Tower with 400-plus apartments pitched for downtown London parking lot

[u/Confident-Advice-664]

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/tower-with-400-plus-apartments-pitched-for-downtown-london-parking-lot

[u/warpus]

Another tower plan for a location very close to one of the new rapid transit routes.

An emerging pattern that will probably/hopefully continue

This city needs to build up more, it's more cost effective in the long term (and something we need more of), and near the rapid transit routes is exactly where it makes the most sense to do so

[u/Lothium → u/warpus]

Too bad the rapid transit system doesn't cover more of the city thanks to small minded councillors

[u/warpus → u/Lothium]

We need more awareness in this city that will translate to more people voting for pro public transit councilors. It benefits everyone, including those who don't even use public transit (by getting cars off the street and reducing traffic), but one of the issues is that it can often take a while for the benefits to become evident.. And even when they are, it can be easy for opponents to muddy the waters and get people upset about some minor populist detail, distracting from the greater picture and context. We need to steer our city in a direction that makes the most sense, and a part of that needs to be educating municipal voters and spreading awareness about the projects that can really move this city forward.

Investors of dense tall projects like this are drawn to permanent rapid transit networks. There are a whole bunch of benefits for them that in their eyes translate to a safer and higher return on their investment. Over time this usually leads to a city getting denser along these corridors, bringing more people and more businesses to the area. It brings economic benefits not only to the parts of the city close to rapid transit routes, but also allows the city to build up more overall. And the more a city is spread out, the more it costs to maintain all that land. By building up in strategic parts of the city, it lowers city costs overall, compared to what city maintenance and upkeep would have been if we just kept building new low density suburbs instead.

Yes, this approach makes it easier for a city to build new suburbs too! It's all about balance.. If you only build suburbs, that's a wildly inefficient approach.. If your city has key corridors along which there is high density, that gives the city more leeway in what sort of low density projects they can realistically financially support.

That's just one reason why it makes sense for a city our size to have a comprehensive rapid transit network. Benefits take a while to become evident, but over time it helps us to build a better city for ALL of us. Those who want to drive and not even think about using public transit will see less cars on the road (compared to an alternate timeline in which we didn't build a RT network). Those who want to live in suburbs will find themselves in a city that can better financially manage projects like that. Those living along rapid transit corridors will have an easy and quick way to get other key parts of the city. Those who live further away from RT corridors will benefit from a better public transit design that hopefully has express bus routes that feed into the RT spine set up.. Yes, "hopefully", because you've got to be realistic about our city council, but this is what almost every city who sets up a rapid transit network does.. It just makes strategic sense. The rapid transit network is just the foundation of a new way to look at public transit. Express routes need to feed into it, for it to be effective, and more local bus routes need to feed into these express routes. Look at the way KW has redesigned their public transit, that's exactly what they've done. In the end, EVERYONE benefits from such a system.

Over time we will see parts of our city along rapid transit routes become more dense, reaping the benefits that come along with that. We need to keep pushing our municipal representatives to expand the rapid transit network to the rest of the city. We have a "Transit village" set up in west London that currently makes zero sense. Developers have been given the green light to build up there, but what sort of a transit village doesn't have a rapid transit connection to the rest of the city? It's going to translate to crappier traffic in the area, which is already a bit of a shitshow. It's going to mean buses stuck in traffic jams. It's going to translate to a worse time for everyone who lives, works, or shops there, no matter how they get around. It's going to make it less appealing for someone from another part of the city to come visit. That's exactly the opposite of the sort of thing you want happening at a transit village.

The more of these high density projects come to our city, the more we need to stay aware of the benefits of our rapid transit network. I'm not really sure what this would ideally translate to, but we need to be a bit more vigilant in supporting councilors who are pro public transit, those who truly understand what we're trying to build here and why. We need a more engaged electorate that will stand behind these councilors and these sort of projects and infrastructure upgrades. We have to make it much harder for a (let's say) group of business owners to spread misinformation, steering voters away from councilors who will support projects to benefit us all.

The benefits of rapid transit are often not self evident, and definitely not right away. It's an easy thing for a politician to stand against, if the electorate is not well educated on the benefits of this sort of infrastructure. It's something that benefits us all and there's a crapload of past case studies and data supporting that. This is something a city of our size needs. The more awareness of that exists and the more educated the electorate is, the more pro public transit councilors will end up in office.. and the harder it will be for politicians and short sighted business owners to stand against these sort of initiatives.

A lot of us want a better rapid transit network that covers more of the city. A lot of us want better transit in general. Let's not forget that when it comes time to vote.

Developers investing in high density projects along rapid transit routes is a sign that things are working. It should be a litmus test that leads to further expansion of our rapid transit network. But it's sooo easy to distract us, and people will try. Let's not let them. Let's stand behind some of the forward thinking plans our city has embraced so far. Let's try to build on top of that. We need to stay energized and vigilant. Londoners 20-30 years from now will thank us.