Rail Analysis India June Digital Magazine 2018 | Page 30

32 | Exclusive Interview
Exclusive Interview | 31
A transport service is meant to cater to travel demand
generated by urban development. But on the other hand,
urban development cannot start on its own without proper
transport system. For new developments, a Transit is a must
that may call for Transit Oriented Development (TOD).But in
existing areas for old developments, Transit comes in mind
only when there is enough travel demand to justify its need.
So in this case transit comes in existing development.It is
to necessitate to develop transit development where travel
demand warrants for a transit service, it is called Development
Oriented Transit (DOT).This practice must be adopted for
cities such as Delhi and Mumbai in India.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH AR. PRIYANKA KUMAR
& DR. P K SARKAR
Image Credit : pixels
Dr. P K Sarkar
Former Head of
Department of
Transport Plannning,
School of planning and
Architecture, New Delhi
Ar. Priyanka
Kumar
Urban Planner,
Regional Centre for Urban
& Environmental Studies,
Lucknow
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Please brief us more about the difference in Transit
Oriented Development (TOD) & Development Oriented
transit (DOT)? What drives this change and How Indian
transport will gain from it?
Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is a nodal development
which focuses more around Metro / BRTS Station where
as Development Oriented Transit (DOT) is an area based
approach which may include road, rail, and metro / BRTS
depending upon the existing development pattern/form.
Transit Oriented Development means developing the transit
first which means TOD to be appropriate for Greenfields areas
or newly develop areas where as Development Oriented
Transit means the development to take place first. It means
this shall be appropriate for existing areas such as Brownfield
areas, areas with very high density, very old areas etc. Both
Transit Oriented Development and Development Oriented
Transit focus on creating vibrant, livable, and sustainable
communities. The communities living in mixed land use
which should influence to Pedestrian and Non-Motorized
Development. But Development Oriented Transit shall more
focus on sustainable mobility, use of public transport, non-
motorized transport incorporated in existing developed
patterns. Transportation and Urban Development both follow
each other as like the chicken and egg story as same TOD
and DOT shall follow each other.
What is the major difference between Transit Oriented
Development (TOD) and Development Oriented transit
(DOT) concepts? Please share some examples?
Transit decides the spatial structure of the urban area in
Transit Oriented Development whereas spatial structure of
the urban area decides the mode of Transit in case of DOT.
Although it’s an old practice but need for policy development
to be formulated for current scenario.
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon.The
Portland Streetcar is great example of DOT initiated by the
city of Portland to connect two major redevelopment areas.
Around 70 acres of abandoned rail yards and neglected
brownfield site just north of Downtown (the river District) with
another 128 acres of largely underused or vacant industrial
land requiring environmental up gradation at the opposite end
of downtown (the south waterfront).
How are other countries successfully adopting DOT and
what do they manage to achieve from it?
The experience of Portland explains the value of DOT model.
As it is very clear that residential, employment and mixed
use development responds to transit investment, it has
become even more apparent that the alignment of transit
for best investments are intentionally located, designed and
operated to better facilitate property owner and development
authorities. E. D. Hovee & Company, LLC stated “In effect,
this public-private feedback loop shifts the emphasis from
transit as the sole driver to a development-first paradigm -
as the most opportune mechanism to maximize public and
private return on investment”
Jackson and Levitt presented a contrasting example of
development that allows transit expansion in the U.S. in the
form of impressive “Development-Oriented Transit” model.
The strategic error of conventional TOD is that the business
model often completely neglects the importance of creating a
built-in, long-term customer base for the taxpayers’ massive
capital investment. Instead, project sponsors often cave to
the pressure of a small minority of vocal individuals, rather
than looking out for the good of the transit ballot community
and the economy at large. The result of this surprisingly short-
term focus for such massive, long-term public investments is
an unrecoverable, lost economic opportunity. Communities
spending billions of dollars in new rail investments are left with
few ways to finance the non-transit infrastructure required to
make the necessary new density at transit nodes livable
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