Proposed plans for rapid transit could let Winnipeggers change the very nature of life in this city, a consultant with worldwide experience at linking transit to urban growth said Thursday.The $327-million plan to run rapid transit between the downtown and the University of Manitoba could alter where many residents live, how they move around, even where they work and shop, said G. B. Arrington, a senior partner with the New York-based firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff.
The city could also limit its future infrastructure costs significantly if it develops neighbourhoods through which rapid-transit lines run, Arrington told a small but well-connected gathering in a Portage Place theatre.
To accomplish all that, Winnipeg has to turn into what Arrington called "a transit city," a place where people ride buses or transit trains, not simply to and from work, but to go to movies or visit friends.
"You're a city with transit," he said to a crowd of about 75 people that included Glen Laubenstein, the city's chief administrative officer and Andrew Marquess, a developer working to build apartments, condominiums and businesses along the first-phase section of the proposed rapid-transit line.
"A transit city is one where you don't have to rely on your car," Arrington said.
"In a transit city, most of the transit trips are not work-related."
For two decades, Arrington has helped make Portland, Oregon one of the foremost transit cities in North America, if not the world. He has also advised communities from Central America to Australia.
Before his presentation Thursday, Arrington met with about 30 officials from the city's planning and transit departments.
Transit-oriented development, the concept Arrington was in Winnipeg to discuss, means building places to live, work and shop around stops on a transit corridor. Even parks and public spaces should become part of such stops, Arrington said.
Rapid transit normally has fewer stops than regular bus stops, which are often only a block apart.
Ideally, as much residential and commercial development as possible should rise within a five-minute walk of a rapid-transit stop, Arrington added, though he acknowledged cities traditionally surround transit stations simply with park-and-ride lots to encourage people to park their cars and use public transportation.
"In most systems you need both types of stations," Arrington said. "We need to think in Winnipeg about how you end up with both kinds."
The benefits of transit-oriented development to places such as Portland have been marked, Arrington showed.
Today, 90 per cent of that city's population of 1.7 million lives within two kilometres of rapid transit.
Such proximity has helped increase ridership by 45 per cent since 1990.
Transit-oriented development generally can help preserve open spaces, lower automobile use and decrease infrastructure costs for a municipality by up to 25 per cent, according to studies Arrington's firm has conducted.
"Transit, used properly, attracts development," said Laubenstein afterwards, when asked what he took away from the presentation.
For Marquess, owner of B&M Land, the possibility presented by transit-oriented development is "exciting."
Marquess's company bought 25 acres of land in Fort Rouge, parallel to the Canadian National rail tracks, where the first phase of the rapid-transit corridor is slated to be built.
It is working with the city to begin construction of up to 1,200 apartment units by next winter.
"The challenge we've always felt is what was the right commercial component to go along with our residential component," Marquess said.
joe.paraskevas@freepress.mb.ca