TODling Over to City Hall

Wednesday evening this week, I attended a class put on by the City of Edmonton about Transit Oriented Development, or TOD, though bafflingly, everyone spelled it out "T.O.D." rather than just saying Tod, like the name.

The class is apparently an elective as a part of a series which includes three core classes and four electives. I'm signed up for a mish-mash of core and electives, though if I pay attention in the fall I'll be able to finish up a certificate. The certificate isn't worth a lot in terms of post-secondary education, though I'm sure it will still demonstrate a certain keenness and intelligence anyway. And more important are the information and contacts.

The attendees were an interesting mix, including one CEO business mogul in land development, a city prospector involved in waste routing, a number of interested citizens, and several city employees interested in learning more about the city. My table was mostly young guys. There was Tim, who had just returned from an extensive stay in Shanghai, Benny, an employee of the city, and Devin, who is doing research and analysis for real estate. They were all wearing dress shirts and carrying business cards; by contrast, I was in my track pants and carrying a backpack. But nobody seemed to find me out of place, and they were all quite bemused to hear about my video game testing background.

The first hour was introductions and a light lecture--I personally would have liked this part to be a little more intensive, but I understand that may not be appropriate for the audience. After that, we spent two hours playing with maps and Lego. We were split into groups of about six or seven members and were given one infill design challenge and one "greenfield" exercise, where the hypothetical transit center is being placed in completely new development. The entire class then went from table to table to see what the various groups had done, while the instructors and classmates commented on each design. The development mogul had an interesting take on things, as he liked to identify which land would be most valuable, and liked to see that developed with commercial or residential rather than something like a parking lot. Lots of other opinions were quite interesting, though, like how groups proposed to take advantage of parks and plazas or tried to mix uses in the higher density neighborhoods to keep them active across the whole day.

My next class is a full-day class on May 9, which is about transportation. I'm interested to see how transportation as a general topic is different from transit more specifically.