How the REM is encouraging sprawl
A reader pointed out this Globe & Mail piece on how the coming of the REM is encouraging construction “outside the downtown core” – i.e., sprawl. No downside is considered in this piece.
A reader pointed out this Globe & Mail piece on how the coming of the REM is encouraging construction “outside the downtown core” – i.e., sprawl. No downside is considered in this piece.
Raymond Lutz 10:55 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Seeing the mentioned article: we’re living in a world of bad CGI illustrations, selling us what doesn’t exist (and manufacturing consent). Remind me of the idyllic images of Soylent Green finale when the old man is dying…
Tim 11:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
The article mentions an office tower that has direct pedestrian access to the REM. This doesn’t seem like sprawl to me. If anything the tower will hopefully have lots of people using the REM in the opposite direction in the morning, which seems like a good thing. It’s not feasible for all people and all businesses to set up shop downtown.
Blork 11:34 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Note this flag at the top of the article: “Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec/Handout.”
ant6n 11:59 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Calling the REM a Handout to the CDPQ is pretty accurate.
I’d say development near REM stations isn’t super urban, the occasional high-rise notwithstanding, because all those REM stations are on highways, and they don’t make for very urban surroundings. And some of those far-away stations that are basically just parking lots at the end of the developed area of Montreal will definitely induce sprawl.
Meanwhile, there’s actually plenty of space (e.g. in brow-fields) left on the island, most of it without decent transit connections (and the REM is actively preventing improving transit to some of those areas…)
The REM is an incredibly mixed bag with many missed opportunities and a lot of really bad planning, sprawl is a definite concern that can’t just be brushed away with ‘but that rendering showed an office tower’.
Clee 12:53 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
High cost of owning a house encourages sprawl, not the transportation.
Jonathan 13:49 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
I wish we would use TOD more appropriately. When I hear people mentioning Transit-Oriented-Development, they are actually very often referring to Transit Adjacent Development. Just connecting a development to a station that is on the other side of a highway is TAD… It’s an afterthought… and hardly oriented toward creating a symbiotic relationship with the transit infrastructure.
Those of you with a background in urban planning will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Faiz Imam 14:36 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
I went to one of the Solar Uniquartier real estate meetings, read the plans in detail. I’m in no position to buy anything, but I wanted to satisfy my curiosity.
it has one large parking structure, but what they’ve done is place it along the highway to act as a buffer. Once you’re in the development, there is zero evidence that there is a highway nearby. The vast majority of users will only see it when they pass over the bridge to the station. The highway is not a relevant factor to the lived experience of anyone in that area.
The amount of parking is quite large, but if you calculate it per residence and per unit area of office space and retail, its actually quite low and lower than most suburbs. My understanding is that it will probably use the system of having paid parking, with credits given if you buy something.
I also met with the planners behind Mississagua’s downtown21 plan a few years ago. We did a walking tour of Square one and they gave us a idea of the values behind their thinking and what was coming in the decade ahead. The issue they face is the no1 priority for most people is parking. nothing but parking. But they’ve been able to design guidelines to make the urban fabric and street front experience much higher quality, so that establishes a certain baseline. The land values are so high that there is almost no surface lots anymore, all new buildings have underground parking (a lot of it). This unfortunately adds cost.
Which is the common factor among all these projects. They are all huge luxury focused projects that have very little concept of social mixing.
But one of my hopes is that the capital shifted here is money that does not go to gentrification of the urban core.
Raymond Lutz 15:02 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
“Once you’re in the development, there is zero evidence that there is a highway nearby.” And what about atmospheric pollution? You know, like, high level of PM2.5 ?
http://mtlcityweblog.com/?s=pm2.5
ant6n 15:29 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
The “values” of the Devimco “Solar Uniquartier” involves building a sterile fake village bordering two highways, and isn’t there a bunch of parking and like golf courses around? Even if it actually were a place that kind of simulates urbanity while you’re stuck there there, it doesn’t actual create an overall urban area … you know like the actual city. I don’t understand the love for these sterile fake cities (just look at page 3 of this brochure and puke at this shit), while we’re letting the actual city languish.
Kevin 15:47 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
@ant6n
What is a brow-field?
Faiz Imam 17:48 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
First of all my use of “values” was about Mississauga planners. I made no comment about devimco.
Also, as seen on the top of pg 3 of your link, the golf course is gone and a large new development is going in its place. As the region is in an official PMAD TOD zone higher densities were required in its place. The role of the PMAD in defining density was explicitly told to me by Brossard planners.
Most of the golf course is now a new elementary school and a massive new park, with low density single family housing mixed in. Then an entire block on the side towards the rail station is much higher density block apartments. An annoying loophole to get a certain average density, for sure.
The only surface parking in the area is in adjacent office parks build under previous planning regimes. Also there is a gargantuan IKEA warehouse that is now abandoned, and is expected to be developed into another high density extension i’m sure you’ll hate.
Like… you might call it sterile and fake, but to me it looks like contemporary design. Looks like any other modern architecture and seems pleasant enough. Regardless, the first phase is already done and open, an accountant friend of mine already works there. And all the units for sale are apparently sold out. So it will be packed and lively enough by sheer numbers.
kevin: brownfields are lands that have already been developed but are low quality or unwanted. For example a abandoned factory or stripmalls. Grey feilds are when you build on large parking lots. What we don’t want is greenfield development, which is building on pristine scrub, farmland or other undevelopped land.
Kate 18:03 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Kevin: I think he typo’d for brownfield.
JP 18:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
I very much prefer the city to what the suburbs have to offer. However, A LOT of people do like these sorts of developments. Just because we don’t get it, doesn’t mean there isn’t a market out there for it. Not everyone views things with the same lenses.
And, sure the high cost of owning a house encourages sprawl, but the price of owning a house will always be higher in the city than in the suburbs. It’s ultimately nicer to live in the city. I love living in the city and am willing to pay the premium. If the suburbs were actually nicer than the city, houses there would be more expensive.
I also know people who feel the need to have big houses. They’d be willing to go to the middle of nowhere for a palace. People are shallow and like to show off…
Blork 18:33 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
@JP: “It’s ultimately nicer to live in the city.”
But that too is a matter of opinion. Many people don’t care at all about the things that for others makes city living enjoyable. Things like having lots of people around, good selection of shops and restaurants nearby and handy, bars and whatnot…
Many people just like to go home after work, where they spend quiet evenings or entertain friends in their big back yards. They generally buy all their groceries at Costco and Provigo — stores that tend to be better in the ‘burbs than in the city. They don’t give AF about specialty shops and restaurants and bars (and on the rare occasions when they do go out for dinner, the restaurants in their ‘burb are just fine for their tastes).
Many of these people hate crowds and lineups. They don’t like living in small spaces, and they don’t like noise coming from neighbours, especially neighbours they don’t know.
And when they want to do something “cultural,” be it see a performance or an art show or whatever, it’s no big thing to go into town or simply stay in town after work.
Add all that up and for them, living in the city is like living in Hell.
I’m not saying that’s how I prefer to live (although the older I get the more of some of that I find appealing). I’m just saying that this idea that suburban people are all somehow socially retarded or are sellouts is a very blinkered point of view. (Not directing this at you specifically — just generally.)
Ian 21:52 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
“If the suburbs were actually nicer than the city, houses there would be more expensive.”
That’s not how real estate or land prices work.
ant6n 23:44 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
The issue isn’t some judgment whether you like this sort of sterile development or not, the issue is that you can’t walk 100m without hitting a highway or some a strip mall. The fake “urbanism” is contained solely within the single development by this single company. A real city stretches out for many hundreds of meters virtually all of it walkable, and only in this way can you accumulate a reasonable density overall – and reasonably large number of people near each other.
In the end this one development won’t feed that REM station, it’s catchment area will mostly be all sorts of much more suburban developments further afield, which is what the sprawl is that is being warning about.
And it’s not an issue whether we should hate or despise or not people who live in this sprawl, it’s that as a policy, the public should avoid building infrastructure that encourages sprawl, and instead invest in the city. There are all sorts of rational reasons for that; I’m concerned more with having some chance to get anywhere near Paris agreement targets, rather than whether some people actually aspire to unsustainable suburban lifestyles that should definitely not be encouraged by public policy.
Faiz Imam 00:17 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
Note, this REM station has zero commuter parking, it will rely on local users, as well as many buses that will terminate there.
Of course, on the other side of the highway is the infamous dix30. One of the quirks of this station is that there is a pedestrian overpass over the highway that literally exits onto the dumpsters behind the cinema. Many people have joked about how useless that seems.
The answer of course is that the cinema was build in a previous age, and that at some point it will be demolished and a new high density urban area will take its place to best take advantage of the transit link.
An aspect of this is already visible in the block to the north, which is much higher density and built with a rail link in mind.
This is the key to my thoughts behind this. The current landuse is extraordinarily unsubstantial. None of it matters, none of it will exist for long, all of it it will be subsumed into a new project that will have little to nothing to do with how the current land is laid out.
What you see as stripmalls and suburbs I see as brownfields just waiting to be massively built up.
In terms of climate goals and sustainability, I’d point out that the population of greater Montreal is nearly 4 million. Of that less than 1 million live in the urban core. There is plenty of densification in the city happening, but Even dramatic densification will not make room for everyone.
I’m of the opinion that the lifestyle being offered in these TOD’s are dramatically more sustainable than classical suburbia, and similar to the city, and is a great way to reduce the sprawl that is still expanding as we speak.
JP 00:28 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
@Blork I agree with everything you said. It’s what I was trying to get at in my first paragraph until my biases creeped in.
@ant6n Those are very valid criticisms of these developments and I appreciate the explanations.
This specifically struck a chord with me: “A real city stretches out for many hundreds of meters virtually all of it walkable, and only in this way can you accumulate a reasonable density overall – and reasonably large number of people near each other. ”
I like that I can walk from the Loyola Campus in NDG all the way to the village (and beyond) or, as someone living in Ahuntsic, walk all the way down to the plateau or even downtown (some blocks might not be pleasant, but it’s fairly doable). I don’t live that far from Laval or the West Island, but it’s barely safe or pleasant to walk all the way there and to and fro various points within. I know some might question why anyone would want to walk those distances, but I enjoy walking and do it quite a bit.
Kate 09:52 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
Anyone who’s had to trudge the long, inhuman blocks of Anjou or St‑Laurent, or even of the Royalmount area, or any of the other parts of industrial Montreal (and if you’ve never had to go to an interview or a job in any of these areas, you’re fortunate) knows exactly what walkable vs. unwalkable is like, especially in bad weather or blazingly hot days.
Uatu 11:57 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
Yep. Everything should be within walking distance with lots of greenery to mitigate heat and noise. Also the area is too dependent on the REM and public transit which means if there’s a power failure or ice storm etc. you’re screwed….