Recent court cases and news reports have focused on the effects of transit construction on business revenue and survival, yet the topic is underexplored in the scholarly literature. This paper examines whether transit construction negatively affected the revenue and survival of businesses along the second segment of the Los Angeles Metro Rail Red Line under Vermont and Hollywood Boulevards. Using National Establishment Time-Series business data, the research shows that business survival was significantly lower among businesses within 400 meters of stations, where cut and cover construction was used. A difference-in-differences technique was employed to determine whether revenue loss was the main mechanism by which businesses were displaced, but revenue loss was not found to be significant. The increased failure rate provides evidence that construction effects of mitigation programs for businesses should be standard practice when building new transit lines. Further research and data collection on business tenure are needed to understand the dynamics of business displacement around transit and to make such programs more effective.

This article describes a typology for formal governance structures of public transit in the United States to support inquiry into how organizational structures influence policy making processes, organizational capacity and policy outcomes. Scholarship of public transit has largely explored outcome-based research while paying less attention to how decisions are made. Despite some transport scholarship that shows how institutional characteristics influence financing, power arrangements and public discourse, there has been little recent analysis of governance within public transit systems beyond the regional role of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Using data from multiple sources, we assembled a database of governance structure of transit systems in the largest 40 cities in the United States. We show that the structure of transit decision making has substantial variance across and within cities, and is far from limited to MPOs. The variety of governance models and growth of local and sub-local models suggest that local context is critical for better understanding transit priorities and decision-making processes.

Transportation planning has become increasingly interested in the institutional changes needed to implement sustainable transportation measures. This research looks at six U.S. metropolitan areas that are implementing or have recently implemented transit priority projects—Seattle, Portland, Denver, Chicago, New York, and Boston—using interviews with local planners, media accounts, and analyses of project documents. It explores what policy statements and arguments were used to support transit priority, the leadership needed to support implementation, innovative funding arrangements, and the institutional changes within agencies that led to a virtuous cycle of transit improvement. The research found that cities that talked about their transit priority as a way to accommodate growth without cars or to manage street space efficiently were more effective than those who put forth transit priority, and particularly bus rapid transit, as a cheap solution to improve transit. It also found that leadership within city transportation agencies was more important than elected official champions, and that transit agencies can use the promise of increased frequency to leverage city funding for street improvements. Lastly, it found that city streets agencies that are serious about prioritizing transit develop transit planning programs, staffing capabilities, and set regular meetings with transit agencies that they view as partners in improving transit.

Over the last twenty years, the greater Paris metropolitan region has seen a decline in vehicle trips per capita, and has invested in alternative modes. Understanding this transition requires looking beyond the formal planning process to the deliberative systems surrounding transportation in the city. Tim Marshall argues that those interested in participation, and even more so in the prospect of deliberation, should look to France and should broaden our vision beyond formal participation to the deliberative system. We take up Marshall’s call for deliberative systems research with a comparative analysis of two public deliberations around subway network extension and bus transit improvement, and use Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of participation as a set of evaluation criteria. Both involve engagement at multiple scales, and are embedded in ongoing deliberations that stretch beyond their formal consultation periods. We explore whether such deliberation led to a consensual, sustainable territorial project. We find that while the system as a whole ranks on the lower rungs of Arnstein’s ladder and does not reach its aspirational vision of inclusive community participation, moments where coalitions formed to shape the problem-solution nexus moved up the ladder from consultation to partnership, making the Paris system a good model to strengthen and replicate elsewhere.

Planners, academics, and policy-makers recognize the importance of transit-oriented development (TOD) in building resilient and sustainable cities, though implementation has not always lived up to expectations. TOD is an example of a network governance problem as actors from multiple organizations (developers, lenders, and multiple government agencies at different scales), each with their own goals, must come together for an extended time to manage risk and implement a single solution. Less well-studied is the importance of spatial data and state-level coordination to this task, both in identifying sites and in developing policies at the state or regional level to encourage and prioritize TOD in certain areas. This study uses a 1+n case study model, focusing on a primary case (Connecticut's TOD efforts) but using the experience of other states (MassGIS and the New Jersey Transit Villages program) to inform the primary case. Working from interviews with Connecticut stakeholders and participant observation in TOD policy development, the study explores the coordination and governance challenges surrounding state intervention as well as the role that Connecticut's weak state geospatial data play in the efforts to develop TOD projects. Connecticut was until recently one of only five states without a state geographic information officer, making it a “black swan” case that can illuminate the perhaps unseen role that strong spatial data infrastructures play in other states' policymaking. Moreover, the comparison between New Jersey's Transit Villages Program and Connecticut's efforts signal that more work is needed to manage the difficult paradigm shift toward state support of TOD.