Rowan can’t afford to miss what’s coming down the tracks.

"People get ready, there's a train a comin'…

All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'…"

Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions

Rowan has been blessed by the transit gods.  In as soon as 5 years Rowan's very own transit station will be dropped from transit heaven onto campus and land on the railroad tracks between t parking lot A and Triad.  This is a once in a century opportunity and a major windfall for Rowan.  It has the potential to enhance our campus in a manner worthy of the Rowan that we have the potential to become in the coming decades.  But we will only get this opportunity once and we therefore have one best shot to design the station and the land around it right. The Rowan station should be the heart of a campus academic transit village that is a model of sustainable campus design.

But will Rowan's new Business and Engineering buildings currently under design be properly integrated with the coming rail station or will they disregard the importance of what's coming down the tracks and squander the opportunity that such a rail stop can bring?  So far the evidence points to the latter.  Sadly, there has been no serious dialog regarding a transit-oriented land use plan for the new business and engineering buildings.

Trains and Universities – perfect together

When service begins for the Glassboro-Camden Line in 2019, Rowan will be joining the other prominent New Jersey universities such as Princeton, Rutgers and Montclair who have their own transit stops.   But unlike these other institutions that have leveraged their own transit stops into major focal assets of their campus, Rowan has not embraced this windfall in any substantive way in the planning of the new buildings.  And down the line, the impact of the light rail will have far longer implications for the future of the University and the region than the building of these two buildings.

The Glassboro-Camden light rail line will connect the Gloucester County's top two employers (Underwood Hospital and Rowan University) with the core of Gloucester County's population as well as with the greater metropolitan region.  The benefits of the line will be transformative.  Not only are Underwood and Rowan destinations for employees, perhaps more importantly, they are major destinations for the public to access medical care and higher education.  The G-C Line will offer a very viable alternative for automobile travel through the heart of the county and will connect the county’s core communities to Philly, NYC and the entire northeast corridor.

The Driveshaft of the Economic Engine

If Rowan lives up to President's Houshmand's vision for the university to be one of the main "economic engines" of South Jersey in the coming century then the light rail line should be thought of as the economic  "driveshaft."  The majority of economic development that will take place in Gloucester County in the next 50 years is likely to occur along the G-C corridor.  But when an engine’s linkage to a driveshaft is weak, the ability for the vehicle to carry a load or travel at a rapid speed will be significantly reduced.  The coming Rowan transit stop and the surrounding land use will be our link which will determine how strong and how rapidly Rowan can help drive the South Jersey economy.

Transit Oriented Development

So what does it mean to have a strong land use link to a transit system? Over the past couple of decades there has been a major trend toward transit oriented development (TOD) across the country.  TOD is land use intentionally designed to maximize the potential of what can be reasonably walked to from a station.  The walkable radius becomes the "golden zone" where multiple destinations should be placed.  In order to maximize efficiency in the golden zone,TOD land use design incorporates mixed-uses, high-density land use, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure and a land use design that creates a "sense of place" or a "transit village."

The golden pedestrian zone (from 1,500 to 2,500 feet radius around a transit station) is the critical real estate in which a transit village can be functional.  People will only use public transportation if it provides a viable means of reaching their intended destination.  If you can't walk from where the train drops you off to where you want to go, then you are not likely to choose that mode of transportation.  If people have to make a connection to a second link in travel in order to reach their destination such as a shuttle bus, taxi, or another train, ridership drops by more than half for each subsequent connection.

Therefore the number and variety of destinations that are built within the walkable golden zone is a critical factor in determining how viable the transit system will be.  It follows that every square inch of the golden zone around the train station should be seen as sacred ground.  It is a gift from the transit gods and should be designed to be used to its maximum potential.

Many studies have documented the benefits of Transit Oriented Development some of which  include:

·         Reduced auto vehicle miles traveled and increases walking and biking activity

·         Provision of transportation choices

·         Reduced traffic congestion, air pollution and GHG emissions

·         Spurring of economic development and redevelopment

·         Reduction of infrastructure and operations costs

·         Assists in conserving resource lands and open space

·         Creates a smaller environmental footprint

Transit Village Designation

In New Jersey we've expanded the concept of TOD into the Transit Village program.  Transit Village designation is granted by the NJ Department of Transportation to towns that demonstrate "a commitment to revitalizing and redeveloping the area around their transit facilities into compact, mixed-use neighborhoods with a strong residential component."

In order to receive Transit Village designation, a municipality must adopt a transit-oriented development (TOD/ redevelopment plan that includes transit-supportive site design guidelines, architectural design guidelines and transit-supportive parking guidelines.  Other criteria include "place-making" efforts near train stations.

Communities that qualify for Transit Village designation receive substantial benefits including:

·         Committed support from the state Transit Village Task Force

·         Coordination among state agencies to support development plans around the station

·         Priority funding from some state agencies

·         Technical assistance from some state agencies

·         Eligibility for grants from the NJ Department of Transportation (NJDOT)

To date, New Jersey has 28 designated transit villages.  One notable example with which many Rowan employees will be familiar is Collingswood.  The Borough of Collingswood has worked with the Delaware River Port Authority who runs the PATCO High Speed Line to create a Transit Village Plan for the area around the Collingswood station.  One phase of the plan transforms the large surface parking lots into structured parking and mixed use development. The Collingswood plan gives just one visual of how we might design the land around our pending Rowan station stop to take maximum advantage of the golden zone.

Aerial image of Collingswood's PATCO station
and currently existing surface parking.

Collingswood's Transit Village plan for the site (Alberto Associates). 

The PATCO surface parking lots will be transformed into a vibrant mixed-use
transit village with structured parking tucked behind.  (rendering: Alberto Associates)

Another example is the Rutgers Gateway Transit Village in New Brunswick.  The Gateway Transit Village entails a compact, multi-use land use plan that directly links Rutgers to the station with its own pedestrian bridge spanning from the campus bookstore to the train platform.  The plan won Rutgers and New Brunswick a New Jersey Smart Growth Award in 2012.  Rowan has great potential for creating an even better campus transit village.

The Rutgers New Brunswick Gateway Transit Village is a mixed-use plan anchored by the
Rutgers Bookstore which features a pedestrian bridge with cafe tables (visible under the awnings) .
The bridge creates a promenade that directly connects to the train platform (orange building visible
behind the tree).

A Rowan Campus Transit Village

Rowan and Glassboro should emulate the town-gown approach of Rutgers and New Brunswick to developing an academic Transit Village plan for the western flank of the Glassboro campus.  This would entail much more than simply building a train platform to get off and on.  A Rowan Campus Transit Village would carefully plan and design the land use around the station to maximize its potential for benefiting Rowan as well as Rowan's potential for benefiting the rail line.  A campus transit village would create a grand gateway experience for people arriving at our university.

Parking Lot A –The Perfect Transit Village Real Estate

Fortunately much of the land around the proposed Rowan station stop has great potential for developing into a transit village.  Parking Lot A is currently a sea of surface parking - the lowest level of land use and the easiest to develop.  Land with surface parking has already been environmentally degraded.  A parking lot is already impervious surface preventing ground aquifers to be recharged.  A parking lot already had its trees cut down and topsoil sterilized.  So surface parking can be developed with virtually no increased environmental impact than has already occurred.  In fact development of surface parking presents an opportunity to improve the environmental performance of a site since a building can be designed with green roofs, environmental infrastructure and landscaping amenities that can improve water quality and provide habitat.

The Golden Pedestrian Zone (a 5 minute walk) from Rowan's future transit stop
should be thoughtfully planned to become an academic transit village.  Both the new
business and engineering building sites are within this golden zone but there is little
indication that they are being considered as part of a transit village. 

Parking Lot A and the parking lots around Triad present the ideal canvas for creating a university academic transit village land use design right in the heart of that golden 5 minute walk zone.  But it's important to get the ingredients right.  The golden transit zone must be developed at a level of intensity and design detail to achieve a critical mass of uses and activities.  This means having as much built activity space as is reasonably possible (within an acceptable balance appropriate for the community- more on this in the next post).

Missing the Train

To date Rowan has not had any serious dialog about planning for the coming train.  In spite of repeated attempts to bring the topic up in public forums as well as in conversations with administrative officials, there has only been platitudes and head nodding without any substantial consideration for how to coordinate the campus master planning with the coming light rail system.  Granted that the administration has many other priorities to worry about and the rail is at least 5 years from opening.  But the consideration of the rail connection has direct implications the administrations top priorities of the business and engineering building because they will be consuming significant chunks of land in the golden zone.  If the business building is built in a manner that locks in a myopic land use pattern that wastes the real estate of Parking Lot A, we will have a significantly reduced capability of creating a viable campus transit village.

Of course its difficult to know what actually is being planned.  The bit that trickles out from the administration seems to change every couple of weeks.  Few outside of the inner circle actually know what is being planned since there has been very little public disclosure to date of the design process and siting of the new buildings.  While I applaud President Houshmand’s public statements of shared governance and open process and his offer to give up his personal parking space if there is a parking problem, I am disappointed that there was no substantive information given about any details of these major building projects.

And frankly I am skeptical that there will be no parking problems involved with simultaneously closing two of Rowan’s largest parking lots next year.  From a planner's perspective, closing one let alone two major parking lots is a substantial logistical challenge and will require a major cultural shift that is bound to have many devils in the details and unforeseen consequences.  I much rather would have the president say that he will make the parking study publicly available to review than to park in the president’s reserved lot. (I do, after all ride a bike on most days).

I conclude this post with the following suggested action points which I’ll dig into in greater detail in subsequent posts.  I welcome your posted feedback.

1. Rowan should develop a plan for a campus Transit Village in the area of the pending train station BEFORE the business and engineering building designs and their locations are locked into place (stay tuned for some examples of Transit Village concept plans created by our planning students  this past semester). 
2. Rowan should work with Glassboro in attaining Transit Village designation from the NJ DOT. 
3. Rowan should leverage the Transit Village status to assist in campus development actives.
4. Rowan should develop the Transit Village plan to qualify for LEED for Neighborhood Development certification.
5. Rowan should open up a serious and meaningful channel for shared governance for campus master planning as stipulated in the Sasaki Master Plan.
6. Rowan should provide any and all consultant’s reports regarding master planning and building activities to the university senate with an opportunity to weigh in before decisions are made.
7. Specifically – Rowan should provide the consultant’s report regarding the parking reconfiguration plan and associated impacts of developing the business and engineering buildings on Lots A and M.
8. Rowan should seriously consider moving the location of the new Business Building from Parking Lot A to the site of Linden Hall so that Parking Lot A can remain functional until it can be properly planned as the heart of a Rowan Campus Transit Village.