Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1355

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Back in 2011, the The Pembina Institute published a report called, Building transit where we need it . And in it they quite clearly outlined the population densities that are needed to make various types of transit investment cost effective.

For subway they specify a minimum population density of 115 people per hectare and for light rail (LRT) they specify a minimum population density of 70 people per hectare. 

And the reason for this is because there’s a strong correlation between population density (i.e. land use) and transit ridership. The two go hand in hand and should not be decoupled. If population densities are too low (as they are, for example, along the Sheppard subway line here in Toronto), people don’t take transit. They drive.

Here’s a chart from the report showing the current and projected population densities for Toronto’s existing and proposed routes (keep in mind this is from 2011).

So what does this chart tell us?

• Subways don’t make a lot of sense in many parts of the city. LRT will do just fine.

• The Sheppard subway line is an under-utilized asset. Even by 2031 we’ll barely be reaching the requisite population densities.

• The Bloor-Danforth corridor could use more intensification.

• The Yonge-University-Spadina line is going to need to relief .
  

Unfortunately, transit decisions are often made based on politics instead of data. And that results in subways in places that don’t make a lot of sense. That’s unfortunate because it means less riders, less revenue, and more subsidies.

The other challenge with running subways through low density neighborhoods is that it then creates tension when the city and developers go to intensify those neighborhoods through transit-oriented development. (See #DensityCreep .)

But if we’re going to be fiscally irresponsible about where we deploy our transit capital, the least we could do is upzone the surrounding areas and impose minimum population densities. 

In fact, here’s what I think we should do: Land use should be bundled with the transit decision. 

Instead of asking where the subway station should go, we should be asking where the subway station should go and all the density needed to bring the area up to a certain minimum population density. And if that second criteria for whatever reason can’t be met, then we don’t build the line. 

I wonder if we framed the question in this way if it would change where subway lines get approved. What do you think?

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Last year The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which is based out of Chicago, published a report called, The 2014 Freeways Without Futures . It listed the top 10 freeways across North America that are in need of removal, replacement, and revitalization. You can download the full PDF report by clicking here.

Here’s an introductory snippet from the report:

The 2014 Freeways Without Futures Report lists the top opportunities in North America for replacing aging urban highways with boulevards or avenues that connect to the networks of streets. They are presented in no particular order of rank. As in previous reports, the criteria for the 2014 list is based on a number of factors: the age and design of structures, redevelopment potential, potential cost savings, ability to improve both overall mobility and local access, existence of pending infrastructure decisions, and community support.

And here’s the list of freeways without a future:

1.  I-10/Claiborne Overpass, New Orleans
   

2.  I-81, Syracuse, New York
   

3.  Gardiner Expressway, Toronto
   

4.  Route 5/Skyway, Buffalo
   

5.  Inner Loop, Rochester New York
   

6.  I-70, St. Louis
   

7.  I-280, San Francisco
   

8.  I-375, Detroit
   

9.  Terminal Island Freeway, Long Beach
   

10.  Aetna Viaduct, Hartford
    

Not surprisingly, the Gardiner Expressway is on the list. CNU is in agreement with the “remove” option currently being contemplated by Toronto City Council and will be doing their part to support the Gardiner East petition that Stephen and I created. Thank you for that :)

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When you rezone a property to build something new, pretty much every city will ask you to provide reports and studies that assess the potential impacts of that something new. 

They’ll ask you to look at the impact on traffic, the impact on storm water, the impact on shadows in the area, and the list goes. This, of course, is fair and reasonable. It makes sense to measure the impact of the proposed changes to see if it will work in the given context. 

But those are not the only impacts to consider. I think that many of us underestimate the flip side, which is the impact of doing nothing, or in this case, building nothing. Here’s a recent quote from an excellent interview with urban economist Edward Glaeser :

Personally, I believe there are always huge costs to saying “no” to people who want to create space for new families that want to live in the city; who want to make the city more affordable. There are always costs – I believe that very, very strongly – but, sure, there are also benefits to saying “no” at certain times.

Glaeser is, of course, not saying that we should allow unfettered development. He is saying that there are costs (or impacts) to building and costs to not building. The challenge is that we assume, often incorrectly, that saying “no” simply means the status quo will prevail. And we do not consider the impacts.

So what does that mean? Here’s an example.

The Neptis Foundation, which is a nonpartisan and charitable urban research group, just published an interesting report called, Growing Pains: Understanding the new reality of population and dwelling patterns in the Toronto and Vancouver regions . 

What the report did was compare growth and settlement patterns in both the Greater Toronto (and Hamilton) Area and Metro Vancouver between 2001 and 2011. And what they found was two different stories.

Of the one million people that moved to the Toronto region between this period, roughly 80% of them settled in new greenfield housing subdivisions at the urban edge. And only 18% of people moved to areas that were well serviced by public transit.

By contrast, only 31% of Metro Vancouver’s population growth went to greenfield areas and 69% went to urban intensification areas. Nearly half of these new residents ended up settling next to high frequency transit.

From an environmental standpoint, Vancouver’s settlement pattern is obviously preferable. But it takes hard work to achieve that. The barriers to infill development are more formidable than the barriers to greenfield development. This is despite the fact that there are well documented social, economic, and environmental costs associated with urban sprawl.

My point with this example is that growth and demand will find somewhere to settle. Some locations make more sense than others, but sometimes there’s no choice when we have decided to say “no.” So what we ought to be doing is measuring both the impact of building, as well as the impact of not building.