The Bay Area should make the land within walking distance of existing rail transit stops its new frontier for thoughtful, purposeful, humancentered development.

The needed changes in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are part of the drive for sustainability and modernization that is imperative for old and new cities around the world in an urbanizing, and decarbonizing, age. Many design solutions will be proposed.

Here is one, sketched out to start the ball rolling in our region. Beyond sustainability, which is central, it has two goals: -- lowering the cost of housing/transportation, and -- working against our ongoing separation into “two Californias,” one rich and one poor.

With an entrance to an underground rail station at its center, and holding 10,000 people within a radius of 2,000 feet, this transit village or “Center” is formed by a mixture of high-rise and mid-rise buildings and townhouses.

These create pedestrian walkways laid out in a Copenhagen, or “fingers of the hand” radial pattern. Optimally, parking and vehicle movement are underground. What is interesting is how much green space, for every imaginable purpose, can be kept through the use of multiunit buildings.

A new building design, stressing high quality, spacious apartments for minimized cost, is called for.

Observations: 1. Downtown is fully mixed-use--this will teem with activity--stores, civic offices, cinemas, cafes and restaurants, schools, performance spaces, commerce, R&D work, and clean industry. Bicycles! 2. All construction should be state of the art energy minimizing and conserving. 3. Normal reservation for low incomes--say 20%. 4. It is true a Center is capital intensive. Costs are front-loaded, compared to sprawl. Mitigate that by initial rent-to-own. A family comes in as tenants, in a generation, becomes owners. 5. The handling of cars is a design problem area. Full undergrounding, requiring massive excavation, is clearly unrealistic. Striking a balance on cars/parking, in a long-term picture of declining car use, is a major issue.

Given BA’s extensive existing rail system, WTOD is a genuine answer to Silicon Valley’s problems of unsustainability (GHG emissions), of scarce and expensive housing, and transportation congestion and expense. All societies are conservative, and prefer gradual change and incremental investment. Therefore, it is easy in a complicated process to slide toward partial solutions. But to harvest the benefits of WTOD, we have to be clear on the concepts and goals. Proposals for “half a loaf” will certainly arise. They need close scrutiny. Shortfalls to avoid: Housing and jobs placed closer to transit than now, but not close enough to walk easily: PBAs, and perhaps San Jose’s Urban Villages, are vulnerable to this form of weakening. Small settlement size: Can’t house existing residents, or support services. Hayward Park? Serving only a segmental population, for example, the wealthy, the poor, or seniors. Poor construction: e.g. gives acoustic porosity, other reductions in quality of life and tone. Upward cost creep: Engineering vigilance for on costs can’t be relaxed. Pushing forward with less than full cooperation of local city: Full “ownership” is needed from several elements--city, developer, region, transit authority. May take long process.

Post Script at Regional Level:

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission should be ready to spend major transportation funds on Walking TOD land uses. This is legitimate because it builds transit users, who in turn nourish transit systems. The Bay Area Region should do a Walking TOD “Center” on a pilot basis-as intense and as experimental as possible. Such an early Center earns its subsidy by testing concepts and techniques.