IBI Creates TOD Toolkit to Guide Growth in Cities of Developing Nations
Date
January 14, 2019
The World Bank, an international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital projects, retained IBI Group to develop Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Implementation Resources & Toolkit. This set of guidelines covers the entire strategic planning process and implementation pathway for transit-oriented development in low- and middle-income countries. The World Bank, through its Community of Practice (CoP) and the Global Platform for Sustainable Cities (GPSC), identified the need for this kind of resource through their TOD work with over 30 cities at all scales and across all geographic regions in World Bank client countries.
This “Knowledge Product,” as it’s often called, is a strong and clear example of IBI’s expertise in creating sustainable, connected cities in practice, and will serve communities around the world preparing to implement similar urban strategies. “Integral to the completion of this 500+ page resource was the inter-disciplinary coordination and global collaboration from IBI teams in the Toronto, Florida, Boston, Mexico, Delhi and Mumbai offices. These teams worked hand-in-hand to design the comprehensive toolkit and to bring a wealth of experience from past projects and international projects to design a toolkit that is applicable to various contexts and scales,” said Trevor McIntyre, Regional Director UK/Ireland & International.
So what exactly is Transit-Oriented Development or TOD for short? TOD involves integrating land use and transit planning to promote and prioritize sustainable urban development. This multi-disciplinary planning and design strategy ensures compact, mixed-use development and multimodal integration around transit hubs. This may involve working with local governments, residential developers, community groups, and various transit stakeholders to create healthy, connected cities for the long term. The impacts are strong and can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, including in environmental sustainability, economic development and socially-inclusive development.
As economic growth, urban transport and land use can be managed more efficiently if planned together, TOD has been successfully applied in cities around the world including Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore.
The Toolkit helps to breakdown the concept of TOD for application in countries like Mexico, India, Senegal, Nigeria, Ethiopia and China, with a focus on supporting assessment and implementation, expanding the available TOD knowledge base, and leveraging partnerships with other global think-tanks and agencies. The tools emphasize the financing mechanisms, regulations, and policy formulation aspects of TODs to enable effective realization of envisioned plans.
Our Implementation Resource breaks the TOD process down into five stages:
- Assess – by defining scale and scope, provide cities with the tools to examine their preparedness for TOD
- Enable – the steps necessary to create an enabling environment for implementation of TOD initiatives
- Plan + Design – the detailed planning principles and design components to formulate the TOD plan at various scales
- Finance – an overview of numerous funding mechanisms and tools at a city or local government’s disposal
- Implement – an outline of the tasks required to implement TOD, including institutional frameworks, supportive public policies and post-project monitoring systems
“Throughout these five stages, a variety of interactive toolkits, checklists, spreadsheets and resources are provided, giving low- and middle-income countries hands-on tools and tangible methods of providing sustainable, safe and efficient transit to their communities.” – Bankim Kalra, Senior Urban Planner, IBI Group
“It is envisioned that the Knowledge Products will allow IBI to service our public- and private-sector clients in growth markets such as Latin America, South Asia and Africa.” – Ashish Ghate, Director | Sr. Practice Lead, Urban Design / Planning, IBI Group
Interested in learning more? Read the full report on the World Bank’s website here.
