Christopher Leinberger, author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, writes about walkable urbanism and public transit in Vancouver in an article for the latest issue of BC Business magazine.
While Leinberger praises Vancouver for the steps it has taken to date in creating a walkable urban city, he points out that we still have a lot to do. Most of our neighbourhoods known for great walkable urbanism are in the city of Vancouver, but there are still few walkable urban places in the rest of Metro Vancouver despite “significant transit investment over the past generation”. He writes:
Most of your suburban transit stations have not witnessed the complex, vital, walkable places that the City of Vancouver is known for. Burnaby and Surrey are attempting to retrofit low-density suburban places with walkable urbanism and seem stuck in between. While the great urban bones of Surrey Central have seen encouraging reinvestment, there is a long way to go.
Further on in the article, Leinberger offers suggestions for improvement:
Around existing and planned transit stations, there needs to be legal and financial encouragement to promote high-density, walkable urban places. Within 500 to 1,000 metres of each of your current and proposed transit stops there should be “special transit zoning,” which allows for mixed-use, high-density development (apartments above coffee shops, office space above grocery stores). Hopefully, mechanisms will also be put in place to encourage and financially support mixed-income housing. This is the necessary precondition for the real estate industry to produce the low-energy and low-carbon development required and demanded by the market today.
Read Leinberberger’s full article in BC Business magazine here.
Public Transit in Vancouver 