GoVertical
Senior Member
Fencing going up around the buildings surrounding Red's on 4st. Demo starting?
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General Construction Updates
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
MichaelS
Senior Member
This is very valid. A lot of our newer suburban communities have large pockets of density in them, conforming with newer planning policy calling for these neighbourhood activity centres and community level ones as well. Sage Hill's central area is another example of large amounts of suburban density. However, the urban design of the neighbourhood does not create the walkable nature of it all, often with the City's transportation department demanding 4-6 lane arterials to accommodate all of that extra density and traffic. As a result, it is kind of the worst of both worlds unfortunately, and it will take a couple of generations before the streets are re-looked at and redesigned unfortunately, as we can't even move fast on our inner-city Main Streets it seems.
At least with some of the newest examples, we are seeing pockets where developers have created internal road networks that isolate these pockets from the larger arterial networks that surround them. If anyone hasn't been or at least seen photos, Westman Village down in Mahogany is probably the greatest example we have, you could put that whole development in the middle of Bridgeland and it would raise the bar of Bridgeland even. Similar to what Truman is doing with West District, and the University in University District. Hopefully Currie Barracks turns out the same as well.
gsunnyg
Senior Member
Agreed, lived in the area for a large chunk of my life. It's just congested in the wrong way. Not very pedestrian friendly at all.
The density is good, but they made some huge blunders in the overall design. In hindsight it should have been designed similar to West District, University District or Westman Village, with grid layouts, better pedestrian crossings and retail fronting the streets instead of a mishmashed sea of parking lots. High density residential such as 6-10 storey buildings (like we see in U/D) could have been adjacent or even connected to the train stations. Retail on the street could have created a cool little South Asian retail area.
Some of the mistakes are major, but not irreparable. It's possible with zoning changes, that some of the strip mall/parking lot area can be developed into residential or mixed use buildings of higher density. Some of the screw-ups that can't ever be fixed are the 4 lane loop road, and the SFH's that have their backyard facing the core.
Urban Outdoorsman
Active Member
Random question: is there a "good" reason developers have almost exclusively made new communities based on winding road networks and cul-de-sacs? Because in my mind, a grid (or modified grid) system is far superior in every respect to the crappy dumb layouts of newer communities. Even if they're dense, I feel like the terrible connectivity takes away from the overall walkability and vibrancy of an area. I really can't think of a good reason for developers to prefer these terrible designs besides maybe traffic efficiency or perhaps some savings on road infrastructure.
I don't think it's an accident that almost all of the successful dense urban infill communities are essentially build onto grid networks. I wish the city would just mandate that all new communities need to be on grids as well.
I don't think it's an accident that almost all of the successful dense urban infill communities are essentially build onto grid networks. I wish the city would just mandate that all new communities need to be on grids as well.
darwink
Senior Member
Part of the difficulty is time.
The Saddletowne plan is from 30+ years ago iirc, just like west of 69th. They’re products from their era.
Policy to support flexibility in fixing these problems would be interesting. Stuff like allowing owners to reorient properties. Allowing accessory commercial units in residential zones.
The Saddletowne plan is from 30+ years ago iirc, just like west of 69th. They’re products from their era.
Policy to support flexibility in fixing these problems would be interesting. Stuff like allowing owners to reorient properties. Allowing accessory commercial units in residential zones.
MichaelS
Senior Member
The curvilinear designed communities of the 80s and 90s actually have less land dedicated to roads than a traditional grid community. The reasond developers went to them (besides the higher marketability of cul-de-sac houses) was that they could actually get more lots on a piece of land this way, than if they were to build a grid of roads. Curvilinear designs usually meant 27-32% land dedicated to roads, while a grid is closer to 40% if I recall.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
I wonder what the man hour comparison for snow shoveling is of a community with driveways vs communities with lanes.
MichaelS
Senior Member
True, but don't underestimate the appeal of being able to step right into your home with the groceries as opposed to trudging them through a snow filled back yard.
lemongrab
Active Member
Grids aren't great for families...more intersections = more risk and inconvenience when pushing a stroller. Of course there can be designs to mitigate that to a degree, but so can the drawbacks of donut designs (pathway cut-throughs, greenways, etc.)...
Even more important is getting your kid(s) into carseats without having to get entirely winter dressed...and the inevitable trips back into the house to grab what you forgot.
And driveways are better play places for hockey/basketball (not necessarily limited to kids). And it's nice to have tools/etc. well organized and close at hand.
Lastly, if you have a sidewalk and no driveway, you're still shovelling. The sidewalks may only take a minute or two, but you've still generally gotta get fully dressed to do it. An extra 5-10 mins for the driveway isn't a big deal. And since I don't have a dog, I like the motivation/reason to get outside for a few minutes on the coldest days
Attached garage was probably #1 on our priorities list when buying.
Joborule
Active Member
It's current plan is useless, and I'd doubt we'll ever see the LRT be extended west of 85 ST unless the LRT bends north at Stoney to go over to TCH, and perhaps end around Calaway Park, or Springbank wants to have a dense mixed used district west of the city limits.
A study to see if going up 85 ST would be interesting. But if I was to guess, I would assume the study would find it unfeasible for two reasons. The main one being the ROW of 85 Street is too tight to get an LRT corridor built there. I could imagine citizens in that area would not be a fan of an at-grade/trench LRT along that street, and underground for it would be cost prohibitive. Secondly, the costs to do build the infrastructure may not be justified if the ridership isn't high enough. The area already has lower ridership compared to the other lines, and considering how affluent the general area is, there likely wouldn't be much of an increase in riders despite having a train station be a little bit closer. If you're going downtown, would having a station near the West District really get you to downtown that much faster, rather than taking a bus to Westbrook or 69 ST Station, and transferring?
I could see a station extension just east of 85 ST to better serve Aspen Landing and the new developments that's occurring over there. The current proposal to have the next station in the middle of low density housing makes little sense to me.
The key is to have styles that work for everyone. As someone with three kids I understand wanting to have SFH's with built in garages and driveways, but the city needs to do a better job of catering to people who don't need that setup, or maybe have three kids but would prefer a different living style. There can be a mixture of grid streets in the centre of the neighborhood, or at the LRT station, and it can be surrounded by curvilinear streets.
In the case of Saddle Ridge/Saddletowne, the city screwed up badly on the TOD portion. The neighborhood could still be a majority of curvilinear layouts, but the TOD should have been a grid layout as the whole purpose of the TOD is for people who want to live in a walkable, transit accessible neighborhood. That demographic doesn't necessary need to load kids into car seats, etc.. Even then, the city could have designed it people with families, for example a low-rise multi-family development could have underground parking as well as direct or adjacent connectivity to a train station. This solves the issue of loading kids into car seats in the winter, etc.. and at the same time gives families the option to conveniently use transit walk or to their destinations.
As @darwink mentioned, it's was designed at a previous time before planners got wise to these ideas. Let's hope future TODs have better planning.
lemongrab
Active Member
I completely agree - I should just clarify that my priorities changed dramatically from what I expected once we were actually in the midst of parenting.
I should also amend my previous post - walk-ability was actually our #1 priority in where we bought - though what walk-ability meant to us also changed significantly (green spaces & continuous paths moreso than access to services).
Our family spends way more time on foot than inside a metal box...though we are in a particularly privileged position and were able to get the best of all worlds [for us].
I've got a lot of longwinded/rambling thoughts here that maybe I'll vomit out sometime, but the TLDR is that we should talk as much about integrating natural/green spaces as we do density/services access. This is something a lot of the much maligned donut communities actually did pretty well. Ultimately there are pros/cons from each iteration, and the goal should be to take the best from each.
lemongrab
Active Member
To the bolded, I don't think speed would be the issue as much as comfort/convenience. Walking straight to an empty seat on a train waiting at the terminus and then having a smooth ride in would be delightful, even if it took 20 minutes longer. Of course, that's not reason enough to build it. There will never be more than 850m of very low-density to the west of 85 St since it's limited by the WRR.
Speaking of Aspen Landing, what a terrible waste of potential it is. It has all the makings of a chic plaza, but they had to spoil it with unnecessary Escalade parking in the centre, and basically ignoring the pond view/promenade (aside from a patio or two). I don't even think it's necessary, but if they insisted on connecting the main parking lots, why not a link road on the east (back) side? Tighten up the plaza without parking and it wouldn't even have to increase the footprint.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
85 Street SW has lots of the energy of trying to have it's cake and eat it too - designed as a purely suburban land of expensive, gynormous SUVs ripping about in pure car-orientation, but also with higher densities, tighter and more intentional strip malls and mixed use areas, more thoughtful pathways and sidewalks than most suburban areas. They even have a corner facing No Frills grocery store, something CO-OP Midtown never figured out - small, but important stuff:
Some times these factors combine to create quite successful looking developments like West District, sometimes it doesn't seem to come together like Aspen Landing.
You can see the effort though - even Aspen spent a lot of money on underground parking and a ton of extra pedestrian pathways and promenade features.
Of course, in a classic move, the storm ponds are located surrounding the 17 Ave and 85 Street intersection directly negating the most logical hypothetical TOD node should the LRT ever extend this way.
Overall though - 85 Street SW seems like a hybrid - it's clearly a step up from just ignoring pedestrians and street interaction, but does sometimes still have one foot in the pure car-oriented world. Probably a ton of good case studies of development trade-offs in a suburban context all along the corridor.
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