Nick Smith undertook a personal experiment in Brunaby – he walked! – and wrote about it in his blog. Here’s an excerpt.
Eight hundred meters surrounding a rapid transit station is the standard for what people are willing to walk to reach transit, and is where development should be concentrated to create successful transit-oriented communities. Given that the walk from Holdom station to Purolator to pick up a package was exactly 800 meters, I thought it would be a good chance to see how Burnaby is doing targeting development around rapid transit.
And here is some of what he saw – the before and after of transit-oriented development:
It’s an area in transition.
Not even all residential areas (with higher demand for walkability than a light industrial area) in the suburbs have sidewalks.
Even in residential areas of Vancouver, some streets don’t have sidewalks on both sides of the street. Doesn’t it take a neighbourhood petition and local assessment to install street improvemets or pave an alleyway?
Search “Cambie & 64th” at Google Maps and head west –
OMG!! No sidewalks!! – a block from a Canada Line Station!!
It’s the end of the world!
http://maps.google.ca/
That’s why elementary school children are taught how to walk on a street without sidewalks – i.e. facing the flow of traffic so they can see if a car veers out of its lane.
IIRC, burnaby’s plan from the beginning is to make Holdom a ‘high street’, a robson to the lougheed’s georgia st.
The change is nice, but it would really be interesting to see differences in the area, say, by lake city station. I’m not sure of the area plan there, but it is SFH to the south of the lougheed and sprawl-y industrial to the north. Any change there?
On second thought, i was thinking dawson st by gilmour station, not the area by holdom. my bad.