Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
Right now the Toronto International Film Festival is going on in the city. It’s actually one of my favorite times in Toronto. There’s so much going on and the city generally does things that it doesn’t normally allow, but that it should do all throughout the year, such as extending last call at bars and closing down streets to cars.
This year, King Street between University Avenue and Peter Street has been made pedestrian-only. It encompasses an area known as the Entertainment District and includes the Bell Lightbox, which is the TIFF HQ. The street was closed last Thursday and will reopen this Monday. So it’s a 4 day thing, that TIFF is calling “Festival Street.”
Some people – like me – are really excited about this. Here’s s picture I tweeted out on Thursday night. Given the engagement (retweets/favorites), I think there are others who feel the same way I do:
But there are others who are furious that their commute was disrupted last week and that we’re inconveniencing locals for the sake of hosting one of the top film festivals in the world. (King Street typically moves about 60,000 people per day on the streetcar and 20,000 vehicles.)
But when I walked the entire 650 meter stretch on Thursday night, it was completely full of people. There were people playing large-scale chess. There were people eating at picnic benches. And there were lots of people just enjoying a wonderful summer stroll in the city.
And all I could think about is that this is an unmet need in the city. King Street is a wonderful place to be right now and we don’t have an equivalent during the other 361 days of the year here in Toronto. So rather than be upset that we’ve closed down 6 blocks of downtown, I’m only upset that we don’t do more of this and make it permanent during the rest of the year.
I’m not necessarily saying that King Street is the best place to do this. Yonge Street initially strikes me as being a better place to start. But I am saying that if we have to reconfigure things to make our city more awesome for when guests come over, that maybe we should think about how to make it more awesome all the time.
Earlier this month the Toronto Star published an article talking about the resurgence of streetcars in American cities. According to the Star, 89 cities in the US are currently implementing or at least considering building some form of surface-rail system.
But the article also goes on to argue that it could be a snobbish fad. Streetcars are new. They’re shiny. And they make yuppies – who don’t like taking buses – feel better about themselves. But is the ROI really there? Is the economic impact of streetcars as big as people are making it out to be?
To support this argument, the Star quoted transportation planner Jarrett Walker, who I’ve mentioned here before on Architect This City. But according to a follow-up post that Walker did on his blog, it would appear that he was misrepresented in the article. Here’s a snippet of his response:
Here’s the bottom line. Streetcars are just a tool. They can be used in smart ways and in stupid ways. Asking a transit planner for an opinion about a transit technology is like asking a carpenter what his favorite tool is. A good carpenter sees his tools as tools and choses the right one for the task at hand. He doesn’t use his screwdriver to pound nails just because he is a “screwdriver advocate” or “hammer opponent”. Yet the Toronto Star assumes that nobody involved in transit debates is as smart as your average competent carpenter.
I wanted to share this because I think it’s a great way to approach transportation planning and because I think it gets at a larger issue that we continue to face here in Toronto: We keep politicizing mobility tools. Cyclists have become pinkos. Streetcars are a war on the car. And the list goes on. How about we just look at the problem, and figure out what solution would work best?
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”
-Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1846-1912)
I’m a big fan of Chicago. Having now visited the city, I can say that everyone was right when they told me that I was going to love it. It has great art and architecture, great food (with some of the largest portions I’ve ever seen), great nightlife, and great people.
But I don’t want to talk about any of these things today. Instead, I want to talk about something much more specific that stood out to me last weekend: Chicago’s relationship to both the water and the street.
While Chicago and my hometown of Toronto share many similarities– including being situated on a Great Lake and having rivers flow through the middle of them–the relationship to these bodies of water is remarkably different. Here is a photo of people kayaking in the Chicago River on a Friday afternoon:
What impressed me about Chicago is how intimate and urban the relationship is with the lake and its rivers. If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that many of the buildings are built right up against the river, but that there’s space allocated for riverwalks, patios, and so on. It’s all about engaging and connecting with the water.
Toronto on the other hand, is only recently starting to reacquaint itself with its bodies of water. We spent much of the second half of the 20th century with our back turned to the lake and without a strong urban connection to the Don River. And if I had to guess why it’s because we built highways along them.
We built the Gardiner Expressway adjacent to Lake Ontario and we built the Don Valley Parkway adjacent to the Don River. This fundamentally changed our orientation and largely precluded us, I think, from creating the same kind of waterside urbanity offered in Chicago.
As an example, consider that in the first half of the 20th century, Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood – which today still has a questionable reputation – was actually an affluent and desirable waterfront community filled with beautiful Victorian mansions. It was well connected to the waterfront, and so the area flourished. Here’s what Sunnyside Pavilion used to look like:
But then in the 1950s we built the Gardiner Expressway, disconnecting Parkdale from the lakefront and destroying many of its amenities, such as the Sunnyside Amusement Park. In turn, the rich people left and their large Victorian mansions got chopped up into rooming houses and other rental housing stock. And in my view, Parkdale still hasn’t fully recovered from this.
Highways are divisive. There’s no question.
So unless you can afford to bury them, it comes down to trade offs: Do you want to make it easier for people to drive in from the suburbs or do you want a truly spectacular water or riverfront? In the 1950s we chose the former. But even still today, the thought of tearing down–even a portion of the Gardiner Expressway–is fraught with opposition. I guess not much has changed.
The second way that Chicago impressed me is through the relationship that many of its buildings hold to the street. They come down to ground level with authority and with great retail presence, and often make no amends about their mass and impressiveness. This frames the street and creates a level of urbanity that isn’t always found in Toronto – particularly outside of the downtown core.
In Toronto, the trend today is towards street level podiums, significant setbacks, and delicate point towers that minimize the impact of their height and allow for natural light to reach street level. It’s well-intentioned and perfectly appropriate in many urban settings. But sometimes you need a little urban assertiveness. Sometimes you want to impress and impose. And Chicago does that.
What I’m getting at is that Chicago architect Daniel Burnham was on to something. He famously advocated for man (that was the era) to think big. Make no little plans, he said. And it’s admirable advice. Toronto is going through a tremendous transformation right now. We’re North America’s boomtown, which is a title that Chicago would have held at one point.
But as we build for the future, let’s remember that, long after we’re gone, we’re going to be judged based on the plans we are making today. So why not make them big ones.
Many of you, I’m sure, have seen this public sculpture before, either in person or somewhere online. It’s called Cloud Gate and it’s by Anish Kapoor – though its nickname has become, quite simply, the bean.
Given that it’s been a hugely successful piece of public art, I asked what people thought the ROI of it might be. Obviously I wasn’t expecting any sort of number, but I wanted to draw attention to the fact that the right kind of investment in public art can pay huge dividends. Oftentimes we, developers and others, don’t think of it in this context though.
And it’s probably because it’s so hard to figure out what those dividends might be. What’s the value of a big recognizable bean that everyone around the world associates with your city? But if you think about it, it’s not that different than a corporate logo that everyone knows is yours, which is why I’m interested in the branding of places.
However, as Gil Meslin rightly pointed out in his tweet storm response to my tweet, it’s hard to consider the bean investment in isolation. I mean, the whole point of the bean is to reflect the surrounding urban landscape. So if it wasn’t for the larger Millennium Park investment and the beautiful historic buildings along Michigan Avenue, maybe that bean wouldn’t be the bean that it is today.
Ultimately, that just makes coming up with any sort of defensible ROI even more difficult. But that shouldn’t deter us. Because as I’ve said before, just because you can’t measure or prove it (right now), doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea. In this case, I think it’s pretty clear that this bean has been a hugely successful investment.
Traffic is a big deal when it comes to real estate development. Residents are almost always concerned about the additional traffic that a development might bring to their community. And who can really blame them. They’re frustrated by traffic as it is in the city and so they naturally assume that more residents in their community will translate into more cars on the road.
But as natural as this reaction might seem, I don’t believe that opposing intensification is the right long-term solution. In fact, I would argue that the question of traffic is a bit of a red herring. Because as Toronto’s Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat explains in this blog post, density can actually go a long way to reducing traffic congestion. And it does that by placing people closer to where they work, and by creating an environment that’s more conducive to other forms of mobility: walking, biking, and public transport.
So instead of becoming fixated on traffic, I think there’s another, perhaps more relevant, question that we should be asking ourselves: Will this development, over the longer term, help to encourage a modal split that leads to more transit usage and less driving?
Because if it doesn’t, well then we’re not doing anything to correct the problem we already have. In fact, if we don’t allow intensification to happen, it means we’re simply pushing demand outwards, horizontally. And the more you push people out of a city, the more likely they are to drive. In which case we’re only delaying the inevitable – which is more traffic.
Last week The National Post published an article talking about Toronto’s Crosstown LRT and how it’s spurring a wave of development all along Eglinton Avenue. Below is a map, taken from that article, showcasing some of the developments that are currently in the pipeline and awaiting the Crosstown’s opening date of 2020.
Not surprisingly, developers like transit investment. But more specifically, they like fixed track transit investment. Rarely do new bus routes elicit the same sort of response that you’re seeing above. And that’s because fixed track investment has permanence. If you’re going to go long on an area, you want certainty.
As the Crosstown tunnel boring machines move across midtown Toronto, I thought it would be interesting to look at a transit concept that I first learned about through Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog. It’s called: the radius of demand.
One of things that transportation planners look at when designing and building a new line is the spacing of stops. Typically, as you move from buses all the way up to subways, the spacing between stops and stations increases. Spacing is always a bit of a trade off though, because more stops means easier access for riders, but it also means slower overall service. Somewhat famously, Paris designed its metro system so that you’re rarely more than 500 meters away from a station.
Once you have your station locations, it’s quite common to then draw a radius around each stop to simulate the catchment area. In other words: How much of the city can I service with this station and how far will people be willing to walk in order to get there? However, this distance, which is the radius of the circle, usually depends on the type of transit. Oftentimes people are willing to walk further in order to get to faster transit service.
But what’s most interesting about this radius of demand is that it’s entirely dependent on the fabric of the city. Take for example, the following two maps from Seattle, which I have taken from Walker’s blog. On the left is a suburban setting and on the right is a downtown setting. In both cases, the red circle represents a 1 km radius.
Now, if humans could fly over barriers, such as highways, and every Seattle resident was willing to fly exactly 1 km to a transit station, these two radiuses of demand would be perfectly accurate. But since that’s not the case, we instead need to look at what actually represents a 1 km walk – those are the blue lines in each image.
Because once you do that, you realize that the cul-de-sacs and highways on the left make it impossible for most of that radius of demand to actually walk to the station in under 1 km. So the catchment area actually becomes much smaller. On the other hand, if you look at the image on the right, you’ll see that the tried and true city grid is actually remarkably efficient for walking. Almost all of the circle is serviced.
So as the Eglinton Crosstown LRT makes its way through the center of Toronto, I think it’s important to keep in mind that it’ll be cutting through quite a few different kinds of street grids. Some of them will be highly conducive to transit usage and others not as much. And in many ways, this is one of the greatest challenges of transit investment. The track itself is only one part of the puzzle.
That’s why the City of Toronto is also undertaking a planning exercise called Eglinton Connects. Its intent is to leverage the opportunities, as well as address the challenges, that will result from Metrolinx’s Crosstown LRT. If you’re interested in the future of Eglinton Avenue, you should consider getting involved. Oftentimes it’s only the critics that speak up. But that’s not the best way to build anything.
Last weekend a friend of mine sent me an article from The Economist talking about why trams, streetcars, and light rail are a waste of money. The argument is basically that steetcars are expensive, less efficient, and that – despite North America’s renewed interest in them – we should instead be spending our scarce public dollars on more buses.
…but cash spent on streetcars displaces spending on other, more cost-effective forms of public transport like buses, which offer cheaper and more-efficient service but are considerably less sexy. The capital cost per mile of a streetcar is between $30m and $75m, while a rapid bus service costs anywhere between $3m and $30m, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Now, there’s no question that buse routes are initially cheaper to implement. You don’t have track to build. But I don’t agree that the cost structure is quite that simple if you consider the number of people you need to move in your city. I struggle to see buses as a more efficient service.
The big difference between modern light rail and buses is capacity. Toronto’s new streetcars will move about 3 times as many people as your typical bus. So you’d need to triple the number of buses and triple the number of drivers – adding to your labor costs – if you want to have a chance at moving the same number of people.
Streetcars are also electric, which means they run on a renewable energy source. We’re in the process of making this switch with private transport, so why go backwards when it comes to public transport? You can certainly run electric buses as well, but then you’re building overhead power lines and bringing up your initial costs.
I think the challenge is that when people think of light rail, they think of slow lumbering streetcars. I agree that many of these lines are inefficient and I’ve written about it. But there are a number of ways to implement light rail. And when done well it can efficiently move a lot of people for costs that are far less than a subway.
Here’s further evidence that technology is starting to infiltrate into many other industries, including architecture. London-based architect and designer Pernilla Ohrstedt is currently working on an exhibition for Dezeen and MINI Frontiers that will architecturally visualize the 3D data that driverless cars collect in order to navigate around.
I had never thought of this before, but as a byproduct of driverless cars, we’re about to start collecting detailed replicas of all of our cities – well beyond the static images we currently have with Google Streetview. In order to navigate by themselves, driverless cars are constantly scanning their surroundings to create a “point cloud” replica of the built environment. This point cloud basically tells the car where they are, where they should drive, and what obstacles might be around.
It could look something like this:
Already there are firms like ScanLAB emerging to provide 3D scanning, publishing, and visualization services. But this is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. I can only imagine what innovation will emerge from the passive collection of all this data once driverless cars become commonplace in our cities.
As one example, it could be a way for us to systematically measure the correlation between the qualities of a street and the vibrancy of its street life. Is there a perfect width? An ideal traffic volume? A right scale? All of this data could make city building more of a science (and perhaps less political).
My hope though is that this data would be open and accessible to all, so that clever entrepreneurs could build on top of it.
I was out for a bike ride last night and, on my way home, I decided to try out the new dedicated bike lane on Adelaide Street. Usually I would take King Street, but it was completely full because of Caribana parties.
For those of you who may not be aware, the city of Toronto is currently piloting two dedicated bike lanes on Adelaide Street and Richmond Street in the downtown core. Both streets are one-way and because the lanes were so big to begin with (highway-like spacing), I’m told that these new bike lanes didn’t even eat up a driving lane.
Here’s a map of the pilot area:
Given that dedicated bike lanes are a scarce resource here in Toronto, I have to say that it was rather luxurious having my own piece of road. And because there’s no longer any fear of parked car doors swinging open, I was able to ride a lot faster than I normally would.
But as my friend Evgeny pointed out earlier this week, there’s a big difference between dedicated and grade separated bike lanes. Indeed, on my trip from Bathurst Street to Church Street last night, I encountered 3 cars parked in my lane.
So, I hope that these bike lanes become a permanent fixture downtown, but that the city makes them grade-separated. I’m sure people will use them. At the same time, I think they could also act as a catalyst for more pedestrian life along both of these streets.
If you haven’t yet tried them out, I would encourage you to do so. The city is tracking usage and so you would be supporting the cause. And if there’s anybody parked in your lane, below is one way to handle it. It’s a video by Casey Neistat out of New York. If you can’t see it below, click here.
The Old Urbanist has just published an informative post called “Where Zoning Went Wrong.” In it, he talks about some of the defining characterstics of American city planning and suggests that the delegation of planning authority from states to local municipalities is what has caused many of the challenges that city builders now face.
But before we get into that discussion, let’s outline the characeristics. By way of Edward Bassett’s handbook on zoning (1922), the Old Urbanist outlines 9 characeristics of American planning. They are:
Approval of the exclusion of commercial activity from residential zones
Failure to disapprove of the exclusion of multifamily from residential zones
Extreme deference to localities
Insistence on a “comprehensive” plan
Irreconcilable conflict between planning and zoning
Heavy reliance on legal process as a substitute for sound policymaking
Rejection of aesthetic concerns
Concern with protecting the wealth of well-to-do homeowners
Lack of comparative focus
If you’re a planner or city geek, some of these items will be familiar to you – particularly the first one. Single-use zoning (or Euclidean zoning) is widely criticized as being hugely detrimental to cities, which is why mixed-use is so much in vogue right now. We’ve realized that there are tremendous benefits to creating neighborhoods and precincts where people can live, work, play, and learn. And not just do one of those things.
But one point that somewhat surprised me was number 3: the deference to localities. The Old Urbanist’s argument is that around the world – from Germany to Japan – state and federal governments play a much more active role in city planning as compared to the US. And that the result is a different kind of city. As one example, most other countries don’t have single-family detached-only residential zones. The US does.
Now, you could argue that it’s partially cultural. The US is all about individualism, whereas many other countries around the world have a greater sense of collectivism. But as the Old Urbanist suggests, it could also be because local municipalities are more prone to NIMBYism, which can ultimately lead to downzoning and more restrictive land use policies. Interesting.
It was surprising to me though because I’m a firm believer in strong cities. They drive the economy and I generally believe that they deserve to look after themselves. And so could it really be that they need higher levels of government to keep advocacy groups and community opposition in check?
Immediately I thought of the planning environment here in Toronto and Ontario. The Places to Grow Act, which is largely responsible for the intensification we’re seeing across the region, is provincial legislation. And “the Board” (OMB) that hears appeals arising from the municipal planning level is also provincial. So in other words, provincial decisions trump municipal ones.
Many people believe that the OMB should be abolished. But probably an equal number of people believe that it’s critical to keeping development moving in Ontario. And, given our discussion here, it could be keeping our land use policies in check.
But at the same time, I wonder if there isn’t a way to structure local planning such that it doesn’t succumb to individual interests and instead keeps the greater city building agenda at the forefront. If you have any thoughts on this, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.
