Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
Can you elaborate on what these rules are?
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Some of the biggest problems Canada Lands ran into was the density level (there were actually max densities in place at the time), the width of the roadways (particularly related to fire-truck access), layout of the road network, size and design of the parks, the ability to actually build residential above retail in a suburb, and the massive amounts of parking required for uses, which makes any sort of 'urban' built form impossible.
Most of these issues, aside from probably density still persist.
The one that mystifies me the most is the fire-truck issue. The department continues to buy larger and larger trucks with abysmal turning radius. Then it requires subdivision design to accomodate them, meaning wider roads with big curb radius. This makes communities a lot less efficient and much less pedestrian-friendly. Wide roads mean longer street crossings, and traffic that moves at higher speeds. I feel that we should design neighbourhoods as well as we can, and then buy fire trucks suitable to serve them, not the other way around.