Wednesday, November 23, 2011

A Transit Oriented Business Idea

Back at the "Leading the Way Youth Summit" in Edmonton, all of the groups were given the task of presenting an idea to help revolutionize various aspects of transit.

My group had decided to pursue the topic of greening transit.  As a result we came up with the idea of crowd sourced deals oriented to those businesses that choose to locate in a TOD (Transit oriented development).  Similar to the deal of the day promotions through Living Social, Groupon,  transit would advertise a daily deal though an agreement with businesses located in a TOD. 

This would be a huge boon for businesses as transit users are all on foot and can easily swing in your store to buy your daily deal coffee.  No hassle with providing your customers with parking on your dime.  Businesses would see an upswing of transactions, and they get free advertisement through a public body that is used by 100,000 people daily.

This sort of arrangement would also benefit cities greatly as this deal would only apply to businesses within 800 meters (10 minutes walking distance) of a major transit station.   This would be a great encouragement for TOD's as all of your businesses are already located within your TOD.  People would want to live by their amenities and thus would be more likely to elect to live in a TOD, and utilize the conveniently located transit to go about their daily lives.

Such an arrangement would give municipalities the tool to help develop TOD's, and as a result citizens are living in concentrated areas cities do not have to spend tax dollars wastefully on inefficient sprawl.

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