TOD without transit

Of course, for places without fixed guideway transit, it's easy to claim that TOD doesn't matter. That misses the point. Read Calthorpe, and you quickly understand that TOD is just his early "Pedestrian Pocket" wrapped around a transit station, with all the same elements: higher density, a mix of uses, and a walkable street network. Counter-intutitively, there is no need for a transit station for these elements of TOD-ness. 

The 'bones' of a walkable street network and the regulatory context of permitting a mix of uses and higher density are simple to establish. But to actually get density, and to get the commercial uses supported by a local population, is much harder. Sandy Civic Center Trax in Utah tried for decades before achieving even minimal transit supportive density and barely supports minimal retail by the station even now. 

Hence, TOD: a way to increase the footfall traffic at a location, so commercial amenities at the station can draw not only from the local population, but the commuter population. It's not by accident that Calthorpe drew TOD as one-sided--he was omitting the massive commuter parking lot across the arterial road from the picture.

Picture any civic center, downtown, and urban district you've ever visited, and you'll see the same elements: a density of activity, a mix of uses, and a walkable street network. And on the periphery, some large parking lots and a major arterial. Self-contained autarky is impossible; local density alone cannot supply the dollars to support the commercial services or supply the staff for the commercial retail/services--any center must draw on people from outside the center and must facilitated people traveling to do so. 

But the key element to having and sustaining a pedestrian pocket is prioritizing internal circulation is prioritized over regional access. And that, rather than transit access, is the core of TOD. A transit station wrapped in parking lots isn't TOD. A transit station with a multi-level bus transit center isn't TOD. Because in both cases, the area near the station is designed to facilitate regional access. It's not by accident that transit agencies are bad at TOD--it's contrary to their institutional mission of providing regional transportation. 

The purpose of TOD is to use a transit station to facilitate the existence of a pedestrian pocket, and the elements that represent TOD have very little to do with transit stations. Rather, they are the principles of facilitating pedestrian-scale urbanism, and those principles can be applied without the need for a transit station.