Identifying and conceptualising context-specific barriers to transit-oriented development strategies: the case of the Netherlands

Transit-oriented development strategies (TODS) are widely embraced. However, their implementation remains challenging. Institutional barriers play a key role here, and the literature provides an overview of the most important ones and ways of overcoming them. Yet, application of such insights remains elusive, due to the context-specific nature of barriers. As a first and necessary step to cope with the implementation challenge of TODS, this paper proposes an approach to identify barriers within a given context. The approach is applied to a hypothesis-generating case, the Netherlands. The findings indicate a vicious cycle of mutually reinforcing formal and informal barriers hampering implementation. The approach could be useful for cities elsewhere that face similar implementation difficulties.