Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 234

The province of British Columbia made the following announcement this week :

The Province has updated the BCBC to remove the [building] code requirement for a second egress, or exit, stairwell per floor in buildings up to six storeys. This change will make it possible to build housing projects on smaller lots and in different configurations, while allowing more flexibility for multi-bedroom apartments, more density within areas of transit-oriented developments and the potential to improve energy efficiency in buildings. Previously, the BCBC called for at least two egress stairwells in buildings three storeys and higher.

This is meaningful progress. And BC is the leading the way in Canada. But from a global perspective, we are not leading the way. This is us catching up.

As part of this building code change, the province commissioned a report on single egress stair building designs . In this report, they looked at various jurisdictions from around the world:

Their non-exhaustive findings:

There are at least 30 jurisdictions with SES building design requirements that permit midrise buildings with a building height of at least 5 or 6 storeys. In addition, the Center for Building in North America (www.centerforbuilding.org) reports that 8 US states have passed legislation into law, or are reviewing possible options for doing so, to allow larger SES buildings when their Building Code is next revised. In most cases these revisions are intended to allow SES buildings of up to 6 storeys.

For example, Seattle already allows up to 6 storeys. Belgium, New Zealand, and Australia allow up to 9 storeys (driven by a maximum height in meters). And Finland allows up to 18 storeys, according to the report.

Though keep in mind that building codes are complicated and often have frustrating gray areas. There may be other requirements that need to be met in order to achieve these heights.

It's great to see BC making these moves. Now watch for other provinces to follow suit.

Neat B and I tried surfing for the very first time today in Biarritz. Our instructor was a 57-year old Frenchman who has been surfing for 50 years (he allegedly started when he was 7) and who spent some 20 years living in Costa Rica doing the same. Sounds super stressful, if you ask me. We both did well for our first time, and managed to catch waves and get up on our massive spongy boards. (This is what they give you when you have no idea what you're doing.) Naturally, we'll be doing the same thing tomorrow morning. Biarritz is an awesome place. It feels to me like the summer version of all the things I love about Utah in the winter -- breathtaking landscapes, chill vibes, and cool people doing fun things on boards and such.

https://videopress.com/v/3Eq80SZc?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

I was very impressed by Bordeaux's tramway network. It felt like no matter where you were in the city, there was a tram gracefully passing you by. Here's a high-level summary of the system :

• The network has 4 lines and a total route length of 77.5 km.

• The first line opened in 2003.

• The network has 130 stops, which crudely results in an average stop spacing of around 600 m.

• The system pioneered ground-level power supply for the trains, which means no overhead wires. Supposedly this caused some issues upfront, but now it seems to be working just fine.

• Most of the network runs on a dedicated right-of-way (en site propre). Meaning, the trains don't compete with car traffic. Many of the lines are quite beautiful too - see above video.

• In 2018, the network carried close to 100 million people. This is in a city of ~260k people and a metro area of ~1.4 million people ( 2020 ).

The key differentiators for me are (1) the stop spacing and (2) the fact that most of the system runs on its own dedicated right-of-way. These are two reasons why Toronto's streetcars perform so poorly . They stop too frequently. And most of the lines have to compete with traffic.

So why bother? Walking can be faster.

Bordeaux shows that -- if you implement light rail correctly -- you can actually move a ton people efficiently. With surface rail, you can also build out a robust network in a relatively short period of time.

Twenty years isn't that long in city-building years. It has already been 10 years since Toronto was first promised SmartTrack .