which area (globaly) are you looking for ?

yeah, i'd have the same question. if you're looking for published stuff, you could check out writings of peter calthorpe on TOD's (transit-oriented developments) if you haven't already.

louisville (where i am) has several areas where neighborhood hubs grew up from the old streetcar stops. our douglass loop is where the streetcars turned around and headed back into town. many u.s. cities that had streetcars in the nineteenth century still have places like this that you can discover. i have a vague memory that d.c. has a lot of little neighborhood hubs around metro stations, for example.

since so many former streetcar cities don't have their rail lines any more, it might also be helpful to look at a larger history of development associated with transportation.
-mcdonald's, truckstops, and bp stations go hand-in-hand with freeway interchanges.
-whole towns grew up around train stations as the u.s. extended west.
-look at train station locations in europe and how they fit into the urban patterns - not just in large cities but also in small towns along the rail lines.
-and then there are the trashy developments that seem to spring up along airport roads - cinderblock bars and strip clubs. not sure where that phenomenon comes from - what the relationship is.
-i particularly like that amsterdam has a parking garage for bikes just outside the train station. this is also where you can catch your bus.

in response to sporadic: globally I'd like to know more about Japan, Inida, basically anywhere that this condition occurs. (I won't be picky)

In Europe, I'd like to know more about the more modern international speed trains and the hubs they create in major cities, as well as whether the smaller more local trains use the same stations.

I'm still early into it, and still trying to get a better picture of the european train system.

yeah the Netherlands is a great precedent...Amsterdam was already mentioned, but also look at Rotterdam Centraal.

also check out the book "Streetcar Suburbs" by Sam Warner Jr.....its about the development and growth of Boston around transportation

Steven - good point about the streetcar lines. As you probably know many areas of Mpls/St. Paul grew up around the old streetcar lines.

What about the airports of our modern age. They were built on farm land outside the cities. Then the population grew up around them, and today nearby residents complain about the noise and pollution they create, forgetting they moved out there in the first place. How long before Denver International is surrounded by suburban homes?

Look into how the highway has changed cities in towns in both N. America and Europe. Many cities in America literally have grown one direction - towards the interstate - after it was built. Look at how over the past 50 years those cities near the highways have grown in population vs. the cities far removed from the highway.

Funny that you mention modern european high-speed trains, ross, because the first thing I thought of in response to your question was that it would be interesting to look at Avignon before and after the arrival of the TGV.

Pre-TGV, Avignon was a decent rail-hub, but it's interesting to look at because it is historically a walled city and the original train station was built just outside of the walls. Thus a new little center of commerce kind of mushroomed onto that rail station to feed it. Then, just a few years ago, an entirely new station was built even a bit further out of the city to provide a stop for the TGV running from Paris. It is now one of two Paris-Provence connections (the other being through Marseille) and gets a lot of activity. I wonder what impact this second, seperate station thus had. Does either of them impact the walled, existing city?

Etc.

There is a transportation hub in downtown Tucson, works also as an open air market.

Snooker- Can you provide a picture and name of the tuscon hub?

ross- is this academic or professional?

Grand Central Station in NYC was a speculative development that preceeded mid-town... most train stations happened before the city swallowed them up- they typically were situated on the urban fringe cause then needed lots of space and cheap land. Few stations were carved out in the center...

some of my favs-
EuroLille- see SMLxL

Waterloo -Grimshaw

Anybody know who is designing the new St. Pancras?

also check out FOA's book Phylogenesis, they've done a number of transportation hub proposals that investigate their relationship to existing urban conditions (florence, pusan) and if i remeber so a hub that becomes the epi-center for future urban development

treekiller: the research is for an essay compeition at my office. the subject of the essay is open ended. I chose this topic because it's relevant to dallas (where i'm living now) and the urban aspect of it seems pretty interesting, at least to me.

dallas is currently in the process of expanding it's light rail train system (DART). right now, the line runs basically north and south, w/ 2 branches. currently, only one stop that I'm aware of has grown into a place that could be considered a destination for those who don't live or work there, mockingbird station.

many of the stops simply have a massive parking lot where people drive a portion of their commute, and take the DART the rest of the trip.

as the dart grows, and east/west lines are added, it will be interesting to see if more destination stops start to pop up.

thanks again for all the help.

Ross- It's great how Texas is expanding public transit when everywhere else is focused on building more highways.

I've been working on the new intermodal hub for Houston.... Other transit projects my office EEK has created include, Gateway Plaza in Los Angeles, MetroTech in Brooklyn and the masterplan for the Main Street LRT in Houston.

Just avoid any CNU propaganda...

Good luck with your essay.

Non-specific, but try Rogers' "Cities for a Small Planet" and "Cities for a Small Country" The second one is specificalyl about Britain, but the first one has some very good planning strategies regardign transportation.

.....oh, and if you want to see how NOT to design a city-wide transportation system, just look at Auckland. Roading engineers have a lot to answer for.

Oh wait, not that kinda hub