Is Transit-Oriented Development Good for Cities?

(0:00:10) Welcome to Good for Cities, the podcast where we explore the ideas, policies, and project shaping urban life, and ask the question, are they actually making our cities better? I'm Matti Siemiatycki, Director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto School of Cities.
(0:00:24) Around the world, infrastructure corridors like abandoned rail lines, old viaducts, and underpasses are being reimagined as public spaces that bring communities together. But beyond the physical redesign, there's a growing recognition that programming, storytelling, and cultural activation are just as important in shaping how people experience and value these places.
(0:00:43) On today's episode, I talked to Ilana Altman, the CEO of the Bentway in Toronto. Ilana is a designer and cultural planner with a background in art and architecture. In the simplest terms, the Bentway is a cool park underneath an aging elevated highway on Toronto's waterfront. In practice, it is so much more as a platform for programming and experimentation on community building.
(0:01:03) In our conversation, we discussed the role of fun in city building, how public spaces can shape policy conversations, and why infrastructure should be understood as both a physical and a social system. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
(0:01:22) Alana, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. So to get us started, how do you define the Bentway? It's both a physical space that's underneath an aging highway in the city of Toronto, but it's also a place where a lot of programming happens. So I'm wondering, as the CEO, how you think of the Bentway?
(0:01:43) Yeah, so the Bentway is a unique site and form of hybrid infrastructure that is transforming a mid-century piece of infrastructure that has served our city in one way for a very long time as a highway that was built to connect the downtown to the suburbs into a multi-solving structure that is repairing
(0:02:01) the gap or the scar in the city that was left behind by the construction of the city, as well as creating a new gathering place and site for connection for the many hundreds of thousands of people who now live next door.
(0:02:15) I often refer to the Bentway as a new type of civic institution because it is both working to connect citizens across the city physically, as well as serving as a platform for all sorts of ideas about how we want our city to grow, how we want to come together as a community, and what type of values will shape our infrastructure into the future.
(0:02:35) So how did the Bentway come about? Let's go backwards before we go forwards. I mean, in some ways, it's a completely harebrained scheme to put a park and a public realm and a place where we're going to do cultural activities under a highway that carries hundreds of thousands of vehicles a day and that at one time even had concrete falling off the side of it. So how did this idea come about? And even a little of your own personal story, how did you get involved in it? There's many cities that are growing and densifying at a staggering rate and
(0:03:04) Toronto is one of those cities. And so much like a number of other cities across the globe, we're starting to think creatively about where they find space to serve the needs of a growing community. And industrial reuse projects are top of the list. We've seen cities like New York, who have
(0:03:20) pioneered projects like the High Line converting disused rail yards into a new public park for the city. We've seen cities like LA think about their riverbed and how it can now serve as a new public asset and not just a space for water. So Toronto was following in that tradition. I think that we have, we step back and we look at the waterfront where the gardener sits. It was not that long ago, a whole bunch of industrial
(0:03:47) lands and rail yards and parking lots and in only a few short decades it's become homes to hundreds of thousands of people we now estimate that there's about 200 000 people who live immediately next door to the gardner expressway so their front yard backyard is the gardner expressway and that is the size of many cities across our province you know it's a huge number of people
(0:04:09) So, you know, I think that for a long time there had been discussion about whether the highway would stay or go. And very luckily, in 2015, an incredible urban designer by the name of Ken Greenberg asked another question, which is, do we have to get stuck in this binary to debate or can we ask if the structure can serve our city differently?
(0:04:31) and actually unite these many people who now call it their front door and back door. And he brought this proposal to an incredible philanthropic family by the name of the Matthews, who had been giving extremely generously in our city for a very long time, but who were thinking strongly about a legacy project and a legacy project in the public realm. And they didn't want a project, you know, to their credit,
(0:04:56) They wanted a project that was going to be catalytic, so not a single destination park that would be incredibly wonderful and lovely, but quite contained. They were looking for a project that would inspire the city to think differently about public space. And so, Ken brought them this proposal, and to everybody's benefit in Toronto, we were lucky that they saw the potential. And so, they brought the proposal and the funding commitment of $25 million, which built phase one,
(0:05:23) to Mayor Tory at the time. And he understood the importance of this, not only for the future of the gardener, but for the future of public-private partnership in the city of the Toronto and the importance of these growing communities along the waterfront. And so together, the city and the Matthews and the team that is now the Bentway brought this project forward into completion in record time. So if you can believe it,
(0:05:51) from proposal in 2015 to opening in January 2018.
(0:05:56) and that's what gave rise to the bentway phase one and alana can you talk a little bit about the role of programming i think that's again an important part of the hybridity of it that it's yeah it's a physical space and it's remarkable what has been built and the fact that you've animated something that was completely forgotten and for many torontonians and just like in many cities the spaces underneath their elevated highways are like no-go zones or their afterthoughts so the physical design is important but i think a big piece of what you do at the bentway is also the cultural programming
(0:06:26) And can you speak a little bit about the role of cultural programming and how you bring people together and use it as a space of convening? Yeah, well, you asked about my background and I think that I'll answer both questions at once because
(0:06:42) My background is in architecture. I studied architecture practice for a number of years, but I was lucky to practice architecture in quite an expanded way. So I never thought of architecture as a practice that was just about delivering buildings. I always thought about it as a way of seeing the city and a way of stimulating conversations about the city. And for me, that took the form of design competitions, took the form of delivering multi-story residential complexes.
(0:07:11) But it also took the form of programming. So I was lucky enough in my days working as an architecture to work on exhibitions and performances and publications. And so when the Bentway first posted for director of programming, I had several people reach out to me and say, this job looks like it was made for you.
(0:07:34) because it is blending this new ideal of public space with a concept of programming. And I was so lucky that when I joined the organization, I actually joined as the director of programming and had a chance to help shape that programming mandate. And for me, it was really important that
(0:07:52) Yes, we were committed to seeing the space alive and animated through different cultural traditions and recreational practices and ensuring that programming was a means of reflecting the city back to itself. But I also wanted our programming to be serving the larger mission of the organization, which was helping us to think differently about public space in our city. And so we've developed a program mandate that does just that, whether it's delivering public art activities or it is community events or it is
(0:08:22) cultural research alongside policy research. The programming is driving interest and attendance as well as driving new conversations about the role of public space in the city. In your programming and in the space, I guess, how do you blend the idea of ambition and thinking of this as a really critical, important place for important conversations alongside the community role? It seems like in many ways the Bentway
(0:08:48) is playing at two registers. One is at this really ambitious, as this really ambitious cultural institution, and the other is as a place of community convening. How do you bring those two together? Well, I always say that the Bentway is at its best when it's not making distinctions. You know, if we can have, if a highway can be one of the most important gathering spaces in the city, then, um,
(0:09:11) we can find ways of blending culture and recreation to new ends. We can find ways of blending educational opportunities with large-scale events.
(0:09:22) And for me, I actually think it's really important that if we're having conversations about our city, we need to find ways of making them accessible to a broader community. So while I'm a huge fan of academia and everything that happens on a university campus, I've seen with my own eyes what it means to bring these sorts of opportunities
(0:09:43) thought provocations or discussions into the public realm. You know, the way that people observe and interact with a public art piece that we intended to, you know, tell a certain story is amazing and it broadens the conversation. It doesn't have to be just policy
(0:10:00) makers talking to policymakers, it's better if the community sees themselves reflected in that conversation and then can participate in that conversation. So I actually see the two as being very compatible. And I hope that that's, you know, a unique role that the Bentway is able to play in the city.
(0:10:15) Let's make this really tangible. What are some of the examples of programming that you've had going on at the Bentway? I mean, we should tell people the Bentway has a skating rink. People roller skate there in the summer. It's currently being used as part of the FIFA Fan Fest zone. So it really is multi-use. But when it comes to your arts and culture programming, what are some of the types of programs? What are some of the
(0:10:39) activities that you've had there. Let's make it really tangible so people can kind of feel it through the through the podcast, what they like, what you're doing there. Yeah, absolutely. So we usually take on a kind of topic or a theme each year that helps us to
(0:10:56) convene a broader conversation through our programming. So last year, for example, we were really interested in the fact that our cities were warming and that was changing the way that we relied on public space and the way that we use public space. And we recognize that the Gardner, in addition to being a deck of a highway, is also Toronto's largest continuous canopy in the city and providing much needed shade in a warming climate.
(0:11:20) We've also had to learn how we make shade compatible with public space because for too long, I think it's been kind of billed as the enemy of public space. So that was a season that took the form of many different installations where we were inviting artists and designers from countries who have much longer traditions of thinking about shade making and
(0:11:42) Their work took the form of new canopies that help to shelter certain parts of our space from the sun in new ways. It took the form of reflections on landscapes and vegetation that actually thrive in the shade so that we can celebrate the gardener as an understory. It took the form of an incredible performance piece on a 20 foot high sand dune that was reflecting about climate futures.
(0:12:11) And, you know, took the form of lots of different workshops, a parade of moving trees throughout the Bentway and the city to reinforce the importance, the important role that urban trees play in our city. So that's, you know, that's kind of a glimpse of a Bentway season. It's varied, it's fun, it's interactive and participatory. But we also increasingly are...
(0:12:37) realizing that the drip line of the gardener is not a hard and fast boundary. And so much of our programming is also kind of spilling into the local neighborhoods. We did this incredible project a couple of years back called Dominoes, which was a 2.7 kilometer domino course.
(0:12:53) city-sized domino course that ran across city streets in and out of private residences through the library ultimately making its journey so that the last domino dropped into lake ontario and that was really about um you know extending our conversation about connectivity across the broader neighborhood and inviting
(0:13:17) a whole host of volunteers in the city at large to help us to create something that proved out what's possible. So yeah, that's a couple of recent examples to give you a flavor for what we're doing.
(0:13:30) You know, as I listen to you giving those examples, I have a big smile on my face because they just sound fun. And I wonder, like, what role does fun have in cities and city building? I mean, city building is serious business. And there's, you know, there's often that saying that fun is also serious business. But you've been able to come up with ideas that have whimsy and that are playful and that bring people together and make them smile.
(0:13:53) Like the dominoes made people smile. You look at the photos of people who were there, thousands of people who came to watch that and they're just smiling and enjoying it. It has like a youthfulness and a joy to it. And a lot of city building can feel heavy and intentional. How do you think about that idea of things being real fun
(0:14:12) not like fake fun that like this is supposed to be enjoyable, come and, you know, look at this in a museum, but things that are really fun and that people come and congregate and celebrate and, you know, and make them their own. You know, people choose cities for all different sorts of reasons, but largely I hope that people choose cities because they get to be around other people and other people who aren't necessarily like them. And city living may not always be easy. It's, you know,
(0:14:40) There are other ways to, other places where you can live or other environments where you can live where arguably there's less friction and it's easier to get around, it's easier to do your daily routine. But I think that a city should be stimulating, it should be challenging in all the best ways, and it should be joyful. And sometimes I think we forget that. Like if those aren't our aims, then what are we doing, right?
(0:15:07) I agree. We can build the biggest tower in the world. But if we have lost our sense of civic pride and civic joy, then what is it all for? That's something that we've seen the power of. And Toronto has needed it recently. Toronto, I think...
(0:15:25) was getting very down on itself. And we were forgetting, especially coming out of COVID, and we were forgetting how lucky we are to live in a city with such great diversity, such incredible talent, with such amazing innovation. And so I hope that our projects are
(0:15:41) really just shining a light back on the city in terms of what we're capable of, what we have here as resources, how we can benefit from being in closer contact to our neighbors. But I think that we have to elevate Civic Joy as a primary city building activity. And I have to say, you brought up that we're currently hosting the Fan Fest for the World Cup. I have really found this event to be one of those moments for Toronto.
(0:16:10) It's a huge undertaking, and I think Toronto is doing it really well. We're showcasing our city in a really positive light. And, you know, being on the bent way and watching waves of fans, Brazilian fans come in in their yellow jerseys, and then a wave of Scottish fans come in in their kilts, and then a wave of Mexican fans come in with their green shirts. It's been amazing.
(0:16:35) amazing just to see um that diversity on display in in such a genuine way and people they they may be rooting for their teams but the energy of being there amongst torontonians and international visitors from so many different places it's really uplifting so i i really hope that we can carry this momentum and this positive feeling forward yeah i agree i mean what what i've seen i was on the waterfront and saw the german fan clubs and fan supporters all all along there in their jerseys
(0:17:03) And it was remarkable. Let me go back and ask about a moment that was probably the most contentious moment in the Bentway's history, which is the dinner with a view episode. So this was when there was a dinner party or there was programming that was meant to be a dinner party that people could rent terrariums, I guess, and pay. And I'm not asking you to comment on that. It was to have like an upscale meal in these terrariums. And it turned out it coincided with a moment where
(0:17:31) a homeless encampment was being taken down by the city and i'm not asking you to comment on that moment but rather like what does it tell us about programming and how you find a balance in a city where there is a lot of pressure i mean we just talked about joy and like i think that's critically important but there's also a lot of pain and a lot of misery and how do you find that balance in the type of public spaces that you're that you're organizing for
(0:17:56) Yeah, that was a really, it was a tough moment and it was a really important learning moment for the Benway. It was still when we were fairly early on and that was actually a third party rental that came in and delivered that program. And we did hear the criticism in terms of, you know, the history of the under gardener spaces in terms of what they meant for an unhoused population, a transient population.
(0:18:21) The way that many of them are, many of those communities are still making use of the spaces under the highway and other parts of the city. And I think that it was an important moment for us to, number one, make sure that when we are working with third party operators, that we are coming together around shared values as much as a shared space.
(0:18:42) Not to say that, you know, the dinner with a view was about anything other than trying to give people a unique meal experience, but it came with a price tag that we were trying to avoid in terms of our other programming. And I think like, you know, we want to be sensitive to how these events are perceived.
(0:19:01) But it also, for us, was an important learning moment about the role that the Bentway plays in a larger ecosystem within the broader neighborhood about supporting our more vulnerable Torontos. The space is a space for everyone, genuinely. Like, we really believe that.
(0:19:19) And I will say that our incredible operations team, which is on the ground, has done an amazing job of not just being there for the facility, but being there for the many different communities that use our space every day. And so they are often a first point of contact with people who are having trouble in the city, that are seeking resources, that are needing a space to serve a daily use and not a leisure use. And so we've learned a lot about
(0:19:47) the type of infrastructure that's needed on a day-to-day basis for people who use our space to tap into Wi-Fi, to serve their daily needs, to have a place to
(0:20:00) to have a rest, to have a place to charge their phone, to have lockers, to store their things for a moment in time. And those are design strategies and features that we're bringing forward as we look to grow our work across the Gardener. But I think it's also helped us to understand what type of programming is meaningful for our local community. And I say our local community in the broadest sense, meaning not just those who are living
(0:20:26) living in residential units, but those who are potentially living in nearby respite centers or living rough. Have you been able then out of that experience to find ways of coexistence between sort of the more joyous programming and people who are using your spaces more out of necessity? I think so. I mean, it happens on a day-to-day basis, right? Because our programming is free and accessible to attend, many of the people who come and visit our space
(0:20:55) you know, may be in a more vulnerable situation, they still participate in our programs. And that's encouraging for me to hear as well. But we've also formed really meaningful partnerships with the local respite centers, organizations like Fred Victor and Homes First, so that we can be creating opportunities for their communities throughout the year as well. I think at the end of the day, I think that a successful public space is always a product of
(0:21:25) respect, respect for the space and respect for the people who are in it. And so we we try to create the conditions where that's the case for everybody who is is visiting. I think that's quite remarkable. I mean, that's how you stitch a community together. And I think that it's it sounds like it's very intentional. Let me ask you one other question, which is about
(0:21:46) The risk of gentrification and that you have a space that's so successful and that really is this place that attracts people and that runs the risk of driving up property prices around it and, you know, bringing in more upscale retailers around it or upscale programming. How do you contribute without tipping the balance towards towards gentrification in the surrounding areas? Yeah, it's a real issue, but
(0:22:12) It's a different issue in Toronto than it is in a lot of other cities. We work really closely with a whole bunch of partners that the High Line has convened to talk about the risk of gentrification and how you can build a community first approach to these sorts of adaptive reuse projects. And we've learned a ton from our partners.
(0:22:30) Toronto's story is different because the work is actually following development in most cases. So we came in after the residential units had been built out, after the transition from industrial lands to commercial or residential had happened, which is a very unusual story because most of the time a city won't grow up around an empty space like the spaces under the gardener. But that is what has happened in Toronto. So we are more filling the gap.
(0:23:00) then we are creating the change from from the start let me ask you then about your expansion plans because i know you're working on those i want to give you a chance to talk and share what your ideas are for where the bentway is going from here the bentway right now represents just shy of a kilometer of space on the west end of the city but the gardener is elevated for seven kilometers from defran to the dvp we
(0:23:25) both recognized the value of what we had achieved at my phase one, really proving out that a space under the gardener could be a success, that it could convene people, that it could connect people, that it could create much needed flood protection through landscaping strategies.
(0:23:43) It could marry infrastructure and recreational and cultural uses. But we called it phase one always for a reason, because it was the start of something and not the end. And so with the proof of concept in place, we approached the city and we said, we think that what we need is a comprehensive vision for the full seven kilometers, drawing from our learnings on the Bentway, what worked, what we can improve upon.
(0:24:06) Because this is a multi-stakeholder, decade-long project. And if we don't have a North Star that all of us are working towards, then we're going to be making investments that are at odds with one another. So we were really fortunate that the city agreed and collaboratively we developed a plan called the Undergardner Public Round Plan, which is...
(0:24:29) a high-level vision for the full seven kilometres, recommendations about continuous end-to-end trail, active transportation network that runs east-west in parallel to the waterfront, improvements to the north-south conditions at all of the key intersections. That can't happen soon enough, by the way, please. I know. Yeah.
(0:24:55) We hear that and we have actually just unveiled two improvements at Bathurst and down Lakeaway, the first of many to come. As well as the plan also has recommendations for additional destinations that
(0:25:10) replicate the bentways model and and find ways to grow uh destination community amenities and recreational offerings underneath the gardner expressway so we're we're working really that was approved by council in 2024 and now we're working really hard to bring those uh recommendations to realization i think what always strikes me about this work is that
(0:25:35) everybody we talk to is on board. It's very rare that you will find a critic. People recognize that the state of the Gardner in its current state is not serving our city as well as it can be. And all this investment, all this incredible investment that we have made in the waterfront, that needs the Gardner investment to be elevated.
(0:26:02) And so we were working really hard to bring it to fruition, but it is a complex and multi-stakeholder project. And so I think it is more about the how than it is about the why or why should we care? So right now it is about assembling the partners, assembling the funding, assembling realistic timelines so that we are working hand in hand with civic investment and projects to bring these
(0:26:30) improvements to fruition. Let me use the Bentway story to zoom out because you just wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail called How Infrastructure Can Help Build Canada's Next Identity. And I think it's so interesting that you tie infrastructure and identity, especially in this moment, just like Toronto was struggling with how to connect our waterfront with the rest of the city. Canada is struggling with issues around our identity, about sovereignty, about national unity. What do you see as the connection there then between infrastructure and identity?
(0:27:00) I have found myself reflecting on this moment. There's a really significant national conversation taking place about resilience, about self-reliance, and about how we want to project ourselves to the world. And it may not have come about
(0:27:15) by our own choosing may have come about from external factors, but nonetheless, it's a really important conversation. And I kept finding myself thinking back to when was the last time Canada had a moment like this? And so I was thinking about the centennial as as this moment that prompted many of the same questions for different reasons, but many of the same questions. And when I look back about the legacy of the centennial, I'm struck by
(0:27:42) how significant a role infrastructure played like we were we were building the country quite literally at that moment in time and connecting the country was one of the most central outcomes of the centennial and the legacy projects um which include uh you know multiple transit lines and multiple multiple cultural facilities how many centennial arenas do we have in this country yeah exactly i mean in the article i say that the gardner
(0:28:09) didn't happen necessarily as a centennial project, but it was all happening around the same time, right? It was planned in the late 50s and 60s, so it was part of the same conversation. And not surprisingly, in this moment in time when we're thinking about our national conversation, where are we making investments? Well, the federal government has just announced a historic investment in infrastructure through the Built Community Strong Fund, $51 billion over the next 10 years.
(0:28:38) We found ourselves in a similar situation where we are making investments in infrastructure at this moment where we are contemplating our identity. And I think the two are very closely married because what we build will help to define who we are. But as I argue in the article, the needs are very different than they were today. We're grappling with an incredible relationship.
(0:29:02) staggering infrastructure deficit, which the School of Cities detailed in great depth in their 2024 report. And we're trying to solve a lot of needs with limited funding. Infrastructure is not just roads and transit anymore. Infrastructure is the social foundation of our
(0:29:22) And so I was really pleased that in the School of Cities report, the way that you described infrastructure was broader than just the hard infrastructure. It was used to talk about schools and libraries. But what I find missing is where these things come together. We don't have to be talking about infrastructure.
(0:29:42) at social and physical infrastructure as if they're at odds with one another. The reality is that we need to adopt hybrid modes of thinking and invest in multi-solving structures because we need to, the investment that we have, we need to make it go as far as it can possibly go. And I think the Bentway
(0:30:00) is a great example of how that's been done successfully and where that's possible. You know, we've taken an operational expressway and made it double as a community gathering space, a recreation center, a cultural venue, a climate, you know, an essential climate infrastructure. So it's absolutely possible. But the reason I wrote the article is because I'm starting to recognize that there are these projects that are popping up
(0:30:27) across canada whether it be conversations about highway 40 in montreal or conversations about the green line in calgary or um the incredible work that uh is happening in vancouver and around the borough bridge with the sanak development so there is a bit of a movement happening but what we're lacking is the policy framework and the asset classes to properly support these types of projects
(0:30:55) Even in the 2000s, I wrote a few papers. I wrote one called Message in a Metro about the subway in Bilbao, Spain. And I wrote another one about in Delhi, India, talking about how the message of that subway was so critical. It wasn't just about moving people. And you talk about that in your piece as well, that these things take on such a larger situation.
(0:31:17) narrative they they they're stand-ins for all sorts of different discussions and i what i thought was really powerful in your piece you introduced this idea of hybrid infrastructure right that like we can multi-solve that you can that that actually if you just build these things one by one by one that's missing the point of how you get the bigger benefits out of these projects and you know reading your article and i think
(0:31:39) most people would feel this like it makes so much sense like of course if you're building a new transit line around the stations you should put affordable housing and then where there's affordable housing and other types of housing you should also have a school and then you should have a library and a community center and I think my question is like why
(0:31:56) Don't we do this just as a matter of course? Why is this so difficult? When you look at it on its face, you're like, that is the obvious way to build a great city. Why do we not just do this? It's the question that I ask myself a lot. Probably every day in the world. Why is it so hard to do this?
(0:32:17) And it was a question that I posed actually when I took on the position of the urbanist in residence at the School of Cities this past year. So with the support of the School of Cities, I've had the opportunity to ask this question of a number of different people. And there's a couple of things that really came to the fore for me. First of all, we fund and categorize infrastructure in really functional terms. So we create functional categories and we develop
(0:32:45) departments and policies around functional areas. And so when you introduce something that straddles those functional areas, it becomes incredibly hard to understand who is taking the lead from a government standpoint and how it gets funded. And so I call these projects category killers because they break the rules, the current structures and the rules that we have in place because they do a little bit of everything, but they don't fit neatly into any single infrastructure class.
(0:33:13) So that's why in the article I'm arguing for a new asset class, because I think that we have to find a way of recognizing not just the benefits of the multiselving structures, but understand their role and their multifunctionality in a way that we can support them through funding and governance and mandate and the rest. I think that the other thing is that we tend to fund
(0:33:40) with only capital in mind. And sometimes these projects are challenging because they have real operational commitments on the other side of them, right? It's different to deliver a road than it is to deliver a road that's coupled with the public space because they're very different operational realities.
(0:33:57) there's a necessity to find a compatibility between those operational realities to make them both survive and thrive. So I think that we have to be establishing new governance models that allow us to think simultaneously about capital and operating funding and more flexible governance models that once again can kind of break down those silos. And that's actually where I think that
(0:34:19) organizations like the Bentway, which is a conservancy, it's a charitable organization that's stewarding a public asset and has the ability to straddle those silos, is a really important and effective tool in helping to
(0:34:35) address some of the challenges that we're up against. So those are some observations. I think equally the way that we measure success has to change, that we really could create measurable frameworks to understand the outcomes of these multi-benefit projects. We would see that with relatively minimal investment in the grand scheme of things, that it is required to improve a public realm
(0:35:02) it's a far different investment than building a roadway, the returns on that investment are huge. We just don't have a coordinated or cohesive way of measuring these outcomes across projects.
(0:35:15) Let me ask you one last question then as we wrap up. You've worked in New York, you've worked in Toronto, you've traveled all over the world. If you were to point out some hybrid piece of infrastructure that you think are really great examples of your ideas that Canada should be looking to, they could be here at home or they could be abroad. What are some examples? I'm going to cite examples that I've been to. There are
(0:35:40) many more examples i think what miami is doing with the underlying is a fantastic example where they've taken a light rail system and they have kind of created a parallel active transportation network below um one of the things that i think is really significant about the way that they've approached their work is that they've thought about connectivity broadly so they've actually made a commitment to um
(0:36:05) connectivity through high speed internet all across their site, as well as the walking trails. And that's really significant because they're connecting some of the poorest and some of the richest places in Miami right now. And so the needs are very different from one end of that trail to the next. I think that they're doing a really excellent job. You know, I was in Brisbane last year, just as an example, which
(0:36:31) I was there because the flight got delayed on the way back to Canada. And Air Canada said, you have a day in Brisbane. And I found the way that they mix their infrastructure, both like the trails and paths, but then the cultural infrastructure around it and community spaces to be quite remarkable. And what jumped out to me in Brisbane, like I'm there for one day, it's during the Ashes, which is a giant cricket tournament.
(0:36:56) There was so much joy, like you could just feel the joy radiating off of that city that day. I think it's probably similar to many of the cities that are hosting the World Cup right now where we're experiencing, you know, whether it's locals or people have come into town for it. There's just a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
(0:37:11) I think to me, that's the key is like, how do you bottle that? Make sure that it's equal so it's not only exclusively available to some. But nevertheless, that you make that part of the way that you think and build a city. And my sense from Brisbane is that like,
(0:37:28) fun was built into the dna of how they were transforming that place um and i and i think that that was a real eye-opening experience for me on it in a city that i wasn't even expecting to be in that day and yet just showing up as like you know fly on the wall for one day and just experiencing it really was eye-opening so we need more fun and infrastructure is what you're what you're saying then
(0:37:50) We need places that bring real joy and real fun and allow people to experience that and that it doesn't feel top down and forced. It feels, and I think actually to come back to where we started, I think that's been the Bentway success is that you use programming to create a platform where people can come together and you curate what that is, but you're not always doing that. I mean, you have a skating rink, you have people roller skate there, people just spend time in a quiet moment in the shade. Like you have a number of different ways that you're,
(0:38:20) able to provide that that experience. But I think finding ways that it doesn't feel like it's, you know, someone dictating that now you're here to have fun. Yeah. And I think when events or activities start to feel that way, it's lost. And you know, it's kind of lost the plot and time to move on.
(0:38:37) Yeah, I mean, these are spaces that, like it or not, are integrated into our daily life. I mean, how many times do you find yourself walking under the gardener? You probably stop seeing it because it's just so routine. But if we can start helping people see their cities again through positive terms, that's a good thing. I'm always struck that when I travel, the places that tend to stay with me the most aren't the places that a city has visited
(0:39:06) built anew and recently, they tend to be the places that a city inherited and found a way to make new or found a way to represent their values today and not at the time that it was built. I think about the incredible aqueduct in Vienna and how they have repurposed that space for new commercial purposes. I think about structures like the High Line and what a success that has been for New York.
(0:39:34) So I personally, I think it's like, you know, in some ways to come back to the centennial, it's like a symbol of a city's coming of age when it is forced to look at the spaces that it has and the structures that it's inherited and ask how they're going to serve the city differently into the future. And that's the point that Toronto's at. You know, Toronto is growing at an exponential rate.
(0:40:00) And so we have to get creative. That's the way that we, that we, you know, match this growth with our ambition. That's an amazing place to end. Alana, thanks for joining me. Thanks so much. This was fun. Thanks for tuning into the Good for Cities podcast, where we bring together researchers, practitioners and industry leaders to explore ideas about more inclusive, innovative and resilient cities. Our goal is to spark conversations that help us better understand how cities are built and how they can be built better.
(0:40:30) We'd like to extend a special thanks to our guest, Alana Altman. This episode was produced by Eva Hellreich, Ben Wood, and me, Maddie Simiaticki. Original music is by Michael Widener. You can find this episode and more on the Infrastructure Institute website or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Be sure to join us next time as we continue to challenge assumptions about city building. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you then.