Episode 36: The Answer is the Arterial

We’re joined by Peter Calthorpe, Senior Vice President, HDR | Calthorpe, one of our foremost thinkers about urban design and an innovator of transit-oriented development, along with Allison Brooks, Executive Director of the Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC). This podcast is a recording of a keynote discussion from the Rail~Volution 2020 transit and community development conference.

Ep 36
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“There are different forms of transit. Whether it’s auto-free streets or electric motorcycles, different cultures, different economies, different parts of the world need to be thought of in creative ways.”  – Peter Calthorpe

Video – Peter Calthorpe Keynote, Rail~Volution 2020

On the podcast, Calthorpe shares what he thinks will be the next generation of TOD, addressing our shortage of affordable housing and the declining commercial spaces along our arterials. To set the context, he ranges from China (where only 30% of households own cars) to Ho Chi Minh City (where a lane for electric motorcycles moves people as well or better than high-capacity transit) to Mexico City (where the average commute is three hours) to California (where housing is only 50% affordable). Worldwide, Calthorpe says, the virus called sprawl has been growing for fifty years, taking shape in many places as “low income, high-density sprawl” and in the US as “low-density sprawl.”

“We are encouraging all the wrong forms of mobility,” Calthorpe says, but “we know if we build the right kind of environments, we can get much better outcomes,” including lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower household costs – “a really important point for the struggling working families in this country” – lower infrastructure costs, lower land consumption, better health for residents.

Listen to hear more about his vision for repurposing arterial roadways into “grand boulevards” with infill housing and high capacity transit, possibly ART, “automated rapid transit.”

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