Introduction

Key Principles

Why Transit Streets Matter

Designing to Move People

Reliability Matters

Service Context

Transit Route Types

Transit Frequency & Volume

Transit is returning to its central place in the life of cities. With more people using buses, streetcars, and light rail than ever before, our street design paradigm is shifting to give transit the space it deserves. People are choosing to live, work, and play in walkable neighborhoods, and cities are prioritizing highly productive modes like transit as the key to efficient, sustainable mobility for growing urban populations. Transit agencies and street departments are working together to create streets that not only keep buses and streetcars moving, but are great places to be. Cities are extending light rail systems, investing in streetcar lines, and creating new rapid bus lines at a stunning pace, with ridership growing even faster in city centers. Transit agencies are rethinking their networks to serve neighborhoods at a high level all day, not just at commute times, while bike share and active transportation networks make it even easier to not only reduce driving, but to avoid the expense of owning a car.

At the heart of these changes is the need for cities to grow without slowing down. Transit is a key that unlocks street space, bringing new opportunities to create streets that can move tremendous numbers of people and be enjoyed as public spaces at the same time.

Cities around the country and around the world are finding new ways to create these places. To codify and advance best practices in transit design, the National Association of City Transportation Officials has brought together practitioners and leaders from the transit and street sectors to develop the Transit Street Design Guide. This new framework for designing transit corridors as public spaces will help cities and their residents work together to create the streets that are the foundation of a vibrant urban future.

Key Principles

BETTER STREETS, BETTER SERVICE

Making transit work in cities means raising the level of design across the entire street network. Cities can take the lead on transit, creating dedicated lanes and transitways, designing comfortable stops and stations, and coordinating action with transit agencies on intersections and signals.

Transit-first street design also means treating walking as the foundation of the transportation system. Ultimately, the efficiency of transit creates room for public space, biking and walking networks, and green infrastructure — allowing cities to remake their streets as safer, more sustainable public spaces.

TRANSIT CREATES URBAN PLACES

Cities and transit are deeply linked. In vibrant, bustling cities, people are on the move, and transit plays an indispensable role in keeping them moving. Walkable urban places have a critical mass of people and activities that support and rely on transit to connect them to other places. Cities can strengthen this synergy by creating transit streets: places that move people.

With the majority of US residents preferring walkable, bikeable urban environments, the value of better transit accrues not only to existing transit passengers and newly attracted ones, but to people who will decide where to live and start businesses — in which neighborhood, city, or region — based on the availability of transit-served walkable neighborhoods. These location decisions affect the competitiveness of the entire metropolitan area and justify transit- first policies in street design and investment.

A MOBILITY SERVICE FOR THE WHOLE CITY

Making it possible to quickly and reliably go anywhere by transit is a way for cities to significantly improve quality of life. A transit system designed as a mobility service focuses on its value to the rider, providing prompt, seamless, and safe connections to where people want and need to go. A public transit-based mobility system, open to people of all ages and abilities, is fundamentally more equitable than one based primarily on private vehicles.

A crucial complement to the transit network is a suite of flexible, convenient, and affordable mobility choices — walking, bicycling, shared mobility, and on-demand rides — that, together with fixed-route transit, allow residents to avoid the costs of car ownership and make proactive decisions about each trip they take.

GROWTH WITHOUT CONGESTION

Transit streets allow growth in economic activity and developmental density without growth in traffic congestion by serving more people in less space. Transit is most productive for a city and most effective for riders when a large number of people want to travel along one street, but these types of streets are inherently prone to automobile congestion, with unreliable travel times when the most people need to travel.

Streets designed for rapid transit reverse this equation, making transit trips fastest on streets with high travel demand, where frequency is greatest. A public transit-based mobility system benefits everyone in a city, whether or not they choose to ride transit, as people using transit and private vehicles alike can access more destinations in the same amount of time after transit has been improved and density increased.

SAFE MOVEMENT AT A LARGE SCALE

With transit's order-of-magnitude safety advantage over private automobiles, promoting transit is integral to policies that seek sustained improvements in pedestrian, bicyclist, and vehicle occupant safety. Transit mode share and transit-supportive infrastructure are directly correlated to lower traffic fatality rates.

Improving transit does not mean creating speedways, since higher top speeds have little benefit for transit on city streets. Transit streets designed with people in mind are safe places to walk and bike, and transit improvements go hand in hand with better pedestrian access, safer crossings, and more enjoyable public space.

PERMANENT ECONOMIC BENEFITS

Transit streets save both time and money, making frequent service into a financially sustainable proposition and setting off a virtuous cycle of more riders, more service, and more street space for people. Beyond the well-documented local economic benefits of transit-friendly street design, savings are accrued by transit agencies, which can provide mobility to more people at a lower cost, as well as to passengers who can access more destinations faster. And since transit supports higher-value, more compact development, it is a more fiscally sustainable investment than highway infrastructure. These savings are good for businesses and residents along a transit corridor and far beyond.

Why Transit Streets Matter

High-quality transit allows a city to grow without slowing down. When prioritized, transit has the potential to stem the growth of vehicle congestion, provide environmentally...