Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1138

I am one of those people that gets annoyed when people don’t follow proper escalator etiquette. The etiquette being: stand on the right; walk on the left. Some cities – London and Tokyo come to mind – are draconian about this.

But it turns out that this is not always the best way to optimize throughput. A recent study conducted in London found that during peak periods – such as the morning rush hour – it is actually better for everyone to stand still.

What they found was that when 40-60% of people chose to walk up on the left, maximum throughput was 115 passengers per minute. But when everyone stood still maximum throughput increased to 151 passengers per minute.

The reason for this is that walking takes up more space than staying put on one step. When demand is low, this has no impact on capacity. But as soon as people start slowing down to avoid the set of legs in front of them, a bottleneck occurs and capacity starts to drop. 

This is not dissimilar to what happens in traffic jams. Imagine if during peak periods all of the cars could separate themselves by only a few inches and travel at exactly the same (slow) speed. That’s not going to happen until self-driving cars hit the road, but it would be more efficient than the current chaos of distracted drivers starting and stopping.

All of this being said, since this finding only applies during very busy times, I plan to continue being annoyed when proper escalator etiquette is not followed.

Balconies, outdoor spaces and, more broadly, the relationship between inside and outside are important considerations in multi-family residential design.

Earlier this year, Mansion Global ran a piece talking about a recent trend in cities such as New York, Toronto, and London, where high-rise outdoor spaces often go unused because of the wind and the cold. It’s called the winter garden.

“So luxury developers are trying an option that they tout as both lush and cozy: the winter garden. Enclosed by glass on three sides, and often designed as an alcove off the living room or bedroom, these spaces can feature fireplaces, radiant-floor heating and sliding glass doors to maximize the breeze, weather permitting. For developers, the amenity can bump up asking prices, because winter gardens add interior square footage to a unit.”

This, of course, is not a new idea. In fact, solariums are very common in Toronto condos of a particular vintage. But they are rare today, for probably a few reasons. Policy changes removed the incentive to build these spaces. Unit sizes have come down. And many people like the idea of being able to step outside.

The other way to think about this trend, though, is that it’s about creating adaptability within the skin of the building. You want to be hermetically sealed off in the winter, but you want the opposite in the summer and/or swing seasons. This is about making indoor spaces feel more like outdoor spaces when you want them to be that way.

There are countless examples of vernacular architecture figuring out how to strike this balance. Today we typically think in terms of mechanical systems. But I love the idea of a building that responds to the changing seasons.

Thanks for sharing this article with me, Rick.

The New York Times recently argued that self-driving cars can’t cure traffic, but that economics can . Here is the key soundbite:

“Maybe autonomous cars will be different from other capacity expansions,” Mr. Turner said. “But of the things we have observed so far, the only thing that really drives down travel times is pricing.”

The argument here is that capacity expansions – such as additional lanes – never solve the problem of gridlock. Yes lane widening projects increase capacity, but the latent demand is so strong that the problem never gets solved. Even in places like Houston.

We talked a lot about this phenomenon on the blog a few years ago when Toronto was embroiled in debate over the Gardiner Expressway East. But it’s interesting to think about self-driving cars as simply another incremental capacity expansion.

I have no doubt that this technology will make more efficient use of our roads. Carpooling will be a lot easier – as is already the case. Cars will be able to drive closer together. We’ll be able to stop abrupt breaking and swift land changes, which actually create systemic traffic problems for everybody else.  And the list goes on.

But there will still be limits to how many people can be efficiently moved on a particular strip of road. Exactly how there are limits to how many people can be efficiently moved via a particular subway tunnel, streetcar line, and so on.

So if latent demand continues to outstrip available capacity, which has historically been the case, then we are once again back to the politically unpopular idea of pricing away congestion. As much as people criticize it as regressive, I believe that’s where we’re headed.