Transit Options: Leaving Your Car at Home
Each gallon of gas that we can avoid burning saves carbon from being sent into our atmosphere. Getting out of your car, and using alternative transport, is one of the most effective ways to help our City meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% by the year 2020.
Transit Today and Tomorrow
Our vision is to become a fully connected city of tomorrow. A key strategy to support that vision is to provide a variety of modes of transport which take advantage of unique assets such as our central location within South Florida, our extensive network of canals, our proximity to an international airport, and location at the crossroads of many planned transportation projects. Together these factors enable people who live, work and visit For Lauderdale to utilize a range of transit options and to travel more sustainably.
Within in our city limits, there are the Sun Trolley, Uptown Link, Riverwalk Water Trolley, Water Taxi, and the planned WAVE Streetcar. We also have a Broward County Transit terminal, providing access to the county-wide bus system, including current east-west express routes and a range of planned regional projects. These projects will capitalize on the strong relationships we have within South Florida and link us to cities farther north, providing convenient travel in addition to what Tri-Rail, Amtrak and bus companies currently provide. Projects include the Tri-Rail Coastal Link and the FEC All Aboard Florida Intercity Rail. You can read about these projects, and check out all the current transit options, by visiting the links here and the menu items in the left navigation bar.
We are also fortunate to live in a county and region where leadership is actively engaged in the topic of development for sustainable transportation. City of Fort Lauderdale Transportation Planners are working with local, regional and State partners to create a connected transit system that makes it easier to ride than it is to drive. Transportation planners also work closely with our urban planners to encourage Transit Oriented Development.
What is Transit Oriented Development?
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is the integration of land use and transit through creating compact, walkable, mixed-use communities within walking distance of a transit stop or station, and with a focus on well located, mixed-use, premium transit centers. A premium transit station "serves premium type(s) of fixed-rail transit, such as intercity, commuter or light rail, and streetcar. It also includes a station that functions as a local bus hub serving a minimum of three fixed local bus routes operating with headways of 20-30 minutes or less."
A TOD brings together people, jobs, housing and services and is designed in a way that makes it as efficient, safe, and convenient to travel on foot, by bicycle, or by transit, as it is in a car.
The draft Transit Oriented Development (TOD) guidelines produced by the City of Fort Lauderdale build upon other plans for the creation of neighborhoods that are characterized by walkable, tree-lined streets; small blocks supported by an interconnected street system; and, Complete Streets that accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, motor vehicles, and transit. For example, in 2014, we did a TOD Update to our Downtown Development Master Plan.
TOD also supports other sustainable strategies by encouraging green building for stations, incorporating features such as solar panels and wind turbines that could power the station, vehicles or even give energy back to the grid, as well as retail to encourage local buying.
Visit Transit Oriented Development to read about the history of TOD in our city, access the guidelines and learn more about plans.