NYC subways was built on this principle, albeit somewhat backwards. The first parts of the system were built to get workers into the densely populated industrial downtown (ironically now trendy shopping district). The second phase saw the expansion into the far reaches of the outer boroughs. Primarily to alleviate the over congestion housing, identical to what we are facing now. The new stops in completely barren farm land spawned a massive housing boom resulting in dense and vibrant communities. Put aside the overwhelming graft for these land permits to cronies, this was a huge success.
Transit expansions and revitalizations should go hand in hand with urban developments. One can spawn the other but neither should happen in a vacuum!
Andrew, you may have a case study example in Vancouver, BC to illustrate your point about meshing transit development with housing densification near stations.
First a comment: I'm struck that big urban city landscape changes need to respect the processes of democracy. People worried about losing their affordable housing along well-used bus lines that are also the path of future rapid transit lines will have concerns about a fair and equitable transition to implement "bright line rules" like the one you list as number one in your essay, "All rapid transit should have dense development at its stations."
That said, take a look at these web pages for a keyhole peek at real world process on how residential densification is moving forward in parallel with a Skytrain rapid rail transit extension under construction along urban Vancouver's Broadway corridor:
“The idea that a neighbourhood is entitled to quiet suburban form but also to subway service is ludicrous.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Home run! Touchdown! (Insert sportsy metaphor)
Toronto is full of people who call themselves “progressive” (and they may be in some ways) but when it comes to change in urban form they are regressive to the point where they are endangering the city’s future viability (and we are not far from that future). And I fear that many of those people are in City Hall.
There are so many good ideas in this piece, but I’m afraid that it falls on deaf ears (at least in Toronto).
I've been to Toronto, but I really have no idea about what you speak. It sounds plausible. But it made me think about commuter rail in Northern New Jersey radiating out from New York City. There are only a few stations along the path from Penn Station in NYC (right underneath Madison Square Garden) that have an urbanized character and where you can like, get something to eat readily. Those places are high minority communities and generally have crime in excess of normal in the bedroom communities the rest of the stations are in. Most commuter rail stations are essentially park and ride type places supporting those bedroom communities outside the city.
You hop on the train in the morning...let's say 6:30, and you hit a bunch of small stations and the train fills to standing room only before it hits the Northeast Corridor, which is also used by Amtrak for its service from Boston to DC. The few urban stations along the rest of the route have almost no commuters that board. So in a bit over an hour you go from semi-rural locations to the middle of Manhattan. It's not too bad, aside from looking at the squalor on the way in. The trip home is mostly the same in reverse, though a big sports event or Xmas or whatever in the city can make things more complicated on the way home.
The undeveloped rural stations, it occurs to me, are kept that way for more reasons than just lack of desire to develop them. It's a hindrance to using the rail station as a pathway for urban dwellers to come there. It's not spoken, but I think that is part of the logic. The costs to travel there are relatively high, whereas a trip to say, Newark, is cheap.
I moved to Maryland many years ago and I noted that the urbanized communities with significant crime and drug problems were located on the coastline of the Chesapeake Bay, right on the main line of the Northeast Corridor. Take a trip north of Baltimore and check out the scenery on the way to Wilmington and Philadelphia, and you see it. The communities with the train stations in them are noticeably impoverished and have significant crime problems, and the communities just to the west/northwest of them, inland with no train service, are where the suburban types choose to dwell with their high value homes. The difference is 5 miles in most cases.
Anywho I know in the US the YIMBY movement is going to have some issues with that precise issue. The 'changing the character of the neighborhood' thing is code for undesired new dwellers in the community and people will fight that tooth and nail here. "Mass transit issues" are about ghettoizing urban communities, at least from what I have seen.
NYC subways was built on this principle, albeit somewhat backwards. The first parts of the system were built to get workers into the densely populated industrial downtown (ironically now trendy shopping district). The second phase saw the expansion into the far reaches of the outer boroughs. Primarily to alleviate the over congestion housing, identical to what we are facing now. The new stops in completely barren farm land spawned a massive housing boom resulting in dense and vibrant communities. Put aside the overwhelming graft for these land permits to cronies, this was a huge success.
Transit expansions and revitalizations should go hand in hand with urban developments. One can spawn the other but neither should happen in a vacuum!
Andrew, you may have a case study example in Vancouver, BC to illustrate your point about meshing transit development with housing densification near stations.
First a comment: I'm struck that big urban city landscape changes need to respect the processes of democracy. People worried about losing their affordable housing along well-used bus lines that are also the path of future rapid transit lines will have concerns about a fair and equitable transition to implement "bright line rules" like the one you list as number one in your essay, "All rapid transit should have dense development at its stations."
That said, take a look at these web pages for a keyhole peek at real world process on how residential densification is moving forward in parallel with a Skytrain rapid rail transit extension under construction along urban Vancouver's Broadway corridor:
https://spacing.ca/vancouver/2024/06/14/broadway-plan-interactive-map/
https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2024/10/14/rethink-the-broadway-plan-new-petition/
https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2024/11/28/the-broadway-plan-and-tree-removal-case-study/
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/it-feels-like-a-cash-grab-vancouver-residents-speak-out-against-broadway-plan-high-rise-development-1.7112613
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/11/14/vancouver-broadway-plan-first-tower-approved/
https://syc.vancouver.ca/projects/broadway-plan/broadway-plan-amendments-engagement-boards-web.pdf
I'm guessing your essay if disseminated in the neighborhoods along the Broadway corridor would be a grenade in the wedding cake.
“The idea that a neighbourhood is entitled to quiet suburban form but also to subway service is ludicrous.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Home run! Touchdown! (Insert sportsy metaphor)
Toronto is full of people who call themselves “progressive” (and they may be in some ways) but when it comes to change in urban form they are regressive to the point where they are endangering the city’s future viability (and we are not far from that future). And I fear that many of those people are in City Hall.
There are so many good ideas in this piece, but I’m afraid that it falls on deaf ears (at least in Toronto).
I've been to Toronto, but I really have no idea about what you speak. It sounds plausible. But it made me think about commuter rail in Northern New Jersey radiating out from New York City. There are only a few stations along the path from Penn Station in NYC (right underneath Madison Square Garden) that have an urbanized character and where you can like, get something to eat readily. Those places are high minority communities and generally have crime in excess of normal in the bedroom communities the rest of the stations are in. Most commuter rail stations are essentially park and ride type places supporting those bedroom communities outside the city.
You hop on the train in the morning...let's say 6:30, and you hit a bunch of small stations and the train fills to standing room only before it hits the Northeast Corridor, which is also used by Amtrak for its service from Boston to DC. The few urban stations along the rest of the route have almost no commuters that board. So in a bit over an hour you go from semi-rural locations to the middle of Manhattan. It's not too bad, aside from looking at the squalor on the way in. The trip home is mostly the same in reverse, though a big sports event or Xmas or whatever in the city can make things more complicated on the way home.
The undeveloped rural stations, it occurs to me, are kept that way for more reasons than just lack of desire to develop them. It's a hindrance to using the rail station as a pathway for urban dwellers to come there. It's not spoken, but I think that is part of the logic. The costs to travel there are relatively high, whereas a trip to say, Newark, is cheap.
I moved to Maryland many years ago and I noted that the urbanized communities with significant crime and drug problems were located on the coastline of the Chesapeake Bay, right on the main line of the Northeast Corridor. Take a trip north of Baltimore and check out the scenery on the way to Wilmington and Philadelphia, and you see it. The communities with the train stations in them are noticeably impoverished and have significant crime problems, and the communities just to the west/northwest of them, inland with no train service, are where the suburban types choose to dwell with their high value homes. The difference is 5 miles in most cases.
Anywho I know in the US the YIMBY movement is going to have some issues with that precise issue. The 'changing the character of the neighborhood' thing is code for undesired new dwellers in the community and people will fight that tooth and nail here. "Mass transit issues" are about ghettoizing urban communities, at least from what I have seen.