Architecturally Speaking

Transforming Cities: The Role of Transit-Oriented Development

• Ontario Association of Architects • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode of Architecturally Speaking, host Ryan Schwartz is joined by Shonda Wang, Principal at SvN, to explore the concept of transit-oriented communities and their impact on urban development. 

Shonda is a seasoned urban designer and planner with expertise in large-scale urban regeneration projects, and unpacks the importance of creating connections between public spaces, transportation infrastructure, and the built environment in evolving cities. 

Tune in to gain insights into how cities are adapting to accommodate growing populations and the need for sustainable living spaces.

Subscribe now to Architecturally Speaking on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.


Architecturally Speaking Ep.7
Transforming Cities: The Role of Transit-Oriented Development

Ryan Schwartz:
00:04.45 01:43.33

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Architecturally Speaking. I'm your host, Ryan Schwartz. Architecturally Speaking is a podcast series created by the Ontario Association of Architects that pulls back the curtain on the world of architecture to give you a little peek behind the scenes. So we're talking with architects and other professionals in the architecture industry about design, housing, sustainability and construction. But today we're going to zoom out a little bit and talk about things at a bigger scale, more of a city scale, because our cities are constantly changing. They're evolving. Old buildings are torn down. New buildings are being built. Public spaces are modified. Streets are changed. And all of that affects our neighbourhoods and our communities and the people who live there. And that's you, the people listening. So as our cities get bigger and denser, we have more people, we need ways for these people to move around, and we need places for them to live. So that's why we're talking today specifically about transit-oriented communities. And we're talking with an expert because she holds a handful of roles in this realm, including urban designer, registered planner, and also social worker. So her name is Shonda Wang, and she's a principal at SVN, which is an architecture and planning firm. She has 30 years of experience in community development and large-scale urban regeneration projects. She specializes in developing connections between the public realm and the built environment, and also urban infrastructure, such as transportation infrastructure. She's the lead technical advisor to Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario for transit-oriented communities along the new Ontario subway line in Toronto. And she's won several urban design awards and she's joining us now. So Shanda, thanks for joining.

Shonda Wang:
01:43.33 01:47.04

Thanks, Ryan. Nice to be here.

Ryan Schwartz:
01:47.04 01:58.20

I mentioned a few things. You have a handful of roles, so maybe we should start there. You're an urban designer and also a registered planner. So what are those roles? What does an urban designer do? What does a planner do?

Shonda Wang:
01:59.72 02:46.693

Yeah, I like to think for both urban designers and planners, I should say social workers as well, we're thinking about our cities and I loved your intro there about the fact that cities are constantly evolving and changing. They're really dynamic places. I think about our role as urban designers and planners as city designers, really, thinking about what the spatial implications are of the decisions that we're making, the policies that we're putting in place to shape our cities, and really ensuring that you're always thinking about, you know, all the implications of the decisions and policies that you're putting in place, etc. and what the impact will be for people.

Ryan Schwartz:
02:46.69 03:01.00

That's great. So, and those are sort of two different roles. Do they, you know, as someone like yourself, do you typically hold both those roles or are urban designers, you know, sometimes planners, sometimes not planners, are planners sometimes urban designers, not urban designers?

Shonda Wang:
03:01.90 04:02.78

Oh, everybody's so different with the kinds of expertise they bring to the table and viewpoints they bring to the table, including the training they have. I'd say for myself, it's something that I don't distinguish as today I'm going to be an urban designer, tomorrow I'm going to be a planner, right? It's looking at the whole is the kind of easiest way I'll explain it. And I'd say that even extends to our practice at SvN. You kind of gave a brief introduction about Who we are, we're city builders. We have not just urban designers and planners, but we also have architects and landscape architects, people with engineering backgrounds, people with law degrees and law training, you know, all kinds of various backgrounds. And I'd say the ones that I even just mentioned are, if you think about it, they're all the disciplines that are required for building a great city. So that interaction between the disciplines is where I think it's, you know, you can do some pretty special things in city design.

Ryan Schwartz:
04:02.78 04:23.63

Yeah, I agree. And sometimes those responsibilities, the lines get a little bit blurred, right, between these positions and the scope of work and whatnot. You mentioned working at sort of the city, you know, the whole picture, sort of the bigger picture, and we're talking about transit-oriented communities. So maybe it's self-explanatory, but what are transit-oriented communities? What are we talking about?

Shonda Wang:
04:23.91 05:30.52

Yeah, well, traditionally, I mean, Transit Oriented Development, TOD, TOC, Transit Oriented Communities, you know, it's not a new concept. It's been around as an approach to city building for quite some time. I'd say that traditionally, Transit Oriented Development or Transit Oriented Communities has been defined as building complete mixed use communities near transit stations. When I say that this is not a new concept, I'm thinking about, you know, like Grand Central in New York, planned like in the early 1900s, or just at the turn of that century. And, you know, what I don't know if people realize is that when Grand Central was planned and designed and built, it was built to actually spur on development in and around that area, including on top of that infrastructure system, if you will. So not a new concept, but certainly something that I think is increasingly necessary in our rapidly growing cities.

Ryan Schwartz:
05:31.66 05:53.40

And when we say transit, I mean that could encompass all kinds of things, right? We're talking rail, subway, buses, bikes, maybe not so much as transit, but as a means of transit, right? And these multimodal hubs where you're combining a lot of those things together. So is that kind of the aim? You're trying to join a lot of these different means of transit?

Shonda Wang:
05:54.04 08:07.99

Yeah, for sure. Connectivity is huge. I mean, I like to say that transit's only good as your ability to get to it. So you could build a beautiful, modern transit corridor, but if it's in the middle of a If no one can get there. Or in the middle of nowhere that you can't get to, it's not a successful system. You can't get to it readily and nor is it necessarily an enjoyable experience from a day-to-day perspective to get there. So yeah, absolutely thinking about the multimodal experiences is key. Yeah. And I think that we have to think about, well, how do we actually, if TOD is not a new concept or approach to city building, why do we have to even be concerned with it today? Um, and, you know, what I think a lot about is there are some fantastic examples around the world of where we have TOD. Some beautiful districts, some beautiful integrated oversight development with buildings directly planned and designed and constructed on top. Physically on top. Subway systems, for example, subway stations. But what we tend to see are more one-off examples. So think like Hudson Yards in New York City, which is such a popular place and beautiful built over top of, you know, it's like a mixed use development built over top of a live rail yard. Or in Toronto, Ontario, CIBC Square, beautiful development. But these tend to be one-offs and by that I mean they're kind of these projects that exist and have been developed over time as these singular kind of projects. And I'd say really complicated to be able to be building those. The time it takes, for example, to set up the legal agreements and legal structures and development structures for these things take years. So all this to say is in the context of rapidly growing cities when you're introducing new transit lines and investing in that, how is it that we can actually achieve TOD at scale?

Ryan Schwartz:
08:08.89 08:35.71

Yeah, you don't want these little pockets or just one pocket. You want to have, you mentioned connectivity. You have these kind of a web of, of transit and then, um, some densification at each of these nodes. Um, and you mentioned things like, uh, Hudson Yards, which has some, some mixed use and things like that. So what, what kinds of projects are being integrated? We're talking like residential, mixed use, maybe some community, um, like some assembly spaces, things like that.

Shonda Wang:
08:36.64 09:10.96

Yeah, for sure. I think about examples of projects that we're working on, definitely mixed use. And depending on each site, each station area, of course the market will support, if you will, different types of development, residential, new housing. almost always features in these developments, where appropriate, office and or other kind of commercial uses, just the amenities that growing cities need all in one place.

Ryan Schwartz:
09:10.96 09:12.52

A bit of everything, right?

Shonda Wang:
09:12.52 09:39.72

Yeah, a bit of everything. And for sure, I'd say I like to think of transit or into development of as not just housing, but also all kinds of programming uses. You know, you can take this into integrating school sites, right, with TOD development. Community facilities like daycares. So all of these pieces that you would want to find in your own neighborhood. Think about it that way.

Ryan Schwartz:
09:39.72 09:54.67

That's great. And that sort of leads into my next question as these transit-oriented developments, communities, Why do we want them? Why are they good for, you've alluded to it, but why are they good for cities? Why are they good for neighborhoods and people? What kinds of things do they offer?

Shonda Wang:
09:56.72 11:11.26

Yeah, like we started talking, Ryan, about all the great programming, new housing, daycare schools and all of it. That's all great stuff for sure needed. I guess if I could take a step back from that, I just think that in the context again, as you were just kind of giving this intro about rapidly growing cities and cities evolving, As city designers, architects, planners, you know, we're really involved in needing on behalf of our communities and cities to rethink how we're going to grow and develop, how we're going to infill in our communities, how we're going to invest in our sites and actually leverage those investments. And I think that cities around the world, it's not just in Toronto or Vancouver or in San Francisco, this is cities globally, really need to rethink the process of expansion. And I would say in North America in particular, the process of suburban expansion that we know is just economically unsustainable. And from an environmental point of view, super reliant on fossil fuels. generic intensification.

Ryan Schwartz:
11:11.26 11:30.56

So that's something I sort of wanted to talk to you about is just the impact of cars and automobiles on the city and how they've really defined what a city is and they've shaped how cities work over the last hundred years. For sure. What kind of impact have cars and roads had on cities?

Shonda Wang:
11:32.06 13:21.92

Totally. I mean, it's not just a U.S. kind of problem. Like I think I used to think that's the U.S., this crazy unsustainable suburban expansion. It's in our own backyards, right? Like you can drive down Yonge Street and Newmarket, the town of Newmarket, although that's changing. I'll get back to that in a second, or Dundas Street in Mississauga. And you have these like, you know, six to eight lane arterial roads definitely set up for the car. Tons of surface parking, retail strips beyond that, little to no amenity, little to no park space at that. And so when we talk about generic development, that's kind of what I think about. I mean, I brought up Newmarket and Dundas Street in Mississauga for a reason. These are also towns and cities that are actually introducing rapid transit along those corridors. And so I find that extremely hopeful that A, the investment's happening to recognize that we can't sustain the patterns of car use, you know, Ontario, Toronto, GTHA area, one of the fastest growing cities in North America, fourth largest city in North America, in fact, largest amount of cranes in the sky. So when you think about that growth on one hand and you think about how are we going to actually support that growth, the bus rapid transit in the case of Mississauga and The rapid transit line that's being built along has actually, sorry, has actually been built along Yonge Street and New Market. These are fantastic steps to be able to change that pattern up.

Ryan Schwartz:
13:22.76 13:49.23

Yeah, and they're, sometimes they're rare opportunities, right? Cause it's, I'm just thinking, I mentioned the Ontario line in Toronto, it's a new subway line going in and it's not every day that a new subway line goes into Toronto. This is a kind of a big deal. So it's a huge opportunity. And I imagine the ripple effects of one of these subway lines and the number of projects that will spur off of this. It's huge, right? So talk a little bit about the Ontario line.

Shonda Wang:
13:49.23 15:11.91

Yeah, the Ontario line. I could talk about this all day. It is really exciting, Ryan. We haven't built a new subway or set of subways. I should say the province of Ontario are building four new subways in the next decade or so, which is massive. I mean, think about we haven't built new subways in the city of Toronto for well over 40 years. So yet we've grown dramatically. The need is clearly there. There have been a ton of planning studies, design studies for how to relieve the congestion that we're experiencing. And we're finally doing it. The province is doing it. Yeah, Ontario Line is one of those four subways for those that wouldn't know. For our listeners that might not know, it's 15.6 kilometers and it runs through the heart of the central city, you know, from exhibition area on the west through the downtown core, through all kinds of varied conditions, through mixed-use areas and residential neighborhoods, employment areas. And then it meets up with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT that's now built and almost opening. So it's pretty exciting.

Ryan Schwartz:
15:13.19 15:57.97

Yeah, and these projects are much needed and like you said, they're not just looking ahead a couple of years. These have been 40 or 50 years in the making sometimes and we're looking out the next hundred years for these cities and how we're going to move people around. And we mentioned the Ontario line and in your introduction, I mentioned Metrolinx because my next question was how as an urban designer and a planner, how do you sort of work with architects and the public, but maybe that's sort of a better introduction as your role advising Metrolinx. So can you talk a little bit about that and how maybe step back for a minute and just talk about what Metrolinx is and how it works in terms of the province and cities and then your involvement.

Shonda Wang:
15:59.49 18:54.85

Yeah, Metrolinx is the province of Ontario's transit agency. And I should mention Infrastructure Ontario is also very much involved in Ontario line. It's actually Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario that are planning, designing and building all four of these subway lines that I mentioned. I think it's fantastic because you're actually bringing together the expertise of an agency that's very expert at the infrastructure development, as well as the commercial opportunity and bringing those two things together. It sounds simple, but it's so necessary because you need the leadership and guidance at that kind of that end to be able to realize this ambitious program that the province has set out to realize, right? So, I mean, there have been LRTs that have been planned, designed and constructed. You know, I'm thinking about lines like the Hurontario LRT, Eglinton, Crosstown LRT as examples. But, you know, these projects take, as you were saying earlier, they take years to plan and design before they're constructed and operational, at least a decade or so. You know, there's a lot of work that goes into that. But what's so exciting, I think, is that the province is actually at a stage where they've realized that there is an untapped opportunity to deliver on multiple mandates, right? Not just more transit, but also more housing and all the great stuff that comes along with these mixed use communities, you know. We all know that we actually have to solve for not just how people are going to move, give people choice about how they're going to move around through all kinds of different modes, but also have options about where they're going to live, offer different types and tenure of housing. And so there's a really big opportunity for Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario to deliver on that. So to answer your initial question, yeah, our firm is involved with, I will say, with a large technical advisor team to spearhead really one of the largest and most ambitious transit projects in North America. And I'd say, in my mind, one of the first in its kind that's actually delivering the TOD at scale, like we were talking about at the beginning, right? We're taking a totally different approach to actually bring architects and the engineers and the planners, etc., all together at the beginning of the process before the RFPs for these heavy civil contractors are even released, right? There's a lot of coordination that just has to happen up front to make this happen.

Ryan Schwartz
18:54.85 19:34.32

So then a lot of this is coming from the provincial level. You mentioned Infrastructure Ontario. So this is kind of a government mandate, I guess, at the provincial level and then in their They're, they're putting that onto cities and then Metrolinx is kind of a, an arm's length corporation, um, as part of the government that's, that's really sort of taking the initiative and, and, and getting boots on the ground and actually getting these things done. Is that right? Okay. And so then someone like Metrolinx as an organization, did they have, I'm assuming they'd have their own architects in-house or did they bring in, is everyone, you know, they're getting in touch with other firms? I'm not exactly sure how that works.

Shonda Wang:
19:34.32 21:07.23

Oh, I see. Yeah. So when I say that we are part of a technical advisor team, we're working on behalf of Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario as their consultants essentially. Gotcha. multidisciplinary group of consultants, you know, at least if not like more than a dozen different disciplines represented within this large consortium team, really acting as advisors and but also putting pen to paper, you know, really trying to, in the context of TOD in particular, when I said that we're very early on coordinating about how to actually realize structurally integrated development with the subway infrastructure, it's really bringing really for the first time in our transit history, bringing together all of these disciplines to design to a functional level. I say functional level, I don't like to say like what percent complete do you get to because, you know, that will vary depending on what you're trying to solve. But I will say a tremendous amount of detail to ensure that you can enable the oversight development of these transit stations. And that will be built by a heavy civil, like a civil contractor. In fact, it's, it's, that work is underway today. If you traveled along the length of where the Ontario line alignment is, you'll see a lot of activity, a lot of construction activity. So it's pretty exciting.

Ryan Schwartz:
21:08.37 21:34.97

And like you said, these are huge projects. They can take like 10, 10 years or more. Like, how does that, how does that process start? How do you determine where these new lines are going to go? What kinds of projects are going to be proposed? Is that just through sort of projections or is it research and RFPs, like you said, requests for proposals for those that don't know. So how do these, how do these things kick off and what does that whole process look like?

Shonda Wang:
21:36.36 22:22.12

Oh, I mean, I won't go into the whole depths of that. It's there are a number of steps, as you can imagine, I mean, I can speak to the fact of where we got involved. And that was Like I was saying, you know, just bringing everyone to the table very early in the process so that we could take tangible steps to really think about, okay, we have a target, a mission, if you will, of something that we're trying to achieve. There's a time horizon for when we want to achieve this by. We need to start actually collaborating on why hasn't this been done before? What have been the challenges in the past? You know, these are solvable issues, but you need to out them, if you will.

Ryan Schwartz:
22:22.12 22:25.40

Yeah, what are those challenges? What have stopped these things in the past?

Shonda Wang:
22:25.40 23:35.71

I mean, I'll just say really simply put, I've kind of said this before, but I think that it's something that's so necessary is to bring all of the various disciplines that are required for the full development that you're trying to achieve. in and around the transit line together at the front end. You know, like landscape architecture as an example, the landscape, not just landscape architecture, but the landscape public realm, these aren't just, you know, this isn't just the the thin layer that comes along after the fact, you actually have to be pre-thinking about that, like right from the onset. As much as you need to be thinking about the structural positioning of where the supports will be within the station, or as it interacts with the cavern, to protect for the overbuild that you want to see, the 20, 30, 40-story building that's above. You need to be thinking where the louvers are. You need to be thinking about fire life safety. So think about all of those various experts coming to the table at the front end.

Ryan Schwartz:
23:35.71 23:37.11

Yeah, they're pretty, they're daunting projects.

Shonda Wang:
23:37.11 23:49.24

And it's happened. You know, that happens for transit infrastructure. I think that it's just that it's so rare to see the actual design community come into into play much earlier in the process.

Ryan Schwartz:
23:50.07 24:14.37

Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. And I think when you think about transit oriented developments, a lot of people, at least in my mind, I think of the immediate neighborhood, and I don't necessarily think about projects being built directly on top of a subway line. And that's obviously has its own challenges. So you mentioned structure and things like fire and life safety. Like what else? What goes into these things? I can't even imagine.

Shonda Wang:
24:14.37 27:01.49

Oh, my gosh. Well. A lot. It's just, you know, when you think about, this is the thing, transit infrastructure is, we know this, it's one of the most expensive investments a city or government is ever going to undertake, right? These are generational projects. And so when we think about the land that these transit systems are sitting on, and the land that's required to build these systems, right? Typically, or traditionally I'll say, once the stations are built, it's really hard to come back and retrofit after the fact for the oversight development, right? If it wasn't integrated at the beginning. Yeah, not even once they're built, it's even when they're well into progression of being designed and imminently constructed. starts to become harder and harder to retrofit or even to interface with that process. So if you've got millions, if not billions of dollars invested in these transit projects, and you're not doing more with these lands and finding ways to actually protect or enable for development, whether it happens on revenue service date, opening day, or if you're protecting for that opportunity to come down in five, 10 years, whenever that is into the future. You're really leaving a lot of opportunity and I would also say value behind financial value, economic, like the economic, environmental and social value, right? That we've been talking about all these great things that DODs can deliver. So allowing development on top of stations really brings a revenue stream to, let's say government in this case, who have not previously been able to capitalize on the air rights of the infrastructure. Right? And I'd say, you know, like, why has this happened? Well, just like we were talking about, why do we see these unsustainable patterns of development that we're now kind of shaking our heads at and being like, why did we ever do that? I mean, I think we're also now realizing and seeing in hindsight that Transit, residential development, public space. These are all things that have generally been thought of in silos in the past. Right? I mean, even the way that we in North America think about our transit stations and corridors, they're kind of like backdoor conditions, not front of house conditions. Right? So we know as designers that these conditions don't conflict with one another, but you do need to have a design solution to enable them to work. work to really open the door for a truly fulsome community.

Ryan Schwartz:
27:01.49 27:21.46

You're trying to layer a lot of these things together and in a perfect world, say one of these communities or developments in Toronto on this new Ontario line, what does a perfect transit-oriented project look like to you? What does a sort of a standout project look like?

Shonda Wang:
27:21.46 27:47.48

That's such a good question. I mean, I mean, I kind of want to ask you that question because I think that it's interesting for me to hear from people. What do you want to see in your communities? And in a perfect world, what would that look like where they don't need to be bogged down by that? How are we going to get there? We can solve that, you know? But what would you want to see in your community? I mean, I'm turning the question on you, right?

Ryan Schwartz:
27:47.48 28:27.05

That's a fair question. And I mean, it might depend a little bit on each specific location, but I could see, you know, for me, it would be something that's that's walkable, that has a lot of these amenities that you talked about. Like maybe there's there's schools and there's housing and there's jobs kind of all readily available. And it's just kind of it's almost like a microcosm of a city in itself. It's a little neighborhood that has a little bit of everything. Um, but then it allows that, that connectivity to other parts of the city that you're maybe not going to every single day, but maybe you have to go to once a week or once a month. And it just, you know, it's, it has everything you need maybe on a day-to-day basis, but then it allows you to easily get around the city to the other places that you need to go.

Shonda Wang:
28:27.81 30:07.30

For sure. Yeah, I love that. I think that's very human. Who doesn't want that, right? Exactly. No, I think that's it. It's like we all know what it's like to be able to, with ease and with enjoyment, experience your neighborhood, your community. And, you know, some of these sites for TODs are large enough that you can have all of those things in that one development. That's not to say that in a tight infill condition downtown where you do have this oversight development that you can't foster and or contribute to. and what the community needs and wants. I mean, I think about community consultation sessions that we're in where people would say, you know what, we've had a lot of this one type of use kind of come into our neighborhood, kind of the market dictates what kind of works in a certain neighborhood. We'd really love some smaller scale retail, love a restaurant. You know, we need places that are 24 hour kind of activities, not just serving kind of one section of the day. So, you know, part of it is doing exactly what we're just doing is having that conversation to understand, you know, what people want. You know, we can't guarantee that that use is there, but I think, well, you'll know this, you know, as architects and designers, there are ways that you can design something so that you achieve the small scale retail that people are desiring, right? So, you know, I think that kind of feedback is important from folks.

Ryan Schwartz:
30:07.30 30:50.80

Yeah. And it is tough to layer a lot of those things on because people do want green space and they want safe places for their kids to play and they don't want a highway running right, you know, next door to their house. And it's a lot of boxes to try and tick off. So they are challenging, I imagine. Are there any drawbacks to these kinds of communities? And I imagine things like funding, obviously, is a big one. They cost a lot. They take a lot of time. And also things like you mentioned land and procuring land for these kinds of communities. I don't know if how that works, if people just kind of get bought out of their homes. So I don't know. Are there any kind of drawbacks to these situations?

Shonda Wang:
30:50.80 30:58.32

Yeah, well, For sure. I mean, what do you hear about, I'd say with not just transit projects, Ryan, but I'd say any.

Ryan Schwartz:
30:58.32 31:02.24

Any project? Any project.

Shonda Wang:
31:02.24 33:11.88

Usually you're getting some feedback around some top issues, right? Traffic. Access. you know, just impact to people in their day to day lives, for sure there's going to be some some impact to people. But I think it's always trying to put into perspective what you're trying to achieve for the greater good, public benefit, you know. And I'll say people get that. I've had many, many conversations as part of community engagement, stakeholder conversation on all of our projects. And what I'm super heartened to witness is that there's been a shift in the way that people think, right? Ten years ago, if we were building a brand new streetscape and we wanted to introduce protected cycle tracks, It was like, what? What's a cycle track? Why do we need that? How am I going to bring my recycling or garbage bin out across that cycle track? Like you would get kind of resistance to it. But I think more than anything, it was just questions for people to better understand how it works and what the benefits will be at the end of the day. And also, you know, these are things about kind of highlighting what the tradeoffs are. But to what benefit? And so I guess I just take that thinking on any urban design city building architecture project and then take that into transit. It's the same thing, right? Having genuine conversations, being really clear about what's an open door versus a closed door. I like to make sure that you're sharing as much information as you know about why something, why you've made a decision about why you're doing something. Even if it seems highly technical, people can handle that. Explain the technical in a simple way. Explain the technical through a visual or a graphic. And, you know, we all know the power of graphics and design, right? Design something, show something that speaks to multiple audiences and people get it.

Ryan Schwartz:
33:13.36 33:42.91

That's interesting, the sort of the public engagement process and obviously there's going to be pushback from people that live in the neighborhood that think they're going to be inconvenienced for the next 10 years while this thing's under construction, but then if you sort of show them the greater good and the final impact and that it does benefit them and their city, what does that engagement look like? Do you hold meetings for local neighborhoods and community members and what kind of feedback do you get from these people?

Shonda Wang:
33:44.96 34:42.51

Yeah, we do all of those things. We have small group conversations. We have very large plenary kind of sessions. We're never just consulting once. There's always multiple rounds of engagement. That's super important. I think that's important to do early. and multiple rounds of engagement because then you're bringing people along as you're discovering things in the process, but also that people can actually influence decisions. When I said open doors, this is what we need your help with. And we don't know what the answer is. What are your programming requirements here, interior to a building or within the public space? Things like that. We've done things in person with, you know, public open houses. We've had charrettes, more active kind of hands-on workshops. We've had virtual meetings. Try all of it.

Ryan Schwartz:
34:42.51 35:09.42

A bit of everything, yeah. And what about at the city level? Because a lot of this is, like you mentioned, it's coming sort of from a top down from the province and saying, hey, we need to really bolster this transit infrastructure. Is there any pushback from cities thinking, you know what, or do cities just kind of embrace it and say, you know what, in the long run, this is great for us? Or do they say, you know what, this is going to be a pain and cost a lot of money? What's kind of the input at the city level?

Shonda Wang:
35:10.69 38:14.36

Yeah, I mean, I would say from my perspective, and I really truly believe this, I think that when I was saying that we're finally at a time where we're coalescing on this opportunity, the big opportunity we have. to think about our transit systems and what they're able to unlock in a different kind of way. As I was saying earlier, I think the province has taken a really strong leadership role. And, you know, in full cooperation with the cities, you know, the city that we've been working with is the city of Toronto. And as an example, you know, right from the very beginning of this, these projects being announced, Agreements were established, so anybody could Google and look up the Toronto-Ontario Transit Partnership Agreement. That was developed in 2020, so some years ago, and what I like about that is it just kind of sets out, listen, this is our, this is our mission. This is what we're trying to achieve jointly and collectively. And this is how we're going to get there. This is how we're going to work and collaborate together. And I've seen that happen. I've been part of these conversations where we have everyone around the table. You know, this is it's really interesting. I was in another city on the West Coast of the U.S. last week and having this very conversation with an agency and a city government that are trying to stand up a TOD program. And it was really interesting to see that, you know, we started having a conversation of, OK, this is in a way easy when there are 20 of us in a room just starting to imagine what's possible. These projects take time and the teams grow. And then there are multiple teams working on these things, right? You're going to grow to hundreds, if not thousands of people that are involved in these projects, both on the ownership and consultant and also builder side. So make sure your mission is clear. put it in writing, define terms and what they mean. These sound like such simple things, but I think whether it be something like a partnership agreement or a memorandum of understanding, I think these are really important foundational steps for people to articulate so that as time goes on, You're being really communicative about what you're trying to achieve along the way. Because, you know, this is the thing, five years into a project, two years in a project, whatever it is, there are tough decisions that need to be made, right? Or options that are on the table and you need to evaluate them. And so I think it's important that not only what the objectives are, but also the criteria that match that objective are really well articulated. You know, also I'd say willing to be flexible. It's not that you have to be rigid about all of this, but flexible to how things are continuing to evolve.

Ryan Schwartz:
38:14.36 38:32.20

Yeah. Knowing and just being open and that's because they are evolving projects and it might change a little bit over 10 years. It's a long time. That's encouraging. You mentioned the West Coast. Is there any exciting projects coming up that you're sort of looking forward to? Anything else that people can look out for?

Shonda Wang:
38:33.90 40:11.73

Yeah, I'm super excited about all kinds of things and where we can go in the next number of years in North America. I mean, the lessons, if I can call it that, what we're discussing now about what we've learned here in Ontario, they're applicable across North American cities. I think about cities like Seattle, the Bay Area in California, in Austin, Texas. I mean, these are just a few examples of cities that are planning and designing collectively over 80 kilometers of brand new transit lines. That's wild. And improvements to, you know, double of that, triple of that in terms of the transit lines that they have. So, you know, what's interesting about this is they're not only just investing in new transit. These cities that I just mentioned are also grappling with how do we get more housing? How do we how do we realize more community infrastructure? that our growing cities need. And so I think there's a real opportunity for us, even if these cities or other cities out there already have a TOD program and are already doing TOD, is to think about how can we actually optimize what we're doing and get more with what we have? How do we leverage the land that we already need to buy or expropriate to be able to build these transit lines? And and partner with the right people so that we're actually realizing and protecting for future opportunities.

Ryan Schwartz:
40:11.73 40:25.90

Yeah. Just like you said, these kind of solve a handful of problems all at once or at least attempt to solve a lot of these things. You're tackling things like climate change and housing and transit and they're just generally good for cities.

Shonda Wang:
40:27.22 40:43.81

Totally. I mean, I think about a conversation we've been in in Mexico, Mexico City, in Monterrey in Mexico. I mean, you can't talk about transit oriented development without multiple people in the room putting up their hands and saying, can we also solve for potable water?

Ryan Schwartz:
40:44.96 40:45.73

Yeah.

Shonda Wang:
40:45.73 40:47.57

Another major system. Yeah.

Ryan Schwartz:
40:47.57 40:50.29

What else can we include? Yeah, absolutely.

Shonda Wang:
40:50.29 41:14.45

So I think, yeah, it's, it's also how do you solve for these other systems that we're thinking about? And, and frankly, I think there is that opportunity. If you're going to be building these 19 kilometer, 20 kilometer lines, whatever they are, you have a real opportunity to impact a big piece of the city. You do need to deal with all the soft infrastructure as well. So there's a way to kind of bring those, those, those aspects together.

Ryan Schwartz:
41:15.19 42:02.57

Yeah. And yeah, they're huge opportunities. And I have a little blurb here just from the OAA, kind of speaking to this directly. So as a regulator for the architectural profession in the public's interest, the OAA will often reach out to the provincial government to share their sort of recommendations on these topics related to architecture and that affect the public. And one of them is transit oriented developments and things like climate change. So the OAA has openly supported transit oriented communities. noting that they support complete communities and they advance things like climate action and they also indirectly help with home affordability and reversing the housing crisis and things like that. So, yeah, I just wanted to point that out. We're running a little low on time here, so if people want to reach out to yourself or learn more about SVN, is there anywhere they should go to get in touch?

Shonda Wang:
42:04.08 42:30.05

Yeah, you could go to our website, svn.ap.com. God, I hope I got that right. Google SVN, architects and planners, you'll guess. We're on social media channels, et cetera. And yeah, Shonda Wang. I could also provide my email address. I'm happy to do that if that's appropriate. It's swang at svn-ap.com.

Ryan Schwartz:
42:32.85 43:23.85

Sure, that's great. Yeah, and then people can get in touch. For sure. And if anyone's interested in seeing the OAA's letters to the province of Ontario, they can visit oaa.on.ca. There's a resource tab there and they can check out the sort of government relations section. And there's also all kinds of other great resources there and information meant for the public, things for students, upcoming events, past podcast episodes. I encourage you to go check those out. So again, you can visit oaa.on.ca to check all that out. And that will end today's episode. If you've enjoyed it, please leave a review, tell your friends. That helps us create more in the future. Architecturally Speaking is available wherever you get your podcasts and also on the OAA's YouTube channel, so you can check that out for the full video of today's conversation. And until next time, I'm Ryan Schwartz, and this has been Architecturally Speaking. Bye for now.