Global Perspectives: Transit Oriented Developments
Realizing the 15 Minute City: Moving from Aspiration to Shovels in the Ground
Fabiola MacIntyre
Senior Associate, Transportation Entuitive Host & Moderator
Brent Toderian
City Planner & Urbanist TODERIAN UrbanWORKS & Former Vancouver Chief Planner Panelist
Thursday, February 25 at 12pm MT
Click here to watch the event and learn the key takeaways!
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Gary Andrishak
Director, Vancouver, BC IBI Group Panelist
Jonathan Hendricks
Principal Entuitive Panelist
Megan Rhind
Senior Associate Entuitive Panelist
Watch Here
Richard Morden
Senior Vice President QuadReal Panelist
Brad Smid
Director Valley Line Panelist
Top Takeaways
Ask the Panelists: “What’s the Best Example of a TOD You’ve Seen and Why?”
Jonathan Hendricks: New Territories in Hong Kong because of the high density around the stations that trickles down and because of the great access to green space nearby.
Image Credit: SFU.ca
Richard Morden: Eau Claire in Calgary because it is well situated in the Eau Claire Market area, with the current approved design providing an opportunity to integrate the buildings with the station. Trains will be kept underground, communities will stay connected, and the streets will stay open.
Megan Rhind: Yonge-Eglinton Station in Toronto because of the personal connection – she commuted through it every day for years and because of the professional connection – Entuitive provided the underpinning for the station.
Brad Smid: West Block Glenora in Edmonton because it’s the first project in Edmonton where the land use and transit plans were truly integrated, and it is now becoming a reality.
Brent Toderian: Collingwood Village in Vancouver because it’s a first-generation TOD that has seen a couple generations of evolution. There’s been development around it since it was built and can be considered a successful TOD.
Image Credit: Le Devoir
“The conversation about smart transit planning and development is now about every form of good/better transit, not just TODs” – Brent Toderian
“Problems surrounding today’s TODs include the fact that transit investment is under attack across Canada; we’re still using car-driven modelling to study areas around transit, which drives down density; and NIMBYism (not in my back yard)” – Brent Toderian
“TODs that fail often fail because of too much reliance on retail, failure to measure, faith in mega-scale projects, fear of challenging transportation departments, and an inability to hold the plan” – Gary Andrishak
“A successful TOD needs vision, needs enthusiasm, needs serendipity, needs positive responses with regard to land use, built form, open space, and proximity to services” – Gary Andrishak
“Autonomous vehicles could threaten the “location, location” mantra and favour urban sprawl” – Gary Andrishak
“In Edmonton, the goal is to create a safe, vibrant, healthy, resilient city. It’s about growing the right way.” – Brad Smid
“To build successful TODs three challenges need to be overcome – you need supportive and enabling policy frameworks, you need transit infrastructure, and you need supportive markets.” – Brad Smid
“TODs must provide for an urban sense of place. This goal must drive the design of station design and integration of all infrastructure.” – Richard Morden
“It’s important to recognize that there’s an opportunity cost in every decision that cities and planners make when it comes to transit stations.” – Richard Morden
“There’s no ‘e’ in TOD but to me the ‘e’ stands for ‘ecosystem’ – balance is required, I believe a successful TOD site marries a high-quality transit line and stations that are integrated with and face the neighbourhood. It’s important to take down fences, remove silos and involve integration between planners, engineers and budget – that’s how you get to the ecosystem of a successful TOD.” – Richard Morden
“When it comes to TODs, it’s not just about the stations. It’s about the nodes and the corridors. We have to look at it all.” – Jonathan Hendricks
“Each site has its own right solution and technical challenges can be solved. What we need are the right stakeholders at the table so that solutions can be reasonable and therefore affordable.” – Jonathan Hendricks
“We need to take down fences, remove the silos and work together to improve efficiency and reduce risk.” – Megan Rhind
“The owners, the designers, the planners, and the contractors need to be at the same table. Construction Engineering helps to bridge the gap between designers and contractors.” – Megan Rhind
Gary Andrishak: Union Station in Denver because it provides high-level transit and is a great development, mixing the old and the new. It’s an excellent example of placemaking and has some interesting dining options, too. It’s a destination.
Event Video
While the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD) has been around for decades and most people are on board with it, there remains very few examples of successful TOD communities. As we hear new terms come to light, like the “15-minute city”, we think it’s important to go beyond the vision and seek to make these communities a reality.
With this panel discussion, Entuitive’s Senior Associate, Transportation, Fabiola MacIntyre will lead a panel of experts to unpack questions and reach solutions on how we can move from aspiration to shovels in the ground. Specifically, we’ll look at: • What is a 15-minute city? • Who is required to make building a TOD a success? • What does each player in the process require to be successful? • What are the biggest challenges in building a TOD? • How do we solve for these challenges and what can we put into action? • Do any of the finer details like policy, finances, incentives, and stakeholder groups present challenges or can they be solutions?
Our Speakers
Fabiola is a Senior Associate based in our Calgary office and the sector lead for Western Canada as part of Entuitive’s Transportation team. She brings over 17 years of industry experience in structural engineering, project management, and leadership in the delivery of large, complex engineering projects. Fabiola is experienced in all aspects of infrastructure planning and design, from concept through to construction completion. She is passionate about transit-oriented development and the role infrastructure plays in the shaping of communities. Drawing upon her experience leading high-profile projects, Fabiola understands the importance of collaboration, innovative solutions, and constant communication through all phases of a project.
Brent Toderian is a nationally and internationally respected thought leader on better cities, and a leading global practitioner in city planning, urban design, transportation and advanced urbanism. He advises cities, governments & best-practice developers across Canada & around the world, including the cities of Sydney, Auckland, Oslo, Helsinki, Medellin, & MANY Canadian cities. Brent’s establishment of TODERIAN UrbanWORKS in 2012 followed 6 years of significant achievement as Chief Planner for Vancouver, and 6 years as a transformative planning leader in Calgary. He started his career as a prominent, award-winning city planning consultant in Ontario after receiving his planning education at the University of Waterloo. Brent is the past/founding President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism; a regular voice on cities in national and international media; and a writer for Fast Company, CityLab, the Huffington Post & many other publications. In 2017 he was voted one of the 100 most influential global urbanists in history by Planetizen.
Gary Andrishak, IBI Group Director, leads IBI Group’s North American Transit Oriented Development (TOD) practice which he describes as the integration of transportation and land use planning in support of livable communities that are compact, dense, mixed-se, walkable, engaging, equitable and resilient. These communities, in turn, contribute to increased transit ridership. Importantly, he understands that implementation strategies, as much as TOD philosophy, represent the major challenge to promoting a vehicle-free lifestyle in our cities today.
Jonathan is a Principal at Entuitive leading projects across a range of sectors including commercial, institutional, cultural, residential, retail, healthcare, sports and recreation, hospitality and industrial. With 25 years of industry experience, Jonathan is known for his expertise with complex and technically challenging projects including tall buildings. He is passionate about collaborating with the design team to develop constructible, efficient and pragmatic solutions that achieve the project’s architectural vision. He has extensive experience working with design architects across Canada and internationally. Jonathan’s portfolio includes a long relationship with London’s Canary Wharf, including 20 Fenchurch – a 36-storey commercial tower; Riverside South – 39 and 33-storey commercial towers; Heron Quays West – 40 and 29-storey commercial towers; and the West Wintergarden – a stunning steel and glass public sanctuary. Jonathan has also worked on Jameson Tower – a 36-storey luxury mixed-use tower in Vancouver, The Bow Tower in Calgary, and Emaar North Tower – a 60-storey mixed-use tower in Istanbul.
Megan is an Associate at Entuitive with nine years of experience in structural engineering. She received her Bachelor of Applied Science in Civil Engineering from Queen’s University in 2010. Her experience includes management of small and large-scale projects, proposal, contract, and tender preparation, as well as the development and implementation of quality assurance policies. In her previous role, she was responsible for the design and evaluation of pedestrian bridges, highway bridges, and existing structures for uses beyond original intent. Some of Megan’s most notable projects include Gardiner Expressway East Rehabilitation, Highway 7/8 Pedestrian Bridge, And Highway 400-401 Interchange.
Richard Morden is the Senior Vice President, Office, West of QuadReal Property Group based out of the Calgary office. Richard joined QuadReal in February 2017 with 35 years of commercial real estate experience spanning Toronto, Vancouver, and for the last 19 years, Calgary. Since 2019, Richard’s focus is leading the Western Canada office investment team which involves 10.2 million square feet of prime office space in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Through his career, Richard has had transactional experience including acquisitions, dispositions, development and financing of commercial real estate totalling over $3.0 billion in value. Richard previously worked with Bentall Kennedy and Beutel Goodman Real Estate Group, where he held positions focusing on investment and portfolio management. Richard holds a B.A. in Urban Geography from UBC, an MBA from The Richard Ivey School of Business, Western University and has completed the Business Leadership Program at Queen’s University. Richard is currently Chair of BOMA Calgary, a member of the Government Affairs Committee of NAIOP Calgary as well as a past member of the Board of Directors of NAIOP Calgary and a current member of Calgary Economic Development’s Real Estate Sector Advisory Committee. These industry positions provide Richard with the opportunity to contribute to policy that directly supports the interests of those living and working within the QuadReal portfolio, as well as communities as a whole.
Brad Smid, P.Eng, has been building LRT in Edmonton for the past fifteen years. Leveraging his previous private sector background in construction and railroad engineering, Brad has helped to deliver over 75% of Edmonton’s current and under construction LRT network. Brad is currently the Project Director for the Valley Line, a 27 km urban LRT system that will transform Edmonton. With an emphasis on sustainable urban integration, this system will provide high quality mass transit from Southeast Edmonton (Mill Woods) to West Edmonton (Lewis Farms), shaping the city for generations. Valley Line Southeast, the initial 13 km segment of the Valley Line, is currently under construction. It is the City’s largest infrastructure project to date, and its first project to be delivered as a Public-Private-Partnership (P3). Valley Line West, a 14 km extension along many constrained residential corridors, will be delivered using a Design-Build-Finance (DBF) method. Financial Close was reached in December and final design and construction preparations are now underway. In addition to his work responsibilities, Brad is a member of the City of St. Albert Heritage Advisory Committee. Brad is a past recipient of a Certificate of Fellowship from Engineers Canada and the James A. Vance Award from the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.
TOD and Transportation at Entuitive
Entuitive’s Latest TOD and Transportation Insights
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Client: ThinkSpace Architecture Architect: Thinkspace Architecture Sector: Institutional
Keefer Street Residence Building
Client: Steve Kipp Architect: Shape Architecture Sector: Residential
Anchor Point Parkade
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Lynnmour Village North Podia
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TD Bank Floor Leak
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New Westminster Supportive Housing
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Eastburn Square Parkade Membrane
Client: Metro Vancouver Housing Sector: Institutional
Royal Columbian Hospital Mental Health
Client: Stantec Inc. Architect: Stantec Architecture Sector: Healthcare Size: $260 million project cost, 75 bed mental health substance use facility and energy centre
2002-615 Hamilton House
Client: Stantec Inc. Sector: Residential
Anchor Point I Parkade Condition Assessment
Client: The Owners, Strata Plan 1182 Sector: Residential
Anchor Point II Parkade Condition Assessment
Client: Anchor Point 2 Strata Plan 1183 Sector: Residential
2905 Trinity Street
Client: Brent Wheeler Architect: PLY Architecture Sector: Residential
2880 Arbutus
Client: 2880 Arbutus Architect: NSDA Architects Sector: Residential Size: 4 storey resdiential with retail on the ground floor
Central City Tower Two
Client: ZGF Architects Architect: ZGF Architects Sector: Commercial Size: 25 storey commercial office building
Canadian Cancer Society
Client: Canadian Cancer Society Architect: Shape Architecture Sector: Healthcare
6615 Telford
Client: Telford Living Limited Partnership Architect: Hotson Architecture Sector: Residential and Energy Modelling Size: Two buildings, 33 storey (257 units) and 6 storey (98 units) residential over 4 level parkade.
Frances Street Development
Client: Kirsten Reite Architecture Architect: Kirsten Reite Architecture Sector: Office Size: 4 storey mass timber creative retail, industrial, office space
5050 Alexander
Client: Kirsten Reite Architecture Architect: Kirsten Reite Architecture Sector: Office
550 East Broadway Mixed-Use
Client: Sightline Properties Architect: Michael Green Architecture Sector: Residential and Retail Size: 4 storey residential and ground floor retail
Claridge House - 5740 Cambie
Client: Dialog Design Architect: Dialog Sector: Residential Size: Two residential buildings on a shared podium and parkade, 10 (80 units) and 24 stories (138 units)
UBC - Brock Commons Phase 2
Client: UBC Properties Trust Architect: HCMA Architects Sector: Institutional Size: Two buildings, 14 and 18 storeys containing residences and academic spaces
Village Church Worship Centre
Client: Village Church Architect: ZGF Architects Sector: Cultural
Royal Columbian Hospital Phase 2 and 3
Client: EllisDon Design Build Inc. Architect: HDR Architects Sector: Healthcare Size: $1.2 billion project budget, 350 acute care tower and energy centre
YVR Core Program
Client: Stantec Inc. Architect: Francl Architecture and Stantec Architecture Sector: Transportation
104th Avenue Housing
Client: ATCO Structures & Logistics Ltd. Architect: Ron Hart Architect Sector: Residential and Energy Modelling and Whole Building Airtightness Testing Size: 6 storey, 60 units residential building, modular construction
New St. Paul's Hospital
Client: EllisDon Design Build Inc. Sector: Healthcare
1940 Main Street
Client: Portliving Architect: Formosis Architecture Sector: Residential Mixed-Use and Energy Modelling and Whole Building Airtightness Testing Size: 6 storey, 80,000sf mixed use residential, retail and office
375 Water Street Condition Assessment
Client: Whalen Building Assessment Services Sector: Office
Hallmark Hotel
Client: Adamson Associates Architect: Zeidler Architects Sector: Hallmark Hotel Size: 15 Storey Boutique Hotel
339 East 1st Avenue
Client: Triovest Architect: Michael Green Architecture Sector: Office
Just West Development
Client: Sightline Properties Architect: Shape Architecture Sector: Residential Size: Townhouse Complex (50 units)
Little Mountain - Building BA
Client: Holborn Architect: HDR Architects Sector: Residential Size: 6 storey, 54 unit residential
Brighouse Mixed-Use Redevelopment
Client: BC Conference Property Development Architect: VIA Architects Sector: Residential and Cultural Size: 6 storey, 143,000sf residential and church development
Lakeview Mixed-Use Redevelopment
Client: BC Conference Property Development Architect: Shape Architecture Sector: Residential and Cultural Size: Passive House, 6 storey, 90,000sf residential and church development
UEL Menno Hall
Client: Shape Architecture Architect: Shape Architecture Sector: Residential, Residence, Education Size: Student Residence, affordable housing and teaching facility
Entuitive Office
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