Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
I mean, let's consider the average residential subdivision. The modern ones do tend to have relatively good sidewalk coverage, but they are seldom used, because there's nothing to walk to. Sure, kids will use them, and some people walk for exercise, but the vast majority of human walking is goal-driven, because that's what we evolved to do - walk to places as needed to survive, but conserve energy when there is no reason to walk by staying put.
So, the first thing you could do is to provide some mixed-use within the suburbs. Let people open up their own small businesses within their homes available for retail use. Have some homes knocked down or added to for small sidewalk-hugging storefronts.
But this gets to the second issue - density is too low for pedestrian-focused businesses, meaning many people would still drive within the neighborhood. This is basically the issue that modern "streetcar suburbs" often have, since shopping habits have changed and family sizes have dropped over the past century. So you'd then need to upzone as well. You'd need to let density rise at least to the point of about 20,000 ppsm over a fairly wide area (a few census tracts) before there was enough local coot traffic.
Then there would be a third issue - where would all of these new residents work, and how would they get there? In order to support a residential node of such high density, surface bus routes likely aren't going to cut it. You'd need to integrate the upzoned area with a rail line or BRT service.
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I think it can happen, you just need to be ok with the fact that there will be a decades long transitional period where it's not walkable to the extent that most urban neighbourhoods are.
You can have houses convert their garages or ground floors to small businesses, or as you said, added on to with a small front extension. A decent chunk of their customers would still drive at first, but since it's a small business, they won't need that much parking, the space available on the driveway and on-street should be adequate, especially since all the neighbours will still have their own garages and driveways so the on-street parking is currently almost entirely unused in most suburbs. You can also have small strip malls spring up along collector roads and minor arterials which would provide retail within walking distance even though it still accommodates cars. Possibly something mixed use and multi-story, maybe even with underground parking so that the density is high enough to warrant the demolition of whatever was there before. Nonetheless, a shift away from large scale big box power centres towards more locally oriented commercial centres, even if they have a fair bit of parking would be a step in the right direction.
As for transit, it'll be gradual. First it will be barely adequate for people who can't afford a car (or can't drive for whatever reason). Then as density increases, you'll be able to provide better bus coverage with more frequent routes, and people who kind of can afford a car but would rather spend the money on something else given the opportunity, or who would have previously carpooled or gotten rides from family/friends or had some complicated system of sharing a car with their spouse are now going to start taking transit too. Now you're seeing usage increase due to both density and mode share changes, and you're starting to be able to look at light rail, BRT, express buses, commuter rail, etc and eventually people who own a car but want to to be environmentally friendly or to save on parking costs will take transit, or people who like being able to use their phones while commuting instead of staring at the road. The final stage would be when transit is faster than driving, but that's probably only going to be true for suburb to downtown commutes rather than commutes to workplaces within the suburbs.
I can tell you that transit in Mississauga is noticeably better than in most suburbs. Someone from Mississauga might not think too much of their transit system and the majority there do still drive, but as someone who's lived in neighbouring Oakville, I can tell you that having a BRT, a bunch of express routes, and 30 minute service covering almost every neighbourhood is definitely a step above the local transit service Oakville has. The last time I took the BRT there I overheard a couple of middle class teenage girls talking about how much better the transit was compared to the suburb where they used to live.
As density increases, traffic will get worse, and people and businesses will be more receptive to having businesses near transit or in local neighbourhood centres rather than in office parks in the middle of massive industrial areas.
The street grid can also be fixed incrementally. Just negotiate density bonuses or waiving of parking requirements with developers in exchange for giving up a narrow sliver of land on their redevelopment property for the city to build a walkway connecting the culs-de-sac to the arterial road that would have businesses and bus service along it. You don't need to fix every culs-de-sac, you just need to fix enough of them. Even if 50% of the residential land is on poorly connected streets, as long as you focus the upzoning/redevelopment on the streets that are better connected, the vast majority of residents will live on well connected streets. There will always be a segment of the population that still wants a car and SFH and quiet street and those can go live on those remaining poorly connected streets.
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