Stephen Rees has a characteristically thoughtful post about contrasting strategies for developing livable, walkable, transit-oriented development. And since he’s talking about something I alluded to this morning, I thought I’d take a minute to say just what reservations I have about building a lot of light rail into low-density areas. Here’s Rees’ account of the transit planning strategy he likes:
You cannot have transit oriented development unless there is transit there to make it work. Kitsilano did not become a desirable residential neighbourhood until the streetcars started running. And when they first appeared they ran through a very empty area – which quickly started to fill up as houses sprang up almost like mushrooms overnight.
The strategy is simple and elegant. Build transit out into low-density areas, and then when those areas develop, they’ll develop in livable, transit-oriented ways around the existing transit. But if you don’t build the transit first, then when those low-density areas start to develop they just turn into low-density sprawl. As Kitsilano went in the first half of the twentieth-century, so Langley could go in the first half of the twenty-first.
Rees knows there’s a big difference between transit-planning before the Second World War and now. When rail lines first got laid on the west side of Vancouver, most people didn’t own cars. Not so now. So here’s my worry. Suppose Translink ran lots of at-grade light rail out to low-density areas of the suburbs. What would stop developers from building even more low-density sprawl, even further out in to the Valley? Because now all that light rail makes people’s commutes that much easier.
What would stop that from happening? Mayors who insisted on transit-oriented development, that’s what. Some mayors — PoMo’s Joe Trasolini looks like the real hero here — have done just that. But others haven’t. Look at the development around King George station. This is not a walkable neighbourhood, and not because no one ever gave it a rail line. So why should Translink run rail out into low-density sprawl when, for all they know, they’re laying the groundwork for the twenty-first century’s park-and-rides?
September 28, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Given that the SRY is the preferred route for an initial valley LRT I’m not worried about official park and rides being established, but I think every mall along the route risks becoming an unofficial park and ride. Clear parking limits would have to be established and enforced or there’d be no space left for customers.
September 28, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The history lesson should also include the fact that many early rail transit lines were developed by private enterprise. Not having to compete with cars was certainly an advantage, but what made it profitable was purchasing huge tracks of cheap land and then selling it at much higher prices after the rails were laid.
Today the low cost of road building and expectation that suburbanites will bring at least 2 cars with them has made that business model impossible for railroad builders.
September 30, 2009 at 8:57 am
David — Point taken about official park-and-rides in the Surrey.
But the thing is, the ubiquity of malls themselves — or rather, the whole car-dependent built environment they’re embedded in — are just another part of the problem. To build communities where it’s convenient for a childless couple not to own a car, or for a family of four to own only one, very small car, is going to require a massive rebuilding of those streetscapes. In the absence of significant movement towards that rebuilding, what are the consequences of LRT lines going to be?
I’m assuming someone knows the answer to that question. But I don’t. Ad I worry that LRT would just make it easier for people to move that much farther away.
September 30, 2009 at 8:58 am
Hm, pay no attention to the HTML tags I forgot to close there. . . .