“Contrat d’axe” and Transit-Oriented Development: What is Changing in our Land-use Planning and Transport Policies? (Actors’ viewpoint)

“Contrats d’axe” that appeared in France in 2002 and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), born in the United States in 1993, are two ways to coordinate urban planning and public transport policies. This paper aims to compare these two approaches. It analyzes the institutional partnerships on which they are based, and the ways in which they face the persistent dynamics of car-dependency in the urban development process. If the two instruments appear to serve a common objective (producing a dense city near transit stations and nodes), there are fundamental differences in the means of action they mobilize and the nature of the stakeholders they involve.