Designing Squares with Climate An Assessment of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) projects, United States

Transit-Oriented Development is a planning pattern based on a transit station that includes high density and mixed-use environments that favor cycle and pedestrian pathways. The Transit-Oriented Development primary goal is to mitigate climate change by reducing private mobility and increasing public transports. This thesis’ purpose is to discover whether and how the new public squares created within the Transit-Oriented Development, provide mitigation and adaptation measures to face climate change. The thesis starts arguing the negative and unsustainable sprawl pattern that characterizes the United States suburbs and the related car-dependency, making the automobile usage one of the principal contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. It is within this context that the Transit-Oriented Development pattern represents a sustainable and alternative development to sprawl. The square created in front of the stations becomes the center of the development, which considers pedestrians in the first place. In the case studies analyzed, different climate needs and impacts emerge according to the Transit-Oriented Development geographical location. Although mitigation measures are sufficiently provided in each case study, allowing walkable pathways that link the public square and the station with the surrounding neighborhood, adaptation measures only partially take place, making the Transit-Oriented Development’s public squares more inclined to create pedestrian-friendly environments, rather than climate adaptable. The research leads to understanding the gap between these two climate measures through identifying differences of scales, besides the objectives. In fact, having the TOD pattern a regional approach is oriented to achieve mitigation measures, rather than adaptation, which require a more detailed Urban Design process to be completely flexible according to the different climate change impacts.