Can someone provide an example of this American ideal? I can't ever recall such splendid TOD when I travel via transit in the US.
And I don't know, Main, Olympic Village, Waterfront and Yaletown are stations that I think plenty of folks will go to just to walk (as they're near the Seawall) and grab a coffee. New Westminster, if they can figure out a way to make Quay work, can eventually be another type of station. I think King Edward might be another if they can make it easier (or more interesting, at least) to get to QE Park.
Although, not sure why having low rise apartment buildings makes the neighbourhood less pedestrian friendly and more alienating than high rise buildings.
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He's not talking about the low rises making it more pedestrian friendly, he's just equating the American model with more pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods where there are shops and restaurants and stuff instead of sprawing parking lots.
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I fail to see how this is an accurate depiction of Canadian TOD (or Asian, for that matter).
And a bit of a weird criticism, even if true. Let's use Metrotown as an example. Even if they were not going to reconfigure the parking lots, the fact is is that there exists a viable alternative to going to that shopping centre that lots of people use. If Seattle's light rail system connected to, say, Southcenter or Northgate or University Village, that'd be great, even if there were all those sprawling parking lots still in existence.