The Physical Plan and Its Implications for Active Transportation BY JEFFREY WARD, MCIP, LPP above, left and right: Parts of Don Mills’ trails seems virtually indistinguishable from . the Imkerspad in Houten. below, left and right: Shopping in Houten remains small in scale, while Don Mills retailing is focused on the region. SUMMARY In Canada, we build tens of thousands of new homes—detached, semi- Denmark is impractical, since there are detached and low rise apartments—in subdivisions across the land. At best, in our vast cultural diff erences between North planning documents we only pay lip service to the concept of human-powered transpor- Americans and Europeans and that there tation. Few if any examples of suburban land developments show any attempt to are longstanding histories of cycling use in address active transportation (AT) as a real and viable alternative transportation mode. Europe. While it is true that cycling is an We have plenty of trails, but few destinations. We seem to view trails as recreational old tradition there, it is also true that as assets; nothing more. In this article, I’ll compare the Dutch new town of Houten with a recently as the 1970s, bicycling as a travel model suburban Canadian community of about the same mid-20th century vintage— mode was endangered in many European Don Mills, Ontario—Canada’s most famous and infl uential planned community. I’ll cities that are now seen as cycling havens: compare the approach taken towards the physical plan specifi cally as it relates to AT— cars had overrun many urban centres. The highlighting the strong similarities and then focusing on the major diff erences which catalyst for change came by way of the make one community an AT paradise while the other remains highly reliant on cars. Energy Crisis of 1973, created when opec This article is not intended as a paean to European cycling culture nor a rebuke of past countries decided to limit oil sales to west- Canadian achievements, but a practical examination of what seems to make AT work. ern countries. While uS President Carter was urging Americans to burn less fuel oil RÉSUMÉ Au Canada, des dizaines de milliers de nouvelles maisons unifamiliales ou and put on sweaters, in countries like jumelées et de bâtiments résidentiels bas sont construits chaque année sur des lotisse- Holland, oil shortages kept people off the ments à travers le pays. Au mieux, la notion de transport à propulsion humaine n’est highways on weekends, so people and gov- considérée que du bout des lèvres dans nos documents de planifi cation, et les exemples ernments chose another route. Bicycle sales d’aménagement du territoire en banlieue permettant d’adopter le transport actif en tant sky-rocketed and people demanded that que solution de rechange réelle et viable sont rares. Nous avons beaucoup de sentiers, more attention be given to creating cycling mais très peu de destinations, et ces sentiers semblent être perçus comme de simples facilities. Changes favouring the bicycle infill in mature neighbourhoods biens récréatifs. Cet article compare la nouvelle ville néerlandaise de Houten avec Don began to be implemented and they con- Mills, en Ontario, la communauté organisée la plus célèbre et infl uente au Canada et tinue today. 34 une banlieue modèle développée au cours de la même période, soit le milieu du 20e siè- The Dutch have now had four decades cle. Il contraste l’approche adoptée en matière d’aménagement du territoire, notamment of experience in active transportation and par rapport au transport actif, et met en relief à la fois les points communs et les princi- they can off er Canadian planners useful pales diff érences permettant à une communauté de devenir un véritable paradis des lessons in terms of the design of new com- transports actifs alors qu’une autre demeure fortement tributaire des voitures. Cet arti- munities and retrofi tting old ones.² cle ne se veut pas un hymne à la culture européenne du vélo ni un reproche des This article focuses mainly on the new réalisations canadiennes antérieures, mais bien un examen pratique des critères clés du town of Houten. Houten was a farming transport actif. community until the late 1960s when it became slated for urban development as a satellite community for Utrecht. Today it is “If something exists, it must mobility options from walking and cycling, two towns—Houten North and Houten be possible.” to cars and Skytrains.¹ But for the other half, South—with a combined population —Amory Lovins those living in low density neighbourhoods, approaching 55,000 people and a cycling Urban Canada is really Suburban Canada, mode share of better than 50 percent for and the range of transportation choices can non-work trips. plan canada | fall · automne 2012 INTRODUCTION be much smaller. In most suburbs, the car is Research consisted of back-to-back fi eld In 2008, Statistics Canada reported that four still the only practical way of getting reviews and informal intercept interviews out of fi ve Canadians were living in areas around. It doesn’t need to be that way. in both Houten and Don Mills conducted classifi ed as urban. For roughly half of these Some will argue that looking to in November 2011. No offi cials were con- people, city life off ers a wide range of European examples in Holland and tacted in either community. PCQ3_2012_Book 34 2012-09-19 12:31 PM Figure 1: Comparative Map—Don Mills and Houten OLD WORLD, NEW WORLD: Major Road Rail WORLDS APART Bond Active Transportation Park One of the most striking similarities Urbanized between Houten and Don Mills is the trans- Town Centre port framework. Both communities feature Park/OS a ring road with an intersecting network at the centre. The town centres are located near this midpoint. The critical diff erence is that in Don Mills, the intersecting network Mocassin Trail consists of two pre-existing roads (Don Park Den Slag (see detail) Mills Road and Lawrence Avenue) and in Houten the intersecting links are a com- Original Town Centre muter railroad and a pedestrian/cycling path. The ring road in Don Mills (the Don Mills 0 200400 600 1000m Houten Donway) is located 200 to 600 metres from the centre while in Houten it varies in dis- tance from 750 to 1800 metres away. TABLE 1: SIMILARITIES AND CONTRASTS Critically, Houten’s ring road (the Rondweg) In many respects Houten and Don Mills seem to share many of the same characteristics, yet there describes the outer edge of the community, are major di erences as revealed in the following table. whereas the Donway lies more or less half- SIMILARITIES DON MILLS HOUTEN way between the centre of Don Mills and Transport framework Ring road with intersecting Ring road with intersecting the outer edge. Both roads have a limited network at centre network at centre number of access points. Dependency Self-contained Self-contained Beyond these surface similarities, there are deeper ones as well. Don Mills and Neighbourhoods Neighbourhood quadrants (4) Neighbourhood quadrants (19) Houten were both designed to be self-suffi - Pedestrian plan Separation of pedestrians and Separation of pedestrians cient communities, each off ering vehicles and vehicles employment opportunities, schools and Environment Former farming area with Former farming area with greenbelt shopping areas within their overall greenbelt designs. They both derive their workforces Retail Shopping at centre Shopping at centre from inside and outside the immediate area, and each was also expected to export Employment Employment (live-work) Employment (live-work) workers to other areas (in the case of Don Target population 25,000 people 38,000 people Mills, the Gta, and in the case of Houten, Main road access to Don Valley Parkway A27 (national motorway) the city of Utrecht). In Houten, most resi- A TALE OF TWO SUBURBS larger centre (municipal expressway) dents appear to rely on the central retail Motor vehicles per 436 to 562 415 area, compared to other shopping possibili- 35 1,000 residents See note 1. See note 2. ties. In the early years, Don Mills was also well-used by local people, but it was Precedents Virtually unprecedented, Unique; the culmination of a though inspired by the work of number of smaller experiments. always aimed at a broader market area. Clarence Stein and others. Today, in its third generation of develop- ment, the shopping area still retains a DIFFERENCES DON MILLS HOUTEN regional focus, though this time the aim is Start date 1952 1976 (though envisioned earlier) on a decidedly up-scale market atmosphere. Substantial completion 1958 1988 Downtown Don Mills started out with a I n fl u e n c e Highly infl uential. Not infl uential until recently. low-rise indoor-outdoor shopping centre, including a grocery store, banks and a Dominant transport Car-dominated. Balance of cars and . futuristic, circular curling rink. The shop- Commuter transport Excellent bus transit. Excellent rail transit; poor bus transit. ping centre was later redeveloped as a Mode share Car: 70–71 / 75–84% Transit: Car: 58 / 35% Transit: 15 / 10 Walk/ fully-enclosed mall in the 1970s. In Its lat- (work/non-work) 24–27 / 11–16% Other: 3–5 / 5–9% Bike: 31 / 55% est incarnation, it has reverted to an See note 1. See note 2. outdoor “lifestyle centre” and there are plan canada | fall · automne 2012 1. Don Mills straddles two wards in the City of Toronto. The mode share numbers refl ect Statistics Canada journey to work plans to add some mid-rise residential data for Wards 25 and 34, as summarized in Ward Profi les published by the City in 2008.