The Promise & Peril of Transit-Oriented Development
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
- Montreal is not a city you associate with transit-oriented development. The typical metro station is surrounded by medium-density walk-ups, and where higher density does exist it’s not necessarily correlated with transit. But while it’s no Vancouver or Washington, DC, Montreal has been building more density near transit over the past two decades than you probably realize. In this video we’re going to check in on some TOD around the city to explain the promising potential and the fundamental problem with transit-oriented development.
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Density data came from the Canadian census, using 2021 numbers when possible/relevant.
We really need to pay more attention to placemaking when considering TOD. People in older urban neighborhoods walk everywhere because it's convenient, and also because it's fulfilling. When your grocery store walk involves well-defined space, active facades, and natural materials, it's a rewarding experience. When your grocery store walk involved vast blank surfaces, giant glass surfaces, and nature band-aids slapped in front of buildings, it's less rewarding.
Something something Japanese zoning (generally very unrestrictive land use) lets places form naturally
Doors. Ground level entryways. The fewer there, the more sterile the place feels.
@@illiiilli24601 and it only works because they have japanese demographics.
@@illiiilli24601 Yep. More microcontrol of land use is not the solution.
@@muhcharonahow do you know? We haven’t even tried it here
Makes me want to coin a term. "bureaucratic walkability": things made to appear walkable solely to satisfy some requirement, rubric, metric, etc.; often subverting the intention of the requirement.
It's like those bike lanes they sometimes add that no sane person will ever use (insanely dangerous and don't lead anywhere), so they get more funding to their road projects, and once they inevitably see that no one uses them, they use that as an argument to "repurpose" them to yet another car lane according to their original blueprints.
First time?
Imo, the issue isn't TOD, its that new NA neighbourhoods are usually designed as standalone islands of walkability.
Exactly. What if I have friends who live in other neighborhoods? What if that shop I like to purchase at is in a different neighborhood? I think the communities should be forged together with corridors such as transit lines or multi-use paths where applicable.
That’s because there’s no alternative what do you expect? Walkable = dense. Dense requires increased population. You can’t densify an entire city without massive population growth.
San Diego is an exception. Our largest TOD cluster, Mission Valley, straddles 8 LRT stations. So it's becoming a back-to-back parade of mega-TODs and the city's largest mall. One of those TODs, SDSU West, is a satellite university campus only 8 min away by grade-separated LRT from the main campus.
@@DiamondKingStudiosit’s funny that most of North America has backed down on anything other than underutilized rail cooridors for this purpose
@@jens_le_benz Nothing has the same sort of pain as BRT creep. Enough for me to not want BRT at all
The problem with transit oriented development is that it's basically come to mean reasonable density around suburban rapid transit nodes instead of reasonable density around all mass transit, which would include urban bus lines that cover basically the entire urban core of any city with decent transit.
Suburban rapid transit (or other trains/trams/metro) probably have a higher capacity than buses, and they usually also get you to further destinations and quicker, without having to changeover. So it kinda makes sense. If I had the choice between living near a major train station, a (sub)urban metro station, and a (well serviced) bus stop I'd pick them in that order.
That being said, I absolutely agree overall more density (along with better urban design) everywhere would definitely be good, else you end up with "walkable islands" that don't improve the city overall.
To their defense only the Nun's Island project is around a suburban rapid transit node. And that one was built long before the said transit project was on the table. It was built as an upscale/secluded neighborhood, maybe the closest thing to a gated community in Montréal with a couple of others. All the other examples are around legacy subway station but on lands that were poorly used before the subway came and seen as undersirable.
My main critic of those examples is that if you don't live in those fancy condos, those projects don't change anything to the surrounding community and are in no way their focal points (hence the no trespassing signs and blocked pathways...). A real TOD should have a proper master plan and the involvement/leadership from the authority to ensure that they include more smaller shops near public transit with some public services and green/gathering spaces so that everyone goes there.
This is why I tell visitors not to use public transit. The suburbs get all the good stuff, while the city just gets the transportation stuff. This is why I have Uber and Lift on my phone.
Ironically, the places in Montréal that works best as ‘TODs’ aren’t proper TODs. They’re just regular neighbourhoods that had the luck of not getting cut in half by a car sewer.
"car sewer" lol yeah those car "sewers" are the problem.. not left wingers thinking these dense cities in north america are anything but cancerous
Boston Pizza.
A canadian restaurant chain, founded by a Greek immigrant, selling Italian food with an American name.
I had no idea until today that Boston Pizza was Canadian!
Another probably related 'fun' fact: the 'Hawaiian pizza', aka the controversial & divisive issue of 'pineapple on pizza', was also created by a Greek immigrant in Canada. ;) (His name was Sam Panopoulos or something).
@@OhTheUrbanity A spontaneously chosen and maybe a bit confusing name. The story is that he submitted three name choices in his application for a business licence: 1) Acropolis Pizza; 2) Parthenon Pizza; 3) Boston Pizza. His first two name choices were already taken and so his business would be called Boston Pizza.
Another odd name is California Sandwiches in the GTA. They sell Italian sandwiches....veal, meatball, chicken, eggplant, sausage and others.
Boston Pizza started in Edmonton.
Hawaiian Pizza is from Chatham-Kent (between Windsor and fake London).
i happen to know someone who lives in a faux-TOD island similar to this and they described it as "getting on the subway is part of walking out my door" where they've kind of accepted that they need to go downtown to do basically anything and consider their actual local area as sort of a write-off. it's like a less terrible version of people living in exurbs and having to drive to acomplish anything.
That's a great way of putting it. It's easy to see a TOD and think "wow it's so walkable" but there needs to actually be something to walk to. It feels like an oversight but it probably just takes more resources to get walkability right.
As long as they go on the subway what is the problem? All the best entertainment will congregate in the downtown, anyway. Local stores should do local stuffs. The social cost is still lower than driving everywhere.
Le Triangle is fucking horrible. There is no social life, it's what I call high density suburbia. There is no 3rd place there.
A lot of developers try to create “community”, but fail horribly. They can feel artificial and isolating.
Who would have guessed that density by itself is not a silver bullet? ;)
As someone who lives near The Triangle and go to the De La Savane Park often I disagree with you.
Get over it. What are we supposed to do instead?
@@yungrichnbroke5199 Try harder? Accept community feedback? Create spaces to go to, not just places to live?
Cities like Toronto definitely need more mixed-use and walkable transit-oriented development, especially if we want to replace insanely loud stroads and seas of asphalt.
Vancouver? There's a type of modern urbanism named after Vancouver. Been going on for decades now.
My next door neighbours recently got T boned by a taxi driver’s dangerous driving on Décarie Boulevard. 10 weeks of surgery, hospital, rehab and they’ve only just made it back home a couple days ago. You’re not even safe in a car on Décarie. It’s Montreal’s tumour.
Hello from Copenhagen.
I have nothing on my mind. I just like your videos.
Thank you!
The best transportation is the one not needed. TOD still operates under that assumption that transportation is critical for daily activity.
The station is just one component in a walkable neighborhood.
I attended i hockey camp in Montreal when i was about 15 years old. The family i stayed at didn't pick me up after practise so i had to walk. I had to cross a 6 lane road that didn't have any lights for pedestrians. Took me a while to figure out i had to follow the car lights. I'm from Europe btw...
It’s crazy to realize that Décarie used to be a boulevard with tram lines in the center.
Yea it’s sad that it’s not the case anymore 😢
What?? Please bring it back!
@@lucaonorati5317 With all the extreme weather we will be getting more and more, it might become a canal with a vaporetto for public transport!
Seriously, there are photos online you can find of its previous appearance.
The biggest issue it seems is that cities allowing TOD tend to only allow the TOD, and not allow even small scale urbanism outside of that zone. Density near transit is good, but density has to be allowed everywhere to make our cities not livable
Speaking of covering highways: Have a look at Hamburg, they're building close to 4km of tunnels. They'll be topped with parks and garden allotments, allowing previous spaces for allotments to be converted to housing. That particular section of the A7 is notorious: There's the Elbe tunnel, recently expanded to 4 lanes each direction, then multiple tight exits in Hamburg followed by an interchange and more A7, carrying basically all rubber-wheeled traffic between Denmark and Europe west and south of Poland. Up to 120k vehicles per day and that doesn't even include harbour traffic as unlike the federal transportation ministry the Danes don't hate cargo rail and Schleswig-Holstein was happy to upgrade the tracks to allow for longer Danish-spec trains.
As a German currently in Montréal, I'm surprised at the unused potential of the railroads directly running through Montréal. The bad access of Westbury is also because it seems impossible to change anything about the railroad. This would be the perfect place for a suburbain train station, with an underpass nicely connecting Westbury with the Triangle and the metro. Now, they are forced to used the existing unwelcoming underpass of Décarie.
That struck me too. Presumably Montreal’s history was of a major rail terminus and port - and all that infrastructure is still there, with freight trains rumbling through the inner / mid suburbs, massive rail yards (sizeable one near griffintown…walking distance from downtown, and the massive one further west (not that far from some of those ToD examples).
It’s take some work and $ but, for the sake of montreal, move all that rail (and port, and the Petrochemical alley in east Montreal) off island, use the space for housing and the rail corridors for a quicker growth of REM network.
In San Diego, yes, our $4B TOD (SDSU Mission Valley) is surrounded by a car sewer, but it's got a an ace up its sleeve: it's a satellite university campus connected to its main campus by an 8 minute, grade-separated LRT ride. It's a massive ridership hack considering driving between the two campuses without traffic takes 12 minutes--before accounting for time spent finding parking.
While the Rosslyn Ballston corridor in Arlington was very neighborhood, and an existing residential area, newer places like Tysons in Fairfax (silver line in VA) see a lot of the same struggles. Built around a major mall, and what was once a cross roads turned into freeway interchange. They’ve been building a lot of new developments around the metro, and the walkability inside them is nice, but leave their small footprint and it almost becomes a death trap along the main roads (Route 7 & 123). The county has been s,ow to fix the major arterials, and instead Vdot has actually widened Route 7 north of Tyson’s. Really a mixed bag still 10 years after the silver line opened there in 2014.
Yes, agree. I just rode past Tysons on the way to the airport using Metro. At the station, I didn’t know how to exit towards a place with people. It was not a welcoming place. It looked foreboding.
True Towns Take Time. The Wilson Boulevard corridor was reimagined/rezoned/future-densified/what-have-you at roughly the same time the Orange Line was being planned in the 1960s. The Virginia segment of the Orange Line was originally designed to be a surface-only line in the I-66 median all the way to the river. Arlington County pressured WMATA to redesign several miles of it as a subway under Wilson Blvd as part of their greater vision for the county's future. You seem to have forgotten that it wasn't "an existing residential area" in the 60s. Far from it! It was a hellscape of used car lots, crappy little strip centers, sketchy motels, a mall so car-centric that it was named for its freaking PARKING GARAGE ("Parkington"), and everything else that urbanism ISN'T. It took DECADES for Arlington County's seed to bear fruit and they're still upscaling the corridor to this day. You can't insta-build better urbanism. This is reality, not "The Jetsons." True Towns Take Time!
If anyone wants a good example of TODs you just have to see pre WW2 railroad suburbs. St. Lambert on the south shore is a good example. A railroad station that connects to downtown, a walkable city square with tree lined streets, parks, access to bike paths. It's a great place that was essentially a 15min city before the term and it's associated fear mongering was coined. It's when you get to the newer parts of the suburb when it becomes car dependent. Also stuff could happen to change a TOd . I bought a condo in a TOD that had a direct bus to downtown, but the REM changed that and now I have to take a bus to the REM station which I find to just be an additional expense of time and money and feel cutoff from the city. I remote work now because of that and don't even want to go to downtown Montreal now. Good job REM.
I left Montreal before REM opened. Is REM + Bus transfer actually faster than previous direct bus ride?
Ville Mont-Royal was also built as a train suburb with the tunnel through the "mountain" . And since the REM took over the tunnel and tracks it could become one of the best TOD ... but it's a suburb of rich nimby single-family homes, infamous for having built a fence to stave-off the plebeians from Parc-Ex.
@@seanshen8325nope. Because of the transfer time between the systems I get to my destination at the same time.
The Condos around Angrignon metro were originally intended for retired people. It is all about the convenience of being close to the mall and being able to use the nearby park. The neighbourhood was not meant for families. Thousand more units were built along Newman further east. Most of those were quickly bought as investments and are rented out. It is not a good mix of people there at this time. As someone who lives in the area and has seen how it has been developing I am hopeful that things will improve but it is more likely this neighbourhood will resemble Airlie St. in LaSalle in about 10 years.
I do live in a 20-25 year old development near the motorway, but there’s plenty of pedestrian walkability right around it and both a subway and a bridge crossing to the old terraced suburbs.
There’s a couple points where the motorway is kinda loud, but it’s mostly tree-lined enough to be alright.
If you go too far down the same street without crossing into the prewar terraced suburbs though, you get car dealerships and run-down industrial parks until you hit the next development of flats a mile or so away.
But it’s half a mile from the bus and three quarters of a mile from the train, and almost everyone who lives here walks into the old town via the underpass to get their groceries. People only tend to drive to work or for long family trips-out, since there’s so many shops etc in the main street running down the middle of the terraced streets. Plus easy access to the train if you want Brand outlets in the city centre, like Apple or Nike or Lacoste.
This is in Glasgow, where a ton of the South Side and West End has had old river-based ship and cargo infrastructure converted into hundreds of flats. (Like in Govan and Finnieston.) But I’ve seen similar patterns play out in other UK cities.
It seems that the cities of US and Canada have been designed to maximize car company profits! We definitely need to take our cities back!
I think the problem with a lot of "transit oriented" development is that it's generally still more convenient to access by car than by any other mode. Calling that sort of development "transit oriented" is disingenuous. To be worth the name, a transit oriented development ought to be a place where transit is unquestionably the best option. Otherwise, it's just a car oriented development with a nearby metro stop.
A well functioning economy has cars being the more convenient, more expensive option for high priority trips, and transit being the cheaper, slower option for most trips.
@@FullLengthInterstates A well functioning economy should have cars at the absolute bottom rung. I'm fine with speed limits made to make sure private cars are slower than bicycles.
Yes the fences around my local train station are annoying.
They almost defeat the point of good transit connections.
What station are you talking about?
@@jetfan925 Clareview in Edmonton has fences around the property line of a nearby apartment to the South East. A fence also runs along the south end of the parking lot: almost doubling the walking distance to the nearby Super Store.
When I was living downtown or on the south side: it would make more sense to get off at Stadium and visit Save-On-Foods if I was going to have to walk that far anyway. I have since learned that the fence on the south side of the parking lot normally has an open gate.
My late brother also opted not to take the train to the Royal Alex because they put up a fence to block access to the dialysis unit. They did it to prevent lost people from just walking in. But it also prevents disabled people from taking transit.
Honestly Montreal and many other city didnt really get the concept of TOD right in my opinion. In most documents and most experts agree that TOD absolutely need: good walkability, mixed used developpement so more small commerces, coffees, jobs, and so on, and good bikeability. If you dont have at least 2 of those It's a really bad TOD so what we have are really bad TOD. We know how to build dense, mixed, fun and nice areas around transit. Verdun, le Plateau, the city center, and many other stations proove this. We just have to replicate that with a little more density.
It's not always that they don't get it, but also that it's just inherently more difficult to retrofit walkability and bike infrastructure into these hostile environments. The Plateau didn't have to deal with a sunken highway.
Metro station... That requires you to walk through a sea of asphalt 😡
Ik it should be mud!
I took a commuter style bus to the movies from downtown to the suburbs. Since it took express lanes and only 2 stops it was pretty nice. But it takes 5 minutes just to walk around the theater and its parking. And it takes 10 minutes to get to the returning bus station because that’s on the other side of the highway. They seem to be doing TOD there with new apartments which seem like it could be cool with bus transit stations and living next to the theater seems like it could be cool. But everything is still surrounded by surface parking and it’s by the highway so it’s like a half-measure.
Sounds like Denver and Los Angeles to me
Really makes you appreciate the efforts of Seestadt Aspern huh?🗿🗿
Narrow sidewalk with no buffer zone is the worst, one wrong step and you're toast.
It's like how the Rockland Mall and the Marche Central are good places to shop, but are surrounded by highway 40 and the L'Acadie so they are sometimes dangerous to cross as car don't always stop, and because they are so wide with no shade in the summer if can feel a lot hotter when walking down.
Ah yes a TOD thats right next to a highway, makes total sense
Well...if we don't want TOD next to freeways, we need to stop building our transit stations next to them...or...move the freeway, lol...or at least lid if so it's covered by a park or something
lets see we NEED large plot of land with little of value on it to build our TOD neighborhood AND it NEEDS mass transit access that exists and the only time those 2 things come together also have great highway access for heavy trucks OR mass amounts of cars in the form of dead industrial lands OR shopping districts
Modern zoning regulations in North America basically restrict developers from building high density housing anywhere other than next to a highway, bar a few exceptions. We live in upside down world over here.
From this European's perspective, you're looking at the wrong side of the problem. None of the developments you showcased seemed like the problem. The problem is that they're being shoehorned into car-brained cities à la carte. North American urban planners need to take a more wholistic view of their cities rather than the very piecemeal approach that seems to be the norm at present.
Yep this is every new development outside Vancouver too. 100 skyrises straddling a stroad, wow urbanism
As someone who lives in the “De La Savane-Namur sector” for more than 15 years the Decarie expressway has been a big nuisance but I’m excited about the big projects that are happening in this area which is the middle of the island of Montreal. This area is very different compared to what it was in the early 2010s. I’m really interest on how projects like Carré Lucerne in TMR, Royalmount also in TMR, The unfinished Le Triangle neighborhood, Hippodrome Namur and Westbury could affect the area for decades to come! The orange line really needs to be extended to Bois Franc!
on Décarie: Unlike Toronto, Montréal has needs for north-south arteries between the USA and northern Québec. Décarie used to be the only one. The tunnel/25 didn't always provide a link to laval as a highway. There is a short section that has been covered in NDG. But considering Décarie boulevard (ground level) is industrial/commercial, there is far less incentive to cover Décarie Highway in beteween north and south Décarie Boulevards up to create park space. The redevelopment of Blue Bonnets may create such a need near Jean Talon. is it hell? Hell yes ! But one has to be realistic that not al parts of a city have to be perfect. The elevated portion of Métropolitain is a bit more human friendly since easier to cross but still all concrete and unpleasant. , More importantly, but is a HUGE drain on provincial finances due to maintenances and they don't know how to rebuild it without shutting own the city. It is Montréal's 401 that crosses it fully east-west.
Note that the CP tracks as well as Ville Marie boulevard (no longer highway due to narrower lanes) also block movement similar to Décarie, but not as obvious. But when you look at it, there is a limited number of underpasses that go under both. When it was rebuilt, they couldn't add more underpasses because they could only put one where there was anso underpass under tracks and a street on the south to accept it.
Freeway caps should go from being rare oddities to standard for many a reason including air and noise pollution...
Seattle has been planning on putting one on Northgate which is very Similar to the Triangle in a lot of ways
Quebec city is getting new residential towers on site of malls. For now Fleur-de-Lys is the only one in construction, but galleries Charlesbourg and one in Ste-Foy should get the treatment too. What is nice about these projects is that they plan on reducing the parking areas to make ways for parks near the towers and the city is trying to build bike lanes towards downtown near them. Kinda curious how it will end up.
But, at the same time, we have projects like on Louis XIV were they rase down an old history property with a ton of trees to make luxe condos with at maximum 6 trees in a central path….. And no commercial usage possible at all.
We should learn a thing or two on that from Tokyo’s zonage laws where a mix if everything in different ratios is allowed.
Tysons, VA has a plan for how they want to densify around the silver line, but it is moving frustratingly slow… all of the silver line stations are still horrendously car centric and it kind of continues everywhere you walk. But I do have hope that one day there won’t be an 8 lane stroad outside these stations… at least the TOD in Potomac Yard is doing a bit better in that regard, they didn’t have to spend decades catering to commuter traffic.
Build housing for 40k above Tysons Corner Center. Instant density.
I’m so glad you guys made this video, this topic has been on my mind recently since Montreal seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on TOD for new development to address the housing shortage. I learned recently about the Namur-Hippodrome project, which the city is advertising as a “carbon-neutral district, focused on active and public transportation, and green areas”. Sounds great on paper, but reading the preliminary master plan I was appalled to see that, to get to Namur station from the west side of the new development, pedestrians and cyclists will be expected to cross the Décarie expressway on a small overpass, with the “possibility” to create a tiny lid to extend it next to the metro station, as well the Décarie Boulevards, two 4-lane monstrosities on either side of the highway, with the “possibility” of removing one lane in each direction. I don’t know if it’s a lack of ambition, lack of funding or fear of taking away space from drivers, or a combination of these, but the city clearly can and should be doing much more here.
Great video, thank you! The No Tresspassing signs are just... ugh. It's so frustrating when there'd be a perfectly good path to walk, but for some bs reason you're not allowed through. Hope all the other things you mentioned can be improved soon!
I stayed near Westbury at the Residence Inn Midtown last year. We needed to get baby food and saw the grocery store in the development. Getting there on foot wasn’t the worst, but no stop signs or traffic lights at Vézina and Trans Island Ave was stressful. Cars just sped through the intersection. Walking through the development was pleasant and I saw there were lots of families there. That still didn’t stop the odd driver from driving too fast down the one way. Once inside the grocery I was shocked to not find baby food anywhere. I haven’t lived in Montreal for decades, but I can’t believe this would be the norm. Regarding Metro access, I didn’t even attempt to walk to Namur. Seeing the footage in the video confirms that was the right choice. We walked to Plamondon instead, which was a much nicer walk with a stroller.
This is totally what a lot of suburban developments in maryland, especially the dc suburbs, feel like. It kinda reminds me stylistically of the faux urbanism you see in theme parks or resort towns tbh.
As someone who used to live right next to it, I cannot overstate how much I despise the Décarie expressway. Nevermind it being absolutely hideous and polluted, it's also incredibly loud! The dug in trench amplifies sounds to the point that every semitruck that passes by will wake you up immediately. And forget about trying to sleep past 3:00 am, when traffic begins to pick up!
Even as a someone who used to regularly commute in and out of the area by car, the place is a highly unpleasant and nerve wracking place to drive through. Perpetual traffic jams, bridges that look like they might collapse at any second, psychotic drivers who slip into exits at the very last second...never again! The whole thing should be filled with cement.
Suburban TOD is for people who want some of the benefits of suburbs (lower cost, bigger homes) but also would like to function without a car by living on a direct line to the network. Other than the unsafe road crossings, I wouldn't say there is a huge problem. Most cities have ample capacity for densifying the core for people who want a true urban lifestyle.
That highway should be capped. By capping it, it would connect the TOD to the shopping center and turn the new capped road into a walkable boulevard.
i think the biggest issue TOD has is that its not treated like an actual neighborhood. its built in many of the same ways as a suburban or exurban development, isolated from its context and environment. they also usually also obnoxioisly "modern" in a way that is made to jack up the prices on their apartments as much as humanly possible. tod should be treated like just creating a new neighborhood. it should add a dense center to the neighborhoods around it with pleanty of different destinations and services for people who live in these areas as well as for people in the surrounding area, with good, visible connectuons bwtween them. They also should act as catalstst to transform the suburbs from somewhere that is dependent on downtown to somewhere with its own core, which can transfrom it into something more like the streetcar suburbs of the past
also they need copious amounts of affordable housing.
great video as always! Thanks for all your work! Im a little surprised you didnt discuss the new development in Brossard, I found it a very suburbanised form of walkability, kinda interesting.
So in the Bay Area, Oakland has a plan that calls to add 29,000 housing units to its downtown area, which is already served by the Lake Merritt, 12th Street, and 19th Street stations, and about another 15,000 to BART station areas outside of downtown, specifically Coliseum, West Oakland, MacArthur, and Rockridge, and that's just within the Oakland city limits. That's combined with calls to demolish the 980 freeway that separates Downtown from West Oakland, which could be replaced with a linear park boulevard and 5,000 housing units. All of these allow for mixed use, partly thanks to Oakland's planning department not being a bunch of carbrained troglodytes and partly thanks to updated state government policy.
This is one thing that I genuinely think is going to improve about California in the coming years. And the fact that rents in Oakland have actually been dipping over the last year bolsters that hope.
Denver has the exact same problem, especially with subsidized housing developments. They take decrepit abandoned industrial areas next to the highway, creating islands of density with little connectivity to the rest of the city.
I lived in Laval-des-Rapides, Laval. We have 3 Métro stations Cartier, De la Concorde and Montmorency.
At Cartier they are building new Appartment block north of boulevard Cartier where a small casino, jewelry, bingo/dance hall/Video Store used to be. But pedestrian have to cross a 7/8 lanes to cross ovec Cartier terminus or go west a block to cross a more pallatable 6 lanes cross another block west at Émile the road drop to a pallatable 4 lane cross however who walk two block west and walk back 2 block east to get to the metro stations. The safest way to cross to the metro for the futur resident is to take the last stop on the buses on Des Laurentides going to the metro. They should have an underground passageway built under the building so it's easier to cross Boulevard Cartier Ouest to reach the Terminus. They did it for the Pont-Viau Neiborhood Resident across Boulevard Des Laurentides in the Parc-des-Libellules where a mid rise is back to the Parc Rosaire-Gauthier in the Saint-Christophe Neighborhood . The former Catholic Parish just north west of Cartier Station The former church on Lévesque East was convert in an old folks residences. Locals access the Métro by crossing Lévesque East and St-Hubert Street through the entrance north west of Métro Cartier locate in Parc Des Libellules who look more like a vacant lot than a parc before the metro implementation. The big building like O' Cartier and the numerous old folk residence along Place Juge-Desnoyers are more oriented towards the River Des Prairies than the Métro Station.
They are so far away the Société de Transport de Laval had assign a special shuttle #12 Place Juge-Desnoyers who make the route back to the metro station in 10 minutes.
I never seen more than 6 peoples on that bus. Place Juge-Desnoyers is separated from Parc Rosaire-Gauthier by the Marigot i.e. a branch of the Des Prairies River making the place almost an island.
Cartier is not a real Transit Oriented Development it's more a Road Oriented Transit (ROT) who is located near two big road Cartier and Des Laurentides to facilitate the access by buses to the metro.
De la Concorde Métro Station was build in the yard of a lumber yard in a former industrial land. The reason of the placement of that station is the presence of two things The C.P. Rail track of the Saint-Jérome Exo Line and the De La Concorde Ouest /West boulevard a long arterial road going from Sainte-Dorothée in the West Laval to Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in East Laval.
The boulevard became Boulevard Notre-Dame west of Highway Des Laurentides and De la Concorde Est/East of Boulevard Des Laurentides. Confusing ?
The Highway Des Laurentides is in Laval-des-Rapides and Boulevard is in Pont-Viau which mean Boulevard de la Concorde Ouest/West only exist in Laval-des-Rapides.
They have move the lumber yard activities in the East of Laval and had start building condo south of the stations however instead of building the condos closest to the station they start to built it the further away first living the industrial activities in Operation however the only building of importance Clinique Ampère who had a perfect bland of office and commerce i.e a Subway Restaurant , a dry cleaner ,a pizzeria Paris and Chinese Restaurant Le Pompon Rouge has been demolished to be replace by nothing just so you can have a better view of the station from the Ampère / De la Concorde intersection.
Those Beeping architect / Urbanist with their beeping god/aerial view. i.e. High in the sky watching down or/on a beeping maquette should be banned accross all Architect / Urbanist school around the world. The only view matters is the one 5 feet from the soil. The Human view.
That building was bought and demolish to be replace by a place with benches that no one use because it at the corner of two arterials roads. Concorde ain't a transit oriented development (TOD) is a Rail /Road oriented Transit (R/ROT).
Finally Montmorency a station build in a former forest (Boisé Sauriol) which start at Sauriol street in the Bon-Pasteur Parish and went north up to Du Souvenir boulevard. I used to do Cross country skiing in this park when i was a kid. Boulevard de l'Avenir was a one way lane in front of the Cégep Montmorency.
The construction of the De la Concorde / Notre-Dame underpass in 2001. Cut the Boisé /Woodland in half and only thing left of the Boisé-Souvenir is a Retention basin Le Corbusier south of Boulevard De la Concorde Ouest. The new Station was build in the middle . A new Shopping center was build west closer to Highway 15 (Quartier Laval) the third or 4th of 5th shopping centre after Centre Laval (1960's), Carrefour Laval (1970's), Gallerie Laval (1990's) De L'Avenir/St-Martin and Cité-de-L'avenir east of Bd De l'Avenir and North of Trait Carré. which was the limit of former city of Laval-des-Rapides. A big fucked up of Shopping center with big box store and huge parking lot and no residential building around with the exception of the mostruosity known has Résidence Soleil a 25 th floor high rise Old folks residence in front of Métro Plus Dépatie corner of De l'Avenir/Du Souvenir.
Across Lucien L'Allier Street you can walk to Espace Montmorency a 32 floors monstrousity who dominate the neighborhood of single familly home south of De la Concorde Boulevard. So finally Montmorency station named after Montmorency Cegep who was named after the first bishop of Québec Saint Francois-Xavier Montmorency-de-Laval who also gived his name to Laval University in Quebec City and the City of Laval.
It is a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) but it's an isolated TOD between Boulevard de L'Avenir in the East, Boulevard De la Concorde Ouest/West to the South Boulevard Le Corbusier to the West and boulevard du Souvenir in the North. Closed to Highway Des Laurentides in the West, and surround by shopping Center. This fake Momorency neighborhood should be name De l'Avenir while the real Montmorency station is an auxillary Métro station locate in a parc close to the Collège Montmorency.
Erratum : I made a very small mistake here !
The Pont-Viau Neighborhood include the Boulevard Des Laurentides which means the Neigborhood end and start at rue Saint-Luc Street locate 1 street west of Boulevard Des Laurentides .Therefore Boulevard De la Concorde Ouest exist for about 200 ft (66 meters) in Pont-Viau. But it's almost exclusively in Laval-des-Rapides.
I'm glad you mentioned the sea of private property signs; here in Portland, our most famous TOD is Orenco Station, and seemingly every street there has no throughput. I much prefer South Waterfront, which sounds a lot closer to Nun's Island in terms of implementation, albeit much more hemmed in by its adjacent highway.
Some of those paths were really beautiful though
In Portland, one of the main barriers to TOD is that much of our light rail network is paired with the freeway network. Among the more successful TOD corridors are the ones that aren't - such as the Blue Line between Hillsboro and Beaverton, or N Interstate Ave in Portland.
What strikes me about most of these neighborhoods is that they are built as if residence and commerce are deathly allergic to one another: never shall they meet in the same building. If dense housing gets built, then it's placed next to an ocean-parking and a mega-mall, rather than integrating commercial space into the ground floor of each medium/high rise. I feel that this design philosophy ultimately contributes to the "dead" feeling of many neighborhoods that seem idyllic only at first glance, while a scrutiny that goes any deeper than surface-level finds out that the communal spaces are great only for picture books and have no actual value for the people who live there.
It's great that ToD and walkable spaces are being created, and it goes without saying that I'll take the half-arsed bullcrap over nothing at all - but fact remains that there are some significant improvements that can be made, and it baffles me they're not being implemented from the get go when countless cities elsewhere in the world have working examples we can draw inspiration from. I'm hoping it'll improve sooner rather than later...
Not all of them Thornton Place in Seattle's Northgate Neighborhood is an Example where this doesn't Happen
The comparison shot between Wellington St and Décarie (10:00) perfectly sums up the main issue with these new neighbourhoods. They're a step in the right direction, but change can't come fast enough to make the entire city walkable, mixed-use, AND transit-oriented.
These TODs look very lovely to me, despite their shortcomings 😍
Funny you mention Angrignon because I think I had my worst pedestrian experience there. I was waiting on the corner you show @ 1:04 and I'm pretty sure I had to wait more than 5 min to get a pedestrian crossing sign while a bunch of cars got to pass. No matter how many times I'd press the button, that little walking character would not appear. I hope it has been fixed since.
Nuanced points here, great vid as always
Good commentary. Have been to montreal, noted the semi-dense very vibrant and liveable inner suburbs but also saw there is only so much if it - as you soon come up against the expanse of transit (yep, walked over Descarie Highway) and industrial land (esp massive rail yards and port) in the middle suburbs that in other cities might’ve been re-situated / developed into housing by now. Good to see the Triangle and Westbury examples are sort of in / adjacent to that middle “ugly” zone.
And got to start somewhere, the first 1-2 TOD developments in those areas would indeed be square pegs in round holes - but they hopefully kick start other adjacent developments and, once connected into a whole, the whole area could be good (well, a lot better than what was there before)
I’ve been through some of the tower TODs in Vancouver. Lack soul / character - just somewhere to sleep for most?
I think that’s an underlying issue - TOD housing are mostly owned by investors, housing is small, occupants (renters) are those who can’t afford to live in a more characterful area closer to downtown… and tend to mostly be of a similar age, similar income, just passing through. Very difficult to have a vibrant diverse culture - at least in the early years.
All those first 3 examples (and arguably Ile de Soeurs too) are redevelopments - not greenfield. Any TODs being built out at ends of the REM lines? We have greenfield TODs (though to townhouse scale, not towers) here in Perth, Australia, right out in outer suburbia, townhouse clustered around the outer train stations. The developers build with investors in mind (bland cheaper buildings, notional “parks” …), the occupants are young / lower income just passing through, there are few amenities out there (and what there is is car-centric) - it’s not bad….but it’s not good either
There are some much better examples around Perth - but mostly in the already affluent areas, where towers sit alongside the river / ocean / major park, near pre-existing diverse retail and hospo area (kind of more like Nuns Island / de Soeurs)
On another note: It's so sad to see all these soulless apartment buildings everywhere, also in Montreal. This architecture (or better to say lack of architecture) can be found everywhere around the world, in Scandinavia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, etc. I hope cities around the world will focus more on their own identity and put more effort into building appealing buildings that give these cities a unique touch. Soulless boxes are not the way to go.
I fully agree with you, but at least it is not urbanism you could find anywhere in north America, it's a step in the right direction.
It would be nice if the expressway was capped with a park or housing development like in cities such as Boston or Seattle
Wow awesome video!
The new developments in my city, I don't know if they count as TOD. They are in car dependent hell with really bad pedestrian ammenities. There is a bus route nearby for what it's worth.
In Mississauga, we have TOD, but without the T. Built a max density residential neighborhood but it's about a 20 minute walk to busway and to the future tram (under construction, almost complete)
My city is getting it's own station on the FrontRunner regional rail line in Utah. We've been tasked with coming up with a "Station Area Plan" to create a district around the station with an emphasis on affordable housing and dense development. However, many people are resistant to it, mainly nearby farmers and people in low density neighborhoods who are against the proposed density and housing mixes, as well as the transit access the station would bring. I've been advocating hard for the station area to be oriented around active transportation and transit, with healthy levels of density (likely mid rises in our case) so it can make the most of the regional transit service
Nice videos, I like the use of brick to demark the pedestrian areas.
I share your videos, great work. You might not know this, but Australia seems to be looking to Canada for how to develop cities, particularly Toronto from reading a major newspaper article. If I mention how kids ride to school in Holland people roll their eyes, but if you mention that places are building actual bike lanes in Canada or the US then they take an interest. Great to have videos from Canada to share on how urban environments can be improved - thanks.
If you think think that crossing Decarie Expressway is one of the most dangerous in the Greater Montreal, you definitely need to explore more the area. Seriously, it's a piece of cake compared to most other highway crossings.
Eager to see y'all cover Royalmount!
The developments highlighted at the beginning are great ideas, but they are usually, if not completely, income exclusive. That is, you have to be upper class to live in them. In St. Louis, there was talk about creating such a development where the developer was requesting public funding, but not only would it be income exclusive, but it would have displaced the lower income people already living there. Hence, the major problem of such things.
New housing will tend to be more expensive than old housing, but being apartments/condos they're still substantially cheaper than luxury detached homes.
Definitely agree with your reservations about TOD. It is a lot better than nothing but it seems to me that it is favored over densifying the core parts of the city because of political ease rather than that its really the best option.
Île des Soeurs is relatively young, I think from early 1970s. The first buildings were mid rise midscale appartments for young professional couples. They were in small area served by the CTCUM/STM bus to downton (originally the 12 went to downtown, when metrio to Angrignon opened, CTCUM moved the 12 to de lÉÉglose, protests ensued, ad teh 168 (i think)( was created to serve dowtown. Not sure itr was "TOD" but perhaps more development oriented transit as transit was added because of development. However, it was also car centric because of the types of young professionals who lived there. The rest of the island was forest/park with small roaads for cycling/jogging. Your video did not note the low density areas further to the south of the island with single family homes or semi detached. As opposed to the whole island being a park, there are now individual parks between homes throughout and the bus lines now serve the full length of island instead of just a narrow area south of the highway.
When Bell Canada effectively moved to Toronto, they downsized their virtual head office from the tall buidling on Robert Bourassa/de la Gauchetière (gray building) to small offices and Verdun accomodated them with with low taxes on an otherwise unusable and inaccessible strip of land north of highway. Loo at Google Earth in 2010 imagery when it was just them. The reconstruction of Champlain bridge created easier access to that "island" within the island and residential has since been built there. (the underpass in middle (under what is now the REM station) is key to that).
On using cobblestones/tiles instead of ashphalt: it is a way to reduce strain on storm sewers by allowing water from rain to infiltrate between tiles and letting soin below soak up water. It makes a big difference because the grass around it is busy already absorbing water from its own space.
I was at that exact spot where you started your video just 2 weeks ago! It was my first time in montreal
4:55 the guy racing to the red light in an absolute beater
Les TOD sont une excellente idée... quand on les applique correctement. Et c'est justement là le problème.
Je crois qu'on a atteint la phase 1 du problème, qui est de créer de l'accessibilité interne. Il reste l'infrastructure globale inter-quartiers à développer. Ce point est toujours plus difficile à faire parce que c'est le moment où on impacte réellement les routes (et donc les automobilistes). Au moins ça commence à faire son chemin. Une fois que les gens pourront vivre dans leur quartier sans voiture, on va pouvoir plus facilement implanter des moyens alternatifs de transport et de développement ultérieurs.
C'est plate, mais c'est probablement un passage obligé dans un contexte de "travailler avec de l'existant."
Très bonne vidéo, merci !
I'm not sure any of these should really be considered as a TOD example. They merely are land-grabs sold at higher prices for the proximity to a public infrastructure (or exclusivity in the case of pre-REM Nun's Island). What do they lack ? They lack that anyone around that does not live there has nothing to do there. Those "no entry" signs are not there for nothing. A good and proper TOD should have a mix of public services, shops, green spaces/gathering spots for everyone and where people can go on their way in/out of their homes. Kuddos to Westbury for having at least one grocery store.
Grabbing prime real estate is not building a TOD. What is missing in Quebec - and most of North America I think - is some leadership from the public powers and a master plan to ensure that these developpements become actual TODs that serve the whole community instead of just surrounding public transportation. The natural densification over the time around the current métro station are much better TODs than every recent developpement in MTL that was sold as a TOD.
It could have been nice to hear about the new Rosemont station that has now a much better library and a mix of normal and social housing while also providing lots of employment on the other side of the street. No single developper is to be credited for what Rosemont station has become but it is still in my mind a better TOD.
On another topic, Angrignon and Nun's island don't have the nice pavement because they are older and Montreal did not use those sorts of pavements a lot outside of the Old Port at that time. If Nun's island had to be rebuilt today, there is no doubt that such an upscale developpement would have that treatment.
Thank you so much for including people with disabilities in your conversations about urbanism.
That’s why we should start with walkability and rideability forcing developments of whatever size to focus on building and restoring connectivity with the wider environment first. If we add mobility to light industrial and commercial areas first, then when housing is added we don’t end up with islands of isolated pathways with nowhere to go.
Do these neighborhoods have mixed in small business on the first floors and offices? or is it strictly for housing? Either way thank you for the video, very interesting. You should explore Lyon, France, there is some exciting things happening regarding urban development I would point you towards the neighborhood "Confluence" and the metro stop "Jean Jaures" :)
Three of the four have some shops on the first floor (for two of them that includes a grocery store). Angrignon does not, I believe, have commercial mixed in, but it's right beside a mall with all your needs. The problem there isn't proximity, it's the unpleasant street environment
IMO a factor that's sometimes ignored when we talk about transit-oriented development is the development and expansion of the transit system itself. The farther the transit system reaches, the more neighborhoods you reach, and the more options you have for development. Plus, generally speaking, the further you get from a city center, the cheaper the land is, and the fewer things there are in the way of shaping the terrain in a way conducive to a walkable neighborhood.
What unholy abomination is a "Boston Pizza"????
My poor NY heart can't take it
A staple of Canadian suburbia!
@@OhTheUrbanity I looked them up. They don't show a single pizza on their website's splash-screen; you have to scroll down a bit. Honestly makes a lot of sense 😂
At least we have better bagels than you
It is shocking to me that a metropolitan sophisticate from New York would be unfamiliar with BP, their world famous spicy perogy pizza is the pinnacle of Canadian Prairie fusion cuisine 🙃
We used to have a Boston pizza in my city, it was delicious. They closed down though.
I have not gone to nun’s island this year, if not for today’s temperature I would take my bicycle and go spend an hour there, it’s a half hour ride from home near monk bridge…
I feel like a lot of the gates and private property signs around metro stations are part of a more systematic issue with skyrocketing drug use, theft, and vandalism.
At least crime can be combated with free drugs.
Île des sœurs (nuns island) is a notoriously exclusive snobby divorcee or rich retiree neighbourhood. Never was it planned for families. They are an afterthought.
Good video.
Re: pollution: naturally clean air is best, but if you do have to live in such a place, don't forget the possible use of air purifiers and N95/KF94 masks (they're not just for covid!) It sucks to need to, but you can take measures to have clean air at home and in your lungs.
Now on a tangent: I have new pet issues now of balconies and awnings (or other shade), and I was very struck by how _ubiquitous_ balconies were in the new construction you showed. Seriously, I suggest replaying the video (maybe on high speed) and looking for "can residents step outside without leaving their unit?" The answer is _yes_, way more than for US construction which currently favors totally flat surfaces. I was paying less attention to shade (though balconies often _are_ shade for the unit below), but t=48 shows a short building where some effort has been put in to provide overhangs.
Part of nice apartment life is the apartment dwellers having a little patch of 'outside' they can put plants in and access without having to get their shoes and keys, and Montreal TOD eems to be doing a great job in that.
Edit: I did a replay, looking for shade, and that's not so great apart from the balconies. A few recessed windows, a few wraparound balconies/porches, but mostly flat windows without awning, overhand, or adjustable top-hinged shutters. So no control over sunlight and heat other than interior curtains. Granted it _is_ Montreal, far north and historically not that hot, but if northern Europe can use top-hinged roller shutters...
I'm wondering what the price difference is between these TODs
Excellent question, alongside revenue generation for the local councils.
My hometown Espoo next Helsinki had a car ideology when in the 80' and 90'. Now it's turning in to urban part of Helsinki city.
There's metro line and tram line in Espoo now. Both built in the last 10 years. But most people still live far from public transport.
Town is planning to built more tram and metro to old areas. And city and companys of course keep building more houses around the metro and tram lines that we now have.
It's hard to turn a car town in to an urban place when houses are all over town and there is no central.
Calgary mentioned! We're a city that somehow does TOD well and terribly at the same time. Bridgeland is a good example of us doing it pretty well, but selling the land around Westbrook to a developer that squatted on it for nearly a decade was a terrible move. The city recently bought back the land and should be announcing something maybe by the end of the year to finally get Westbrook going. Beyond that, we have way too many Park & Rides in Calgary that sit empty most of the time, or are misused like Brentwood Station which a lot of students drive to and then walk over to the uni from there. I'd say we could house 100,000 more Calgarians if we just developed the Park & Rides and adjacent vacant/underutilized land. Won't solve our housing crisis, but will put a massive dent in it.
Walkable neighbourhoods are nothing without an easily and pleasantly accessible (
These are some of the nicest neighbourhoods and streets in Canada take it from someone lived in these areas for a year
Hey layered nice video as always. How do you define the walkscore?
Just taken from here: www.walkscore.com/
Municipal governments need to demand more right-of-way concessions from builders. Since builders are always asking for, and receiving, more zoning variations, this should be an easy requirement.
Namur was supposed to have a tunnel and second exit on the other side of Décarie back when the Blue Bonnets raceway was still open. Something to think about when walking/stuck on the 24/7 traffic of Décarie 😂😢
montreal is such an interesting place because 5:58-6:08 because you'll have gorgeous housing development right alongside hideous mega store plazas and seas of asphalt. the contrast is jarring
Mobility matters. Walking, cycling, ebike rentals, escooters, safe protected bike lanes and trails all connected with green open spaces are needed.
Cities need to be designed for people not cars.
I been to this area. I know once I see the giant orange. 🍊 but I never saw this development. Dang I want go back Montreal explore
So I don't know if this makes sense but I hear this from people in walk-ability discussions when it comes to people being able to independently explore their city "Its alright for you Ed but you're built for that, you look tough. However cities are not safe for most people to independently explore least of all children, women and people with disabilities. Walkable areas attract mugging, people who are violent for the sake of it and [2 Samuel 13:14] to them. You may not appreciate this given you don't live in a city but cities are big diverse places and so independent exploration is just not possible for most people as they risk crime if they walk the city." So I was wondering, how do we de-stigmatize walkability as something that almost inevitably leads to crime.
as someone who lives in the medium density neighberhood near the angringon-lasalle area and passes to the stripmalls often. it SUCKS to bike there, 5 lanes of traffic for kilometers, with a sidewalk that doesnt hold 2 people side by side is not an environment to be in. it is a place you go only when you have to. would really love just the bare minimum; an actual sidewalk, trees, bike parking, hell a bike gutter would make this place 2x better.
Imagine being that guy that’s what’s TOD and then complains that’s it’s not perfect… maybe you would be complaining there isn’t highways if everything was walkable
TOD away from downtown cores of most cities are something that allows you to walk around your local neighborhood but to go anywhere else in the city, most residents will need to have a car. That also means they will need to have parking lots or garages for those cars in those apartment blocks
Decarie Expressway is already depressed so you would think a lot of it would be decked over by now.
There is a new suburb of Bristol currently under development that will eventually be served by a new railway station. The plans are quite ambitious, including a 15-acre park and Bristol's first arena (fingers crossed). As far as I know, they've only built houses and small blocks of flats so far. I think it's inevitable that many of these properties will be sold on the basis that they are close to the motorways to the north of Bristol.
5:30 Just look at the percentage of the surface reserved exclusively for car driving and parking. It's insane how little room is left for all other purposes combined.
Im drawing Parallels between the Triangle and Northgate, Northgate has a hige Station and a lot of density from the mall Redevelopment plan, however its Right next to I-5 ane Northgate way Cuts through the Center acting as a Throat for Buses and cars to Access Northgate Station and Park-n-ride
Also something notable is that Seattle has been building more 7-over-2s lately which are a bit taller than 5-over-1s but are otherwise very similar and Northgate has a lot of them with many more going up