With tran­sit rid­er­ship down 79% in 2020 and a nation­wide bud­get short­fall of close to $40 bil­lion, writes Nate Berg for Fast Com­pa­ny, strug­gling pub­lic tran­sit agen­cies are look­ing to revive their rev­enue through oth­er means. Because many of them own land near their tran­sit lines, some agen­cies are look­ing to the devel­op­ment of tran­sit-agency-owned land as a poten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue source.

Until recent­ly, most tran­sit agen­cies used their land for sur­face park­ing, hop­ing ample park­ing near tran­sit sta­tions would draw more rid­ers. But Jessie O’Mal­ley Solis, tran­sit-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment man­ag­er for the San­ta Clara Val­ley Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty, says that in their area, it did­n’t work that way. “Just build­ing seas of park­ing was­n’t going to gen­er­ate rid­er­ship. You need­ed to gen­er­ate con­nec­tiv­i­ty along the sys­tem to make it valu­able for rid­ers.” Now, as res­i­dents in Sil­i­con Val­ley strug­gle to find hous­ing in one of the coun­try’s least afford­able mar­kets, VTA is mak­ing plans to turn some of its land into “new tran­sit-adja­cent com­mu­ni­ty hubs” and hopes its own devel­op­ment will have a rip­ple effect that encour­ages more pri­vate devel­op­ment near sta­tion areas. “O’Mal­ley Solis says the devel­op­ment is always geared toward improv­ing rid­er­ship and mak­ing more tran­sit-ori­ent­ed communities—whether it’s on land the agency owns or not.”

While tran­sit-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment isn’t a sil­ver bul­let for increased rid­er­ship, “when done well, these projects can make an impact” on com­muter mode share as well as increase the avail­abil­i­ty of afford­able hous­ing and the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of tran­sit agency bud­gets.