The TOD standard in sustainable cities.
The complexity of urban planning is such that it is leading to re-planning the way of understanding cities, their architecture, habitat, and traffic, towards a better understanding and balance between the user and their environment.
The Standard TOD (Transit Oriented Development) is a tool that helps to assess the form and urban development. It addresses growth that maximizes the benefits of public transportation, while strongly emphasizing its users, the people. This form of design translated into Spanish is called "Transportation Oriented Development" (DOT)
The DOT standard describes eight basic principles of urban design and land use, each supported by specific performance objectives and easily measurable indicators, or metrics. Together, they promote safe, balanced and vibrant neighborhoods around the stations; short, well-connected networks for pedestrians and cyclists; densities that ensure local services and public transport; minimal car traffic and parking interference. THE Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) is a response to unsustainable urban sprawl, to the dependent on the automobile, to the deficient, decadent and poor traffic that has characterized the growth of cities throughout the world in the last century.
What are the main uses of the DOT standard in a city?
- Evaluate the orientation to public transport of urban development projects built,
- Evaluate projects in the phases of planning and design to identify gaps and areas of opportunity,
- Guide policy and regulations relevant to urban planning, transportation, land use, urban design, and parking.
What are the eight basic principles of DOT urban design?
- Walk. Develop neighborhoods that promote walking
- Pedal. Prioritize non-motorized transport networks
- Connect. Create dense street networks
- Transport. Locate the development near high-quality public transportation.
- Mix. Plan for mixed land uses.
- Densify. Optimize the density and capacity of public transport.
- Compact Create compact regions with short trips.
- Change. Increase mobility by regulating the use of parking and streets.
The Standard identifies a small number of performance targets for each principle and some measurement indicators for each "Target" based on ease of measurement and the closest possible approximation to performance on targets. In order to see the objectives in better detail, we present the following image in which the eight are developed basic principles of the DOT city. (By clicking on the image it is enlarged in a new window)
The DOT methodology can be used both for project selection criteria (Specifying: A plan or design may use the DOT Standard for evaluation purposes, but is not eligible for recognition until it is built) and for the evaluation of an area. All the aforementioned can be identified in a manual, which breaks down each section with a numerical identification that will determine the quality of the project or area, as well as the weak or strong points that we can find.
Handbook Transportation Oriented Development in the DOT city … HERE.
Note: Images and part of the information of the article stolen from the previously reviewed report whose origin comes from the portal www.itdp.org
On this subject, one of the greatest experts on the behavior of cities is the study Gehl Architects (It deserves to take a tour of its portal) and we already talked about it in the articleHow can we learn from cities? The studio has made a film - not yet released in Spain, or so I think - that will be worthy of viewing in order to understand the behavior of cities calledA Escala Humana (The Human Scale).
Links of interest:
- Living architecture (From poor to rich)
- The sustainable projects of 2014 (How is it capable of winning the architecture show)
- Biosustainable architecture guides (22 guides to learn)
- Urban bioclimatic design
- 30 Guides for Urban Designs
- Recover public space (Urbanize with intelligence)
- Cities and their planning before saving
