Episode 72: Leveraging TOD at BART

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) transit-oriented development (TOD) program works to develop property on BART-owned land across the Bay Area. More than 2,200 units are in development at stations on the Richmond Line and a 26-story building with more than 800 units recently opened at MacArthur Station.

On this episode of the Mpact Podcast, Abby Thorne-Lyman goes into detail about what it takes to leverage property to create housing near transit. She describes the stages of development and the many partners and sources of funding involved. It’s an especially complicated mix when building affordable housing and dealing with all kinds of issues related to transit service, from replacing parking to building bus intermodal facilities to adding bike lanes and street improvements. BART recently received state funding to create a revolving loan fund to address pre-development costs, which can be difficult to finance especially for smaller, community-based or BIPOC-led developers. By collaborating closely with cities and other partners, BART has shrunk the time to construction to 3-5 years, with goals to trim it even more.

The top goals of the TOD program, Thorne-Lyman says, are ridership, affordable housing and equity. Find out how BART’s TOD guidelines have been instrumental to progress – and what adjustments have been needed, especially as the agency works to recover ridership amidst a looming fiscal crisis.

Photo in podcast graphic of TOD at MacArthur Station, seen from station platform. Credit: BART

Detail from BART Development Parcel Viewer. Credit: BART