The intent of LEED-ND’s Location and Transportation Credit “Access to Quality Transit” (I will call it "AQT" for short - this is formerly SLL Credit 3: “Reduced Automobile Dependence”) is to “encourage development in locations shown to have multi-modal transportation choices or otherwise reduced motor vehicle use”. This seems a clear directive, but based on commonly understood transit route planning priorities for effective service, the methodology of the credit is at odds with this intent.

This credit will award LEED-ND developments for locating at least half of their dwelling units and nonresidential building entrances within a quarter mile walk distance to existing local transit stops or a half mile distance to rapid transit or commuter service stations (effectively). It is noteworthy to notice, first of all, that while the walking distances, or “pedsheds”, are in line with commonly held transit planning standards established to help effectively space stops for these route types in urban areas, the stop spacing itself is not a concern of the credit. Many transit planners will find the omission surprising.

What ultimately awards the project points are not the actual number of dwellings and building entrances within walking reach of the stops, but the percentage of them as a proportion of the total provided by the development. Shouldn’t awarding projects for putting adequate density of dwellings and uses in existing coverage areas be rewarded straightforwardly to meet the intent of the credit? Note that projects with extensive areas outside of the walking distances will therefore be incentivized to lower density in those areas. The past provision to lower the qualifying overall coverage percentage for large projects has also been removed and is now rigidly set at 50% of the total. The actual numbers of dwellings and uses placed within the coverage area is therefore not as important as the coverage percentage, a somewhat dubious priority in meeting the intent of the credit.

What determines the amount of points earned for AQT is the total number of daily trips serving each of the stops. While this can reward the proficiency of the service in terms of its frequency and/or span, these daily trips are summed in aggregate for all the stops. It does not matter at all if all or some of the stops are serving the same route. Thus, the more stops in or near the development, the more the number of “daily trips” you amass, regardless the number of actual distinct transit trips serving the development. In effect, what is predominantly being rewarded here is not frequency and span but coverage.

Of course, I do believe the number of distinct daily trips serving the development is appropriate to enter into the point value calculation, but this should be measured in terms of actual numbers of daily transit trips serving the development, thus rewarding a transit line’s frequency (short headways) and/or span (service duration, another critical aspect of transit’s usefulness).

While the points can only be awarded in AQT for the stops of existing service lines, apparently, there is nothing to prevent a project team from seeking to divert existing routes and/or adding more stops to them than necessary. My talks with technical experts in this forum make all too evident the coverage fixated priorities in the thinking behind AQT. The credit requirement to locate near existing service in the first place, for instance, has surprisingly little to do with the need prevent a project team from plotting to introduce ad hoc and poorly planned service lines designed to just benefit the development. According to Eliot Allen’s findings, the LEED-ND Core Committee primarily wanted to ensure that habitual use of transit formed immediately from the outset of occupation (apparently it is a worry that people will not otherwise discover en masse the benefit of transit when it comes to them).

In effect, AQT does not appropriately value the diverse goals that are important to transit’s usefulness and that are actually all-important in changing the habitual transport choices of the occupants of the LEED-ND development. Ultimately, the mobility of all the users of the routes passing through the development (not just the mobility of the LEED-ND development’s transit users) is at stake here, threatening the healthy operation of a high quality urban transit network. The latter in particular is what is needed more than anything to support habitual use of transit.

In short, AQT’s fixation is all in the coverage of the service, not the effective service and the effective density of population and uses within walking distance. Sadly, the system still does not reward transit service effectiveness apart from coverage and amenities. This focus on the amenity of transit (versus a respect placed on the purposes of transit service) betrays an often unnoticed preoccupation among urban designers and architects that detracts from efforts to plan the high quality transit services needed to actually replace auto trips. Such things that a development could help implement, such as signal prioritization, Kiss and Ride or bikeshare stations near transit stops, dedicated lanes, and convenient connections are very important to transit utilization.

Instead, think of the actual incentives presented to the project team. To achieve LEED-ND credit for AQT, the more stops they manage to include the better also their prospects will be to reach at least 50% of the project’s dwelling units and building entrances within the stated walk distances. It’s all or nothing to get to that 50% qualifying threshold, however, before the project can rack up points. If it means adding a stop or tweaking a line to do so, the development team is going to strategize for a way to do that, especially as they plan or rework the street grid. The potential for diluting an infrequent service by expanding its coverage area throughout the development is nearly inevitable. Routes like that would erode the overall quality of the transit service and thus dis-incentivize auto use reduction in the end not just among the development’s potential ridership base but for the existing users of the entire transit line or greater transit system! Unfortunately, those are exactly the kind of routes that can get LEED-ND developments lots of points.

What this means is that only an alert transit agency can prevent a LEED-ND project from mucking with existing transit service! While I would hope transit agencies are competent enough to prevent project teams from doing so, my experience suggests that some agencies are either far too accommodating to development teams or don’t value transit network effectiveness as much as they should. Granted, depending on the areas served, some agencies will want to reward coverage goals as much as LEED-ND does, and in those cases this credit may be a benefit to them (even though in all cases the agency should value effective stop spacing – as I mentioned above, this is not necessarily an incentive presented by AQT). But in other cases, if not the majority of cases, agencies will have the integrity of the transit network and other service goals in mind that will require them to prevent coverage expansion. As a matter of fairness, the project located in such locations should truly be rewarded for putting adequate development density within walking reach of existing transit. That development should under no circumstance be penalized for the percentage of its development that is developed in locations outside the walking distance coverage area.

My recommendations for improving the credit are as follows:

(1) Remove or greatly lower the 50% percent minimum dwelling unit / building entrance walking distance coverage requirement. This threshold is, in truth, meaningless at such a high percentage. For the purposes of satisfying the intent of AQT, NPD Prerequisite 2, Compact Development, will ensure adequate density near all existing stops. Removing the 50% coverage threshold (or lowering it to no greater than 20%) will largely remove the great incentives presented to project teams to muck with existing service lines. If the goal is increasing the density in the coverage area beyond NPD Prerequisite 2, then increase the minimum density totals required or enter density levels into the point calculation methodology used in AQT.

(2) Do not allow the summation of daily transit trips to be summed in aggregate for all the stops but reward the total number of distinct daily trips serving the development, thus rewarding number, frequency and span of routes directly and thereby not disproportionately rewarding coverage.

As an alternate strategy to no. 1 above, keep the 50% coverage requirement but require project teams to provide documentation from the local transit agency that states that the routes are not only conforming to but improving that agency’s service goals for the routes serving the development. Here you will be better ensuring that LEED-ND rewards transportation planning strategies and plan layouts that actually improve transit route performance. As well, consider allowing project teams to expand the coverage area beyond the walking distances by adding amenities near stops that address the “last mile problem” such as adequate secure bike parking facilities, vehicle share or Kiss-and-Ride parking, and bikeshare stations. Since these amenities actually augment the ridership base of transit service without impacting the performance of the existing service itself, allow project teams to consider these coverage augmentation strategies in lieu of the 50% coverage requirement. For example, if 50% of dwelling units and building entrances are within a one mile bikeable distance of a stop with bike lockers and a bikeshare station, then the coverage area calculation of that stop is allowed to include the dwellings and/or building entrances in the bikeable distance area.