Regional TOD Policy for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
San Francisco Bay Area, California July 2004 to June 2005
The Center for Transit-Oriented Development, including Strategic Economics, worked with the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission (MTC) to develop TOD policies requiring local governments to provide
transit-supportive land uses along future transit corridors where MTC’s Resolution 3434 funds will be used.
Imposing such land use requirements is highly controversial because local governments resist allowing regional
agencies to determine land use decisions. However, such policies are also necessary to ensure that the transit
investment made by MTC leverages maximum transit ridership. In order to respond to local concerns and ensure
that the land-use thresholds meet a basic standard of reasonableness, Strategic Economics further refined its
TOD residential demand estimates from “Hidden in Plain Sight for the Bay Area.” The resulting demand numbers
were then compared to ABAG’s Projections ’03 and Smart Growth projections to better understand what TOD
housing threshold requirements would be appropriate for each county in the region.