CAMBIE CORRIDOR PLAN

After inheriting a work program that envisioned a series of four individual station area plans (that would take 8 years) along the then-under construction Canada Line subway, Brent Toderian reconceived the exercise as a true urban transit corridor that would also emphasize complete, mixed-use communities for walking, biking, and transit. Renaming the exercise the Cambie Corridor Plan, Brent steered the project team toward a next-generation transit-oriented development that used advanced modelling to assess the success of alternative building forms against ridership, energy performance, and affordability/cost success-levels. Highly informative visuals were produce to convey intended built forms. Energy was utilized as a new third component in the form-making relationship between land-use and transportation/mobility.

Breaking the assumption that in Vancouver density comes in the form of tall towers, the Cambie Corridor Plan calls for predominantly mid-rise forms along most of the corridor, with individual station area heights and densities influenced by the defined ‘neighbourhood characteristics’. In this way, the Corridor still reflects the “city of neighbourhoods” tradition in Vancouver planning.

The Cambie Corridor Plan has received high praise and a growing number of awards from North American urbanists, as a new ‘best practice’ for transit-oriented corridor design and planning, and for integrating energy into the process as an overt form-shaper.