Low-Cost Improvements for Recurring Freeway Bottlenecks. NCHRP Project 03-83, anticipated publication in 2010. 5Cervero, R. (1998) The Transit Metropolis: A Global Inquiry. Washington, DC: Island Press. 6Vuchic, V. (2005) Urban Transit: Operation, Planning and Economics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 7Vuchic, V. (2007) Urban Transit: Systems and Technology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 8Deakin, E., et al. (2002) Policies and Practices for Cost-Effective Transit Investments: Recent Experiences in the United States. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1799 (−1): pp. 1–9. 9Cervero, R., et al. (2004) TCRP Report 102: Transit Oriented Development in the United States: Experiences, Challenges, and Prospects. 10Ewing, R., and Cervero, R. (2001) Transportation Research Record 1780: Travel and the Built Environment: A Synthesis. pp. 87–114. 11Pushkarev, B. & J. Zupan (1971) Public Transportation and Land Use Policy. Don Mills, Ontario: Indiana University Press. 12Moore, T., P. Throsnes, and B. Appleyard (2007) The Transportation/Land Use Connection, American Planning Association., Planning Advisory Service, Report 546 (Chicago; www.planning.org), 2007. 13TCRP Report 27: Building Transit Ridership (1997) Transportation Research Board, Washington DC. 14TCRP Report 28: Transit Markets of the Future (1998) Transportation Research Board, Washington DC. 15Levinson, H. (1973) “Modal Choice and Public Policy in Transportation,” Engineering Issues: Journal of Professional Activities, Vol. 99, No. 1, January, pp. 65–75.

12 projects. The remainder of this chapter defines the universe of multimodal facilities and corridors—both successful and less than successful—and in doing so, it identifies the parameters of the new paradigm definition. What Is a Multimodal Corridor? The basic components of a multimodal corridor are as follows: • Transportation facilities: Discrete physical facilities for freeways, public transit, pedestrians, and bicycles. • Multimodal transportation facilities: The combination of the above physical transportation facilities (multimodal facilities incorporate freeways, transit, pedestrian facilities, and bicycle facilities). The most prominent and often capital- intensive of these transportation facilities are those that provide line-haul service through the length of the corridor— the freeway and the high-capacity transit line. • Physical context: The characteristics of the land use, urban design (street and block characteristics), and social, economic, demographic, and other corridor context factors. • Institutional context: The institutional arrangements for physical design, freeway operations, other modal operations, and land development decisions along and near the corridor. This includes not only institutional arrangements for providing access to the corridor from the area served by the corridor but also the policies, regulations, and other trans- portation management actions that help determine corridor operations. How these components are combined characterize the corridor: • Corridor: The combination of multimodal facilities and the land uses surrounding them (corridor consisting of trans- portation facilities and the physical context—that is, the sur- rounding land uses and surface street network). • Multimodal corridor: The combination of multimodal facilities, land uses, and institutional arrangements to facilitate multimodal uses. For this report, multimodal corridors have combinations of transit and freeways with the following characteristics: – Parallel transit and freeway facilities: A corridor is considered multimodal if it contains a parallel freeway and a high capacity transit line (rail or bus rapid transit) separated by no more than a half-mile for the length of two or more stations on the transit line. Transit facilities can be built as an elevated, at-grade, underground, or otherwise below-grade facility with any of the following alignments in relation to the freeway:  In-median: transit line runs down the median of an existing freeway  Adjacent: transit line runs to the side of, and imme- diately adjacent to, the freeway  Offset: transit line runs parallel to, but up to a half-mile distant from, the freeway – High-capacity transit facilities: Heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, or bus rapid transit. – Transit built in available right-of-way (if possible): Transit line built in available right-of-way (in-freeway, freeway-adjacent, or separated from the freeway by up to a half-mile). Multimodal case study examples were investigated to deter- mine the common factors that lead to the success of each system element. Once identified, these factors were analyzed to identify how they work together so as to develop a new under- standing of how multimodal corridors and their facilities can be successfully planned, built, and operated—a new multimodal corridor paradigm. Why Build a Multimodal Corridor? Multimodal corridors can and should be built for several reasons. These reasons will be discussed and evaluated in the following chapters, but in brief, they are • Limited right-of-way availability: Sometimes, topo- graphic restraints such as hills or water crossings (such as in San Francisco) require facilities to be placed together; in other cases, the freeway right-of-way is superimposed on an existing rapid transit line that is to be retained (as in Chicago and Philadelphia). • Lower-cost right-of-way acquisition: Combined transit and freeway facilities simplify land acquisition, bringing economies of scale to right-of-way assembly and using available rights-of-way more efficiently. • Additional and redundant transportation capacity: This provides reserve capacity for long-term travel growth in the corridor, as well as redundant capacity to handle peak period (recurrent) and incident-related (nonrecurrent) congestion on all modes. • Fewer land “takings”: Given that a single right-of-way can be used for both transit and freeway facilities, there is poten- tially less need for “takings” to acquire right-of-way, fewer residential displacements, and less disruption of existing neighborhoods and communities. This can increase the political palatability of a transit project. • Reduced environmental and safety impacts: Combining transit and freeway facilities in the same alignment can effec- tively attenuate noise impacts and other externalities. Putting high-speed, and thus high-decibel, investments on similar

13 alignments keeps the noise impact zone (as well as the im- pact zone of fumes, vibration, visual intrusion, and head- light glare at night) within a more limited geographic area. Cost savings are also possible from building one set of sound walls and other environmental mitigations for both free- ways and high-speed transit versus two separate investments. Co-alignments can also reduce the safety hazards (and the costs of mitigating them) of electric third-rails for transit lines, which must be fenced off if transit runs in its own alignment. In a freeway co-alignment, the freeway is the barrier that prevents people and animals from straying onto a rail right-of-way. • Coordinated environmental review: By combining tran- sit and freeway facilities, the negative impacts of both facilities together—particularly when sharing the same right- of-way—can be analyzed together, yielding potential envi- ronmental review cost-savings. • Transit-oriented development potential: Adding a tran- sit line to a freeway corridor can help create a corridor of high accessibility that can channel development to a more compact, transit-oriented form while offering users a choice of travel modes. Although it is unlikely that multimodal corridors can consistently and evenly achieve transit-oriented urban form patterns seen in transit-only (non-freeway) corridors across the United States, a more modest (but still effective) level of density, land use diversity, and pedestrian- oriented design is possible, particularly around select stations that are insulated from the negative externalities of their freeway neighbor. • Increased nonautomobile mode share: Increased transit services in a freeway corridor can attract former automobile patrons to ride transit, thereby reducing fuel consumption, dependence on foreign oil, greenhouse gas emissions, and the air, noise, and water pollution associated with auto- mobile travel. Increased transit use can also encourage pedestrian and bicycle activities in station areas, further reducing the attractiveness of automobile use and creating pedestrian-friendly environments. The Old Paradigm for Multimodal Corridors The history of multimodal corridors is discussed in detail in Chapter 2. Analysis suggests that there is a paradigm that has been governing the theory and practice of multimodal corridor development and operations to date—a system of ideas and actions that we will refer to as the old paradigm. This old paradigm has governed the choices (largely in the United States) made for designing parallel transit and freeway facilities. The basic assumptions of the old paradigm are • Design for speed: few stations with long spacings between them make for faster transit travel times. This way, transit can compete head-to-head for the long-haul travel market in its corridor. • Minimize transit construction and operations costs: low-cost transit options are emphasized. • Build automobile-oriented station areas – Stations are close to freeway on- and off-ramps. – Generous park-and-ride lots surround suburban stations. • Build to serve a large central business district (CBD): Transit line should directly serve a large CBD, the larger the better. • Use transit as congestion relief: transit line mainly pro- vides supplementary capacity to the adjacent freeway—it is a reliever or overflow service. A New Paradigm for Multimodal Corridors— Segmented Travel Markets The new paradigm offers an optimized combination of theory, policies, practical applications, and planning processes that can help ensure the construction of a thriving, low-cost transit line operating in concert with its freeway corridor neighbor. The old paradigm was based on theoretical assump- tions that favored the transit line competing directly with its freeway neighbor for long-haul corridor trips and as a reliever service during peak congestion periods. In the new paradigm, however, the planning, design, and engineering efforts of multimodal corridors focus on providing distinct, separated, and optimized travel markets for each mode—transit line and freeway—while broadening the perspective of planners and politicians to use these facilities to fuel the development of transit-supportive land uses in the corridor. Market-segmentation between transit and freeway is achieved using the following guiding principles and techniques. Market-Segmented Transit and Freeway Designs (Multimodal Coordination) The concepts and benefits of multimodal coordination are described in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 4. In brief, station spacings and interchange spacings along each facility are designed to give each mode an advantage either in long-haul or short-haul corridor trips. By dividing the travel market within the corridor, the new paradigm offers each mode the opportunity to thrive and potentially increases the total carrying capacity of the corridor. Market-Segmented Urban Form Patterns Transit and freeway facilities thrive within, and encourage their own, distinct land uses. The new paradigm encourages the development of separated, distinct land use and urban design environments for each mode within the same corridor.

14 The planned orientation of urban form should be guided by the location of each mode’s access points—freeway interchange ramp touch-down locations and transit stations. Ideally, transit station areas should have high-density, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented land uses and urban design characteristics, with select station areas designated as freeway- and bus-to- transit intermodal station areas. Freeway interchange locations should have lower-density, separated uses with street designs conducive to smooth traffic operations and freeway access. Market-Specific Station Access Transit stations and stops should be designed to encourage desired modes of access that are conducive to the surround- ing land uses and designs of the corridor’s multimodal trans- portation facilities. Corridors that focus on providing freeway- competitive transit speeds should prioritize automobile and bus access to their stations with a generous supply of park- and-ride spaces around them, bus bays for quick bus-to-line- haul transit transfers, and “kiss-and-ride” areas near station entrances to allow smooth and quick drop-off and pick-up activities. Automobile-oriented stations should be placed near freeway interchange ramps to encourage freeway-to-transit transfers. Corridors that focus on maximizing transit line access to corridor land uses should encourage bicycle, pedestrian, and bus access to stations and discourage automobile access. Transit-oriented stations should be placed as far from free- way interchange ramps as possible to reduce automobile/ nonautomobile conflicts. Market Segmentation through Constrained Freeway Capacity Although sometimes controversial, some multimodal cor- ridors have developed divided travel markets by constraining the capacity of the freeway. Washington DC’s Orange Line/ I-66 corridor is a prime example of this, where the transit line is given a speed/travel time advantage by limiting the capacity of the freeway to between two and three lanes in each direction. The low ceiling on the carrying capacity of the freeway gives the transit line an operational advantage, particularly for long- haul corridor trips. Coordinated and Distinct Intermodal Operations The new paradigm incorporates two approaches to ensuring the maximum amount of interoperability among the transit line, the freeway facility, and feeder services such as bus lines, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities. These are the sparing use of intermodal connections and the use of key intelligent trans- portation systems (ITS) designed to enhance intermodal trans- fers and operations. Intermodal Connections Limited to Key Locations Intermodal transit stations—where park-and-ride lots, bus transfer facilities, nearby freeway interchange ramps, and cross-corridor pedestrian and bicycle route facilities encourage intermodal transfers—are a critical element of any multimodal corridor. However, since land requirements for intermodal transfer operations are often high, these stations tend to dis- courage transit-oriented development (TOD). As a result, the new paradigm encourages limited use of intermodal stations. These stations should be built at end-of-the-line (terminal) locations and key midline locations where existing bus lines, freeway facilities, and/or bicycle and pedestrian routes con- verge. In this way, a multimodal corridor should be divided into separated submarkets, with a few station areas dedicated to intermodal transfers and the rest dedicated to taking advantage of and/or encouraging transit-oriented urban form. Intermodal Intelligent Transportation Systems Information and communications technology systems offer a wealth of potential for improving and optimizing intermodal operations in a multimodal corridor. Intermodal transfers between freeway and transit can be facilitated and encouraged by employing real-time traveler information sys- tems that provide information on corridor traffic conditions (congestion and incidents), transit schedule and schedule adherence, comparative corridor travel times (freeway versus transit), and station and destination parking availability and costs. The New Paradigm as a Process Although this offers a new perspective on multimodal cor- ridor design and operations, it does not discard the old par- adigm methods. Rather, the new paradigm uses the old par- adigm’s approach as a potential first step in building a corridor where transit not only survives, but thrives. The new paradigm proposed here is based on the intersection of three multimodal corridor types, one of which includes the crucial elements of the old paradigm. The new paradigm multimodal corridor could take one of three basic forms: • Transit-Oriented Multimodal Corridors: an operating environment conducive to transit, bicycle, and pedestrian access to the transit facility • Park-and-Ride Access Multimodal Corridors: an operating environment conducive to automobile access to the transit facility (and the form most similar to the old paradigm)

15 • Transit Optimized/Freeway Constrained Multimodal Corridors: an environment where transit is given an oper- ational advantage over the freeway by constraining the capacity of the freeway Transit-Oriented Multimodal Corridors Transit-oriented multimodal corridors are designed to give (1) transit a performance advantage in serving short- and medium-length trips and (2) the freeway a performance advan- tage for serving long-haul corridor trips. This travel market segmentation is achieved through several means: • Transit-Oriented Complementary Multimodal Coordi- nation: Provide a high density of transit stations with close spacings (between 0.50 and 0.75 mile) and a low density of freeway interchanges with long spacings (more than 1 mile). This configuration encourages two performance outcomes: – High transit and low freeway accessibility to corridor land uses – High freeway automobile speeds and (relatively) slower transit speeds • Transit-Oriented Urban Form: encourage transit- supportive land uses and urban design qualities in the corridor, particularly near stations, while allowing automobile-oriented land uses and urban design qualities near freeway interchange ramps. – Station-area urban form: high residential and employ- ment densities in the corridor and a grid-type street network that encourages nonautomobile travel in sta- tion areas. Station area land uses are transit-oriented, with higher density, mixed-use, and pedestrian-friendly development. – Interchange area urban form: lower residential densities and employment land uses; high-capacity, high-speed street designs. • Transit-Oriented Station Access: Transit stations are designed to favor nonautomobile access. Trip origin stations are placed as far as possible from the freeway and its off-ramps to reduce the amount of automobile traffic in the station-area neighborhoods as well as the negative externalities of the freeway facility itself. Stations should be placed as far from freeway interchanges as possible to avoid automobile/nonautomobile conflicts and encourage non- automobile access to stations. • Corridor-Wide Jobs-Housing Balance: Ideally, travel flows through the corridor are relatively balanced, so the capacities of the freeway and transit line are maximized. Balanced travel flows can be achieved by a corridorwide jobs-housing balance, where no station or group of stations is only a destination (such as a CBD) or a residential trip generator. • Limited Intermodal Stations: With the possible exception of end-of-the-line or terminal stations, stations have few if any park-and-ride spaces, bus bays or other bus connection facilities that can disrupt pedestrian and bicycle access to stations. Park-and-Ride Access Multimodal Corridors Park-and-ride-access multimodal corridors are designed to provide high levels of automobile access within, and high transit speeds through, the corridor. This is achieved through several, mutually supporting design and operational elements: • Automobile-Oriented Complementary Multimodal Co- ordination: Transit provides a long-haul travel alternative to the freeway. The corridor is designed to have a low density of transit stations with long spacings (more than 0.75 mile) and a low density of freeway interchanges with long spacings (between 0.25 and 0.50 mile). This configuration encourages the following two performance outcomes: – Low transit and high freeway accessibility to corridor land uses – Low freeway automobile speeds and (relatively) high transit speeds • Automobile-Oriented Urban Form: Allow automobile- oriented land uses and urban design qualities in the corridor, particularly near interchanges and non-CBD stations, but put in place transit-oriented land use controls and plans that will enable the corridor to evolve into a more transit- friendly environment in the future. – Stationareaurban form: low residential and employment densities in most of the corridor, with the exception of a few destination station areas with high employment densities. The primarily low-density form is punctuated by high-density employment station areas (like those found in a CBD) where transit riders who accessed the transit line by car can walk to their destinations. Implement a hierarchical, high-capacity street network that encourages high-speed automobile travel throughout the corridor. – Interchange area urban form: low-density residential and employment land uses; high-capacity, high-speed street designs. • Automobile-Oriented Station Access: The transit line’s non-CBD stations are designed to favor automobile access. Trip origin stations are placed close to the freeway interchange ramps to facilitate quick, easy transfer from the freeway to the transit line; trip destination stations (such as those serving a CBD) are placed far away to promote pedestrian movements within employment centers. Origin stations have ample park-and-ride capacity and a high-capacity street network nearby to handle the peak-period demand at stations from park-and-riders and pick-up/drop-off activities.

16 • Corridor Serves Large Central Business District: Com- muter travel will be encouraged on the transit line by pro- viding direct service to a large CBD. Non-CBD corridor sta- tions will maximize automobile-access and will serve largely suburban, automobile-oriented residential areas. Transit-Optimized/Freeway-Constrained Multimodal Corridors A transit-optimized/freeway-constrained multimodal corridor is designed to give transit a performance advantage in the corridor by constraining the capacity and performance of the freeway. • Capacity-Constrained Freeway: These corridors con- strain the capacity of the freeway facility, giving transit a per- formance advantage over its freeway neighbor. • Hybrid Corridor Configuration: Ideally these corridors will combine the constrained freeway facility with either transit-oriented or park-and-ride access features to take full advantage of transit’s performance advantage. The loca- tion of the freeway capacity constraint (bottleneck) is often a transition point for the corridor, splitting it into two sections, one of which (typically the side leading into a downtown/CBD) is transit-oriented while the other section (“upstream” from the bottleneck) provides park-and-ride access. Conclusions: The Evolution of Multimodal Corridors Over Time Transit thrives (in terms of ridership) when it operates in a pedestrian-oriented, high-density, mixed-use environment. It would be best for transit to build all multimodal facilities in corridors with transit-oriented urban form characteristics, but most freeway corridors in the United States—where the lion’s share of multimodal corridor opportunity sites exist— have decidedly automobile-oriented land uses and urban design qualities. Therefore, the new paradigm offers several paths to develop multimodal corridors. First, a transit-oriented corridor can be built where the transit line is given the design, operating characteristics, and surrounding land use patterns that will effectively carve out a near-exclusive corridor travel market. The second path involves a two-step process of multimodal corridor planning, design, and construction. In the first step, transit facilities are designed and built in freeway corridors with performance characteristics that enable them to compete with the freeway facility on a travel time basis. If done well, this park-and-ride access model aims to design the transit line to attract sufficient riders, encourage transit-oriented design (TOD) around its stations, and encourage the evolution of its surrounding corridor toward a more transit-oriented urban form. The second step is to build infill stations (where economi- cally and operationally feasible) that provide greater coverage and accessibility for the transit riders to corridor land uses and activities, which can further encourage the corridor to develop additional TOD. Over time, the new paradigm process can lead to the conversion from a purely automobile-oriented, freeway-dominated corridor to a park-and-ride access multi- modal corridor to a transit-oriented corridor. Therefore, our conception of the new paradigm does not discriminate against corridors with automobile-oriented urban form, but sees them as opportunities to build cost-effective, park-and-ride access transit lines that can be slowly transformed into transit-oriented corridors, if and when real estate market and political conditions support it.