The Problem with Transit Revitalization Investment Districts

Transit Revitalization Investment Districts (TRIDs) are a politically motivated gimmick to get more people out of cars and into public transit that has run into reality, concludes a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.

“The bottom line is that for all the effort to write the legislation that establishes the methodology and requirements to create [it] — and the implicit promises of a major boost in public transit use — TRID is an abject failure,” says Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Pittsburgh think tank (in Policy Brief Vol. 26, No. 30).

The TRID Act of 2004 took effect in 2005. The legislation’s intent was to provide a means of encouraging private development within a half-mile of a transit station with the aim of increasing ridership.

The costs incurred by the TRID district’s municipality would include planning, loss of tax revenue and borrowing necessary to acquire and demolish structures along with cost of infrastructure to facilitate any new building. The costs would be recovered, presumably, through higher taxes generated by the new structures or other taxable property within the TRID zone.

Initially it was expected that the development would be aimed at businesses and dwelling units that would create demand for transit ridership, Haulk notes. But the state Legislature amended the original TRID legislation in 2016 to address certain perceived limitations.

“[M]ost importantly, the language was altered to specifically allow economic development along with the original intent to boost transit ridership,” Haulk recounts. He added that the 2016 changes also set up a mechanism to create

state funding for TRID municipalities that applied for help and also increased the size of the allowable TRID distance from the transit facility to three-quarters of a mile.

Haulk says that during the first 12 years of the TRID law, only one TRID project statewide was adopted and built—the East Liberty Transportation Development project in Pittsburgh.

“Despite a number of studies in the 22 years since passage of the first TRID legislation, to date, there are only three active or completed projects: East Liberty (the only completed project); Middletown, Delaware County (underway) and the Esplanade project (underway) along the Ohio River,” the Ph.D. economist says. The latter was begun despite resistance from area residents after final approval in 2025, he notes.

There are no active TRIDS in Philadelphia County, where there is massive transit ridership compared to other Pennsylvania counties.

Pittsburgh City Council recently voted to proceed with the development of a Golden Triangle TRID.

“It is almost surely an economic development project in that transit ridership is unlikely to be substantially impacted,” Haulk says, adding that there, too, is a significant public disapproval by residents and commercial users who will be affected almost immediately after the project begins.

How long the Golden Triangle TRID takes to break ground and be completed must be viewed as uncertain at this point, the think tank researcher says. It still must be approved by Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

“Two Pennsylvania counties each have one active TRID after 22 years since the TRID law was first passed in late 2004,” Haulk reiterates. “One of those counties, Allegheny, is seeing one being built and one on the drawing board. All three are in the City of Pittsburgh. That poor result cannot possibly be what the originators of the TRID legislation imagined.”

Simply put, Haulk says TRID was poorly thought-out legislation that was doubled down on in 2016 when the effort to create more transit riders was replaced with a focus on economic development.

“The problem is all these misguided efforts to grow and to attract businesses will not overcome a tax and regulatory environment that fails to recognize the need for a pro-business economic and labor climate,” Haulk concludes.

Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).