Issue 557 to

On Track!

How Do We Transform Diridon Station?

17 rules for a great train station

The remaking of Diridon Station is San Jose’s largest and most significant city-building project to date, but success is not assured. We have a lot to learn from other cities that have undertaken ambitious projects to transform transportation services and remake the areas around train stations. Based on our lessons from Rotterdam, Toronto and Denver, we recommend 17 ideas for creating a great train station.

Lessons for Diridon: Rebuilding Rotterdam Centraal Station

Over the next decade, San Jose’s Diridon Station will be remade into the first high-speed rail station in the country and the busiest transportation hub west of the Mississippi. What models can guide the planning for this major opportunity? Rotterdam Centraal, in the Netherlands, has a number of parallels to Diridon and offers an excellent model of what a modern transportation hub can be.

Lessons for Diridon: Revitalizing Toronto’s Union Station

Over the next few months, public agencies will be working together to set the remaking of Diridon Station in motion. During this critical period, it’s important to be thinking boldly about what’s possible. Toronto’s primary transit hub, the historic Union Station, is nearing completion of a major revitalization project scheduled for completion in 2018. Its context and complexity make it a good parallel to Diridon.

Lessons for Diridon: Denver’s Success Story That Almost Didn’t Happen

Since Denver Union Station reopened in 2014, it has become one of the nation’s best examples of a modern intermodal train station embedded in a transit-friendly urban neighborhood. The project has a number of important lessons for the team that’s planning the transformation of San Jose’s Diridon Station into a major transportation hub with the country’s first high-speed rail station.

Harnessing High-Speed Rail

What California and its cities can do to get the greatest benefit from a once-in-a-generation investment.

In addition to carrying passengers from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in less than three hours, high-speed rail has the potential to help create compact station districts along the route and bring economic growth to the San Joaquin Valley. We take a look at some of the potential benefits and pitfalls for the cities of the Central Valley.

Urban Field Notes: Naples, Play in the City

In Italy, a former SPUR intern observes a “delight in living life.”

In Italy, a former SPUR intern observes the ways a city's form can influence the "collective joy" of it's citizens, and how the city of Naples encourages it's residents to play and engage with urban space.

Member Profile: Christopher Calott

A designer and developer is creating a program to teach others to do those things, too.

Christopher Calott is a architect primarily focused on design and development consulting with investors on mixed-use housing, affordable housing, and urban design for “infill” redevelopment projects throughout the Bay Area. On top of that, he’s been busy setting up an innovative one-year master’s program, that he will chair, in real estate development and design. Read some of his thoughts on design, development, and urbanism.