Want a Better City? All You Need is TOD

Does any doubt remain that our urban planners botched the job years ago? We have too few highways with too few lanes going in and out of town, a measly until-too-recently two-line subway system to serve one of the largest urban populations on the continent, barely any pedestrian-friendly streets to speak of, and nowhere to build but up.

Still, with the somehow radical and yet completely common sense concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD), we can hold out some hope. I came across this story on Treehugger.com, but it’s less about the environment and more about simply creating cities that are easy to get around in, healthful and thoughtful land use that is conducive to nurturing a less stressful, more enjoyable experience for residents.

Transit Adjacent Development (TAD) has been the bane of many a city, including our own, as it builds up and up those locations that are on top of existent subway stops but ignores the outliers in less dense areas, even those a few bus stops away from the core. It encourages price disparity in the real estate nearby, and puts an undesirable emphasis on car ownership for all but the chosen few.

TOD, though, is TAD’s antithesis.

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, who fight “emissions, poverty and pollution” worldwide from their New York HQ and offices worldwide, are encouraging development based on eight pillars:

WALK: Develop neighbourhoods that promote walking.

CYCLE: Prioritize non-motorized transit networks.

CONNECT: Create dense networks of streets and paths.

TRANSIT: Locate development near high-quality public transit.

MIX: Plan for mixed use.

DENSIFY: Optimize density and transit capacity.

COMPACT: Create regions with short commutes.

SHIFT: Increase mobility by regulating parking and road use.

“The TOD Standard sums up the new priorities for contemporary urban development. They reflect a fundamental shift from the old, unsustainable paradigm of car-oriented urbanism toward a new paradigm where urban forms and land uses are closely integrated with efficient, low-impact, and people-oriented urban travel modes: walking, cycling, and transit,” according to the organization.

What a wonderful city it would be (If only we lived in a different climate — I am theoretically in favour of everything this organization says it stands for, but we all know things change come November. When the wind is howling and the snow is flying, I for one am not going to be jumping on my bike or standing at a bus stop. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of living where we do).

Walking in a sustainable city is about a lot more than just strapping on shoes. The TOD emphasis encourages furniture placement and abundant landscaping, “active” building edges that turn mere walkways into nifty public spaces, lots of trees and path coverings to give shade and shelter, visually permeable frontages instead of blank compound walls for both esthetics and safety, speed table crossings for traffic calming, and two meters of clear space to make footpaths as usable as possible for as many as possible. It also encourages the establishment and maintenance of physically segregated cycle tracks any time motor vehicle speeds exceed 30 km/h, which is just about everywhere in the GTA.

To Connect, the principles of TOD in practice would mean reducing the size of city blocks to one hectare or less, with no dimension longer than 150 meters, and breaking up blocks with publicly accessible pedestrian-and cycle-only paths. Unfortunately, of course, such ideals boil down to a less than lofty reality: Who’s going to pay for it? I think the answer (at least in part) is actually pretty simple — let’s start using development fees not for public art that is diverting at its best and an outright eyesore at its worst, and start getting builders to fund these sorts of improvements instead. They’re already shelling out the money (and by “they”, I mean you, the buyer, of course). Let’s put it to better use.

In addition to the cost question, in the case of the publicly accessible pedestrian and cycle-paths, there’s a rather unseemly human element that I suspect might also stand in the way: rich people don’t want the average folk wandering through their neighbourhoods. I’ll leave it to you to suggest how we overcome the worst of human nature.

The TOD Transit principle recommends limited space between subway stops to 1 km, which I think is probably a little farther than most stops in Toronto, but we have too few lines. In addition to the newish Sheppard line and the Eglinton crosstown LRT, there are vast swaths of Toronto untouched by anything but an overcrowded streetcar or inconvenient bus.

The Mix principle is one that’s been borne out by research many times: the most successful (and most fun, let’s face it) communities are mixed use. In the case of TOD, that means residential, institutional, office, light industrial, affordable housing, and commercial all in the same block, and in a mix of horizontal and vertical forms. If you can live near work, you’ve already eliminated one of the most stress-causing, life-wrecking things you can do: make a long daily commute. By offering entertainment, shopping and services options nearby, residents are encouraged to support local businesses and to keep the neighbourhood thriving by spending their money close to home. Similarly, Density creates lively communities with enough consumers to support local economies.

“Compact” speaks to the centering of development around high capacity rapid transit (another expensive proposition) and redeveloping existing areas to let everyone have access to local schools, services, and jobs with reduced travel times — and fewer emissions — as a result. They suggest keeping commute times to employment centres at 20 minutes or less by public transit. With Toronto’s commute times now averaging over an hour by car, this is quite an ambition, and one wonders if Torontonians would ever get out of their cars on a regular basis in favour of public transit, no matter how easy we make it.

Shift, for their part, refers to the virtual elimination of private conveyance. Bye bye, car. Walking, cycling, and high-capacity transit would replace everyday automotive as a way of life. They suggest reducing the supply of parking (gads!), replacing minimum off-street parking requirements with enforced maximums, reducing space for traffic and parking to no more than 12% of the total land area and pricing on-street parking to manage demand.

This, of course, needs a shift of another kind — a total shift in the way we think. We’d have to put a stop to the narcissistic, me-first attitude that is the hallmark of the selfie-driven, Kardashian-loving 21st century so far and get back to an others-first, embracing of change sort of mindset. I’d love to say we can do it, but I have my doubts. Still, though, the only way we’ll ever know is to try.