Shaping Vancouver 2016: Our Neighbourhoods - What Do I Want From My Street?

In this panel, speakers discuss the impact of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) along some of our prominent North South arterial streets – Cambie, Main, Fraser, and the communities along them.Increasingly, we see the character and street level retail disrupted by the creation of high-density mixed-use areas close to public transport. Although this kind of development increases the housing supply, questions around diversity, density distribution, community assets, and neighbourhood quality remain. It is a model that appears to preserve low-density single-family neighbourhoods by introducing Metrotown like developments.Is this the best way for Vancouver to address the development imperatives it is facing and if the preservation of low-density single family areas justify the creation of high density nodes?The panel will explore what factors make a street work, including how accessible it is for various modes of transportation, how it allows for a variety of activities, how pedestrian oriented it is, whether it provides comfortable gathering spaces, and how it contributes to a distinct image of its neighbourhoods as a means to assess the impact of the TOD development being proposed for Vancouver. A general discussion with the audience follows at the end.