Operationalizing green transit oriented development : a pilot study of CO2 emissions in Plaza Saltillo, Austin, Texas

Green TOD integrates the concepts of the traditional Transit Oriented Development with those of Green Urbanism to create a synergistic framework that promotes environmental sustainability. In light of the increasing number and greater intensity of climate events, Green TOD can be a holistic climate mitigation strategy that cities can employ. However, Green TOD has not been widely adopted in the United States yet. This might be due to several factors, including the need for more clarity and substantiation of Green TOD as a concept, the lack of an operational framework and metrics that would enable practice and performance assessment, and finally the insufficiency of empirical knowledge and data to set up Green TOD parameters and performance assessment benchmarks. This study addresses the three issues above by (1) expanding the literature and understanding of Green TOD; (2) developing an operational framework and metrics to quantify carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Green TOD; and (3) testing the green performance of Plaza Saltillo TOD in the City of Austin to obtain empirical results from the framework.