Feasibility of Development Based on Public Transportation (TOD) Centered on Golshahr Karaj Metro Station

The automobile which is the most important and vital invention of the 20th century, led to the horizontal expansion of cities and their excessive dispersion, which in addition to creating environmental crises and conflicts with the goals of sustainable development, has brought urban and social isolation with itself. In this regard, among the most important proposals that were welcomed and considered at the end of the 20th century was the development based on Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). In a short definition this approach means that dense development with a very suitable and appropriate dense combination of reasonable arrangement of uses near stations and public transport routes that leads to the formation of a quality of life as well as an acceptable and high level of economic competition becomes sociable and at the same time meets the environmental requirements related to sustainable development. In the past few years, following the recognition of the benefits of the development approach based on public transportation in the development plans of cities and the tendency to use this approach to improve the quality of the urban environment and ensure the welfare of the citizens as much as possible, redefining the railway stations (both suburban and inner city) and accordingly their role in the structure of cities has been highly noticed among experts and professionals. In order to measure and calculate the capacity of development based on public transportation in Karaj city, Golshahr metro station located on Karaj-Tehran metro line 5 was selected as a case study and TOD central station. In this research, using the analytical-descriptive method and detailed field knowledge of the studied area, it is showed that in order to implement TOD, it is necessary to change the principles of urban planning, including land use and development, density patterns, urban rules and regulations in Golshahr metro site and the policies related to the transportation and traffic sector should be redefined based on reducing and decreasing the dominant pattern of using private cars and also promoting pedestrians in the use of public transportation. It can be said that considering the favorable condition of Golshahr metro site to accept and allow the complementary principles of TOD, including the social and economic status of the target area, by implementing effective and efficient policies such as strengthening the physical and environmental attractions in order to increase the station's consumer community, developing social activities complementary to the station and as a result increasing economic activities in the station and its surroundings, it is possible to implement the development approach based on public transportation in the area around Golshahr Karaj metro station to a suitable extent. As a result, the policy-making methods in the field of land use planning in the target areas of development based on public transportation can be one of the key topics of complementary research on the feasibility of developing this approach around the target stations to synergize the results of these researches after providing a possible positive response to the feasibility study.