Transit Oriented Development in a Post-Ridership City
For more than two decades, Chicago has organized much of its urban ambition around a deceptively simple premise: build density near transit, and people will ride it. Transit-oriented development—TOD, in the jargon of planners—became not just a policy tool but a civic identity. Apartment towers clustered around ‘L’ stations. Zoning bonuses rewarded proximity to rail. Transit access was marketed as lifestyle, climate solution, and economic engine all at once. Then the riders vanished. They didn’t disappear entirely, of course. But the COVID-era collapse in ridership never fully reversed. Office commutes thinned. Hybrid work calcified. Travel patterns fragmented. In 2026, Chicago’s transit system is no longer defined by predictable weekday surges but by uneven, off-peak usage that resists the old logic of peak-hour capacity and downtown gravity. The question now quietly haunting city hall, developers, and lenders is whether Chicago’s long-standing TOD strategy still works when transit usa...