Every lot within 500m of a rail station should automatically be zoned to allow for 6-story buildings and ground-level retail. And, building to the max height should earn lots a lower property tax rate. Manifest density!
That's what we should do. What we really do more often is surround train stations with nothing but surface parking over every lot within 500m. Surface parking not only fails to make use of the potential for density in appropriate places but creates traffic and makes it harder to build mixed use or medium density elsewhere.
BART is the single largest provider of off-street parking in the USA. CalTrain seems to be trying to match it.
Most of the country handles rail stations in the most retarded way possible, by surrounding them with acres of parking lot that make them extremely unfriendly for pedestrians.
In New York, the commuter rail stations are surrounded by retail/residential. I live ~20 miles from Midtown in the suburbs, and I haven't driven my car in two months. I can go to the Costco, 27 miles from downtown, entirely on the train and walking (it's right next to the station).
We have these black rolling carts where I work for carrying around litigation documents. I'd imagine something like that would work too, and look less bag lady-ish.
When population density goes up, you are more likely to live close enough to your grocery store to make multiple smaller visits and make quick visits for one-off items you might need. I rarely ever buy more at the grocery store than I can carry on my own and I find the smaller more frequent trips much more convenient than having to plan around one large trip to a more distant location.
San Jose has been attracting all sorts of developers to build residential high-rises around downtown only to have them empty, with large banners "Selling Now! Prices Slashed!" hanging for years.
Like which ones, in particular? The San Jose condo market looks pretty robust to me. There are a few high end condos that have been sitting on the market for a while, but at around $750/sq ft plus HOA fees, they might just be priced too high.
The reasonably priced inventory around in downtown San Jose has been snatched up. The lowest price place I could find on real estate sites that is within walking distance from the Caltrain station is a 429K 1 bed/1 bath in the Axis tower. The housing market has turned around very quickly in SV, most of the newer condos were built before the housing crash, and it was only recently that most of them have sold the original inventory.
If they're like any other city I've been in, they're already trying to block them because it ostensibly leads to lowered property values since the cheaper transportation lets more people come in to the area.
That reminds me of Stuttgart 21, a project that blocked by Nimbys took too much money to complete, and I think was abandoned. But honestly, it's not as bad as what the Frankfurt Int. Airport has to deal with. Want a new runway to accomodate increases in flight volume? Sorry, can't build that here. You might be Germanys major Airport, but backyards are more important than you.
vancouver is actually doing a really good job with this. when the new rapid transit line from downtown to richmond opened land near the rail stations was immediately filled with medium and high density mixed retail/residential. prior to that it was a suburban wasteland. the corridor from new westminster to commercial/broadway went from run down and undesirable to filled with condos and townhouses. the cambie corridor is undergoing a similar transformation. even central surrey and brentwood are somewhat liveable now. neighborhoods i never would have considered living in 10 years ago are suddenly desirable.
i think the key is that outside of a couple of key stations in industrial areas (bridgeport, scott road and a few of the north burnaby stations) there is almost no street parking. the rail stations aren't sited and designed as collection points to funnel people downtown or to the airport. they were placed to encourage development of neighborhoods
