Times when your city "Thought Big"; Time when your city "Thought Small"

[MolsonExport]

All right, one of the main points of frustration about the cities where we live is a perception that the decision makers are "thinking small" (and more rarely, "thinking big" but spending like drunken sailors...although it is possible to be both, and it is very easy to be a Monday-morning Quarterback on the wisdom of these decisions, since they involve risk and unforeseen external shocks).

Montreal "Thinking Big"
-Expo '67 and all the huge construction projects that were associated with this "Montreal coming of age" event (VM and Decarie expressways, Turcot interchange, subway)
-The Olympics (after the unbelievable success of Expo '67, Mayor Jean Drapeau was thinking way too big, building a stadium [stadia: there was also the pool and the Velodrome] that was almost fatally prone to problems, vast cost overrun.
-The new REM (very ambitious light rail network under construction which is probably the biggest single infrastructure project in Montreal history, unless you count the Metro...but the latter was constructed in segments over decades)
-the new Champlain Bridge
-Mirabel Aeroport

Montreal "Thinking Small"
-insanely shitty infrastructure maintenance over the years, in part due to the city's/Province's need to finance the "White elephants" (Olympic Stadia, Mirabel)
-unfinished VM expressway: this peters out and becomes a shitty urban boulevard before reaching its intended eastern terminus, linking up with both Jacques Cartier bridge approaches and L-H Lafontaine tunnel.
-a handful of metro stations that give the appearance of having run out of money (look at the P.O.S. station below)


imtl

[Truenorth00]

Ottawa. LRT plan. They thought small and it screwed them. Should have just gone with a metro instead of a really heavily engineered light rail system.

[MolsonExport]

London (Ontario) is the home of "thinking small"

[kwoldtimer]

K-W thinking big would be the UofW, the expressway, the Centre in the Square, Kitchener's Downtown Economic Development Fund, and Ion. Thinking small would be much else.

[esquire]

Winnipeg thought big from roughly 1905 to the start of WWI. This was the era when anything was possible. It was like Calgary circa 2005. Boomtown.

After that brief but heady decade, the needle moved from the red-line gradually back and back until the 1990s when it bottomed out and it felt like Winnipeg was destined to shrink like a fading rust belt city. That's when architecture and design was arguably at its worst. In the 1990s it felt like every trivial thing was subject to pointless and divsive public debate.

Things have improved this century and the last 20 years have seen a shift in terms of starting to think a little bit bigger. Population growth has helped in that regard.

In recent years, examples of thinking big include:

-Bell MTS Place and the return of the NHL
-New airport terminal
-New stadium
-Human Rights Museum

Examples of thinking small include:

-Shameful lack of meaningful progress on rapid transit beyond the slow development of one single BRT line
-Lack of improvement to the road network, it is still stuck in the early 70s
-Lack of development of a cycling/active transportation network, although this is finally starting to happen
-Neglect of public realm including parks and recreational facilities, except for a handful of newer and more prominent ones

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Ottawa. LRT plan. They thought small and it screwed them. Should have just gone with a metro instead of a really heavily engineered light rail system.

That sums it up. With everything we do, we start with a big idea and value engineer it to death. Everything in Ottawa is smaller, cheaper, understated. The NHL arena in the boonies, the Convention Centre, the proposed Central Library, real estate developments, and of course the entire rail system (LRT operated as a metro and single track diesel locomotive running every 12 minutes, oh, and a three train trip to the airport).

[milomilo]

Perhaps the 1988 and 2026 Olympics are examples for both in Calgary, though I'm glad Calgary thought small on the latter, despite voting for it.

[ChildishGavino]

An example of thinking big for Hamilton, among many other things from 50 years ago is the mountain accesses, it takes some serious will and capital to build 4 vertical highways.

Edit: and the Burlington St. Overpass - It takes some commitment to build a street on top of a street.

[MonctonRad]

Moncton has been thinking big for the last 20 years (much to the annoyance of other Maritimes cities)

Examples:
- IAAF World Junior Track & Field Championships and the building of the10,000 seat Moncton Stadium
- a total of four CFL games, and trying to compete with Halifax for the Atlantic CFL team
- a slew of large outdoor concerts on the hill, including U2 and the Rolling Stones.
- restoration of the downtown west end, including the new 8,800 seat Avenir Stadium.
- new airport terminal and international airport status.
- World Francophone Summit.

Before this though, Moncton suffered several large kicks to the crotch in the 1980s, including the loss of the CNR Rail shops, CFB Moncton and the Eaton's catalogue warehouse, which combined removed about 5,000 jobs from the local economy within only a few years. Things were so bad at the time that the civic slogan was "Moncton - we're OK", which is about as pitiful a slogan as I can imagine.

By the late 80s though, civic business leaders took things by the horns, and with the help of the feds and Premier Frank McKenna, created a new dynamic and diversified information and finance economy for the city, and within 10 years, Moncton got it's mojo back. The city has grown at least 50% in the last 25 years.

[lio45]

Worse than "There are a number of things to do in Moncton", you think?

[SignalHillHiker]

Thinking big:

- Although this turned out to be negative in the end, the City and Province built one of the first modern suburbs in North America in Churchill Park. It was the first example of many of the things credited in Canada to Don Mills. I think it’s just not well-known because it was of course small and started well before Confederation.
- Raising Memorial University of Newfoundland as a living memorial to our war dead.
- Quickly reversing course on an intentional effort to modernize the downtown core and replacing that with a rabid desire to protect built heritage.

Small:

- Removing street cars
- Ending the Water Street pedestrian mall
- Requiring infill projects to provide off-street parking
- Requiring new builds in the core to provide off-street parking
- Allowing infill in rowhouse districts to be set back from the sidewalk
- Straightening Water Street East
- Not replacing the downtown public library when it burned
- Constructing Harbour Drive after removing finger piers

[Denscity]

Thinking big in Castlegar:
Building the first community college in the province - Selkirk
Building the first housing co-op in the province - Woodland Park
Building a regional airport when we were literally just a village - West Kootenay Regional
Building full size highway interchanges when we were just a town of 5000 or less

Thinking small:
Our busy main street becomes a busy highway south to Trail. The province will be paving it but will remain only 2 lanes total instead of 4 lanes enen tho the traffic has been measured to require 4 lanes.

[ssiguy]

Vancouver........thinking big was definatly Expo & the Olympics
thinking small............all of it's SkyTrain stations and roads.

[hipster duck]

Toronto thinking big:

- RC Harris was a visionary city builder during the City Beautiful era who basically built the infrastructure that allowed Toronto to double in size. Toronto's geography consists of a number of snaking river valleys that prevent the city from growing outward, especially to the north and east. Many of these were overcome with large viaducts built by RC Harris - most famously the Prince Edward (Bloor) viaduct, which plays a role in Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion".

- Union Station was an impressive station for a city of Toronto's size, and is in the perfect location. Montreal was a bigger and more important city at the time and, for some reason, had 3 mediocre stations rather than 1 grand one.

- Toronto's first subway line, 1954. This was important not only because it was Canada's first rapid transit system, but because it was built at a time when transit was falling off a cliff across the rest of North America. The way it was built probably helped cement Toronto as an urban city where public transit matters. The subway was also revolutionary for its time because it featured things like bus terminals within stations to allow for easy mode-to-mode transfer.

- The reconstruction of Pearson airport in the early 2000s. They could have done the classic Canadian cheap-out move but the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, under the leadership of Lou Turpen, decided to tear down two operating terminals (both badly out of date), and build one, gigantic super Terminal 1. Pearson went from being a terrible airport to being a great one. If Terminal 1 is busy and crowded now, it's because it's a victim of its own success. I don't know how Air Canada could have turned Toronto in a major Star Alliance hub if it weren't for Terminal 1.

Toronto thinking small:

- Goddamnit, we have the biggest collection of losers on our city council. Our weak mayor, strong ward system allows [mostly] suburbanites to vote small-minded, corrupt small businessmen types who only care about low property taxes to make city-wide decisions. Makes it very hard to do visionary projects at a municipal level. Luckily, Doug Ford's culling of half the council actually removed some of the biggest offenders.

- Union station rebuild. This is a colossal shitshow and should be taught as a lesson in how not to do project management. Torontonians have endured construction for over a decade to basically build a station that will be obsolete the day it finally opens. As far as I understand, they will have to redo a good chunk of the platforms to allow for the electrified RER system GO wants to build.

- Gardiner Expressway "Hybrid" option. Instead of tearing down the eastern leg of the Gardiner or burying it, city council committed to renovating it and shifting its alignment slightly at the far eastern end. This guarantees that Toronto will continue to have a blight on its waterfront, and it will gobble up a significant portion of the city's capital budget for the next ten years, probably preventing other, more-needed projects from happening.

- Most transit projects are shortsighted boondoggles here. There are too many to mention.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Moncton has been thinking big for the last 20 years (much to the annoyance of other Maritimes cities)

It's easy to make fun of city-boosterism and a "can do" attitude but, over time, these things amount to fundamental changes. In many ways the vision of civic leaders at a certain time matters much more than the natural advantages a city might have in building prosperous, growing cities.

For example, Saint John has a deepwater harbour at the foot of the long Saint John River that could connect it tightly with NB's interior. It also has an enviable peninsula, almost like Boston or San Francisco, that is a good spot for a dense, important city to grow. And, of course, it was historically much larger and more important than Moncton so it had an incumbency advantage. Moncton had none of these things and is now larger and more important than Saint John.

You can see this in other examples: there was no reason that railways had to run through upstart Chicago, rather than more venerable St. Louis; it seemed audacious for Los Angeles - a city of barely 200,000 - to build these snaking aqueducts from hundreds of miles away to feed their dusty city; Atlanta built the largest airport in the world in a city of under 2 million in the 1970s.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ChildishGavino

An example of thinking big for Hamilton, among many other things from 50 years ago is the mountain accesses, it takes some serious will and capital to build 4 vertical highways.

Edit: and the Burlington St. Overpass - It takes some commitment to build a street on top of a street.

the only "big" mountian access is really Claremont though. All the other ones have substandard grades and are generally very old. Centennial isn't substandard but it was built by the MTO in the 1920's.

Hamilton's big thinking list (for better or for worse) to me is;

- The expressways - Red Hill, Linc, Burlington St.
- The Steel Plants
- Downtown rail tunnel (pretty unique piece of infra)
- LRT (if it happens)

It's small thinking list could run for miles, but..
- vast underinvestment in infrastructure maintenance, much like Montreal
- one way streets
- encouragement of sprawl development

[someone123]

For Halifax. Thinking big:

- Military conquest and trade during the age of sail. You can find Bank of NS buildings in places like Havana and Kingston today. and there were local adventurers who did things like conquering part of Maine or sending a fleet to Crimea in the 1850's.

- The Ocean Terminals and new seaport in the early 20th century. Halifax was quick to serve larger ships as the old finger wharves became obsolete. This terminal was served by a fully grade-separated rail line built around 1910. This area is where Pier 21 and the Nova Scotian Hotel were built. The pre-container terminal portion is about 1 km of wharf structures. A number of mansions of rich, connected people were torn down for this project; something I could not imagine today.

- Scotia Square and the Maritime Centre. They did not come out very well but they were ambitious.

Thinking small:

- Only modest transit projects were contemplated from about 1975-2015.

- There's a de facto moratorium on major bridge construction. The city's transportation infrastructure hasn't changed much since the 70's.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It's easy to make fun of city-boosterism and a "can do" attitude but, over time, these things amount to fundamental changes. In many ways the vision of civic leaders at a certain time matters much more than the natural advantages a city might have in building prosperous, growing cities.

For example, Saint John has a deepwater harbour at the foot of the long Saint John River that could connect it tightly with NB's interior. It also has an enviable peninsula, almost like Boston or San Francisco, that is a good spot for a dense, important city to grow. And, of course, it was historically much larger and more important than Moncton so it had an incumbency advantage. Moncton had none of these things and is now larger and more important than Saint John.

You can see this in other examples: there was no reason that railways had to run through upstart Chicago, rather than more venerable St. Louis; it seemed audacious for Los Angeles - a city of barely 200,000 - to build these snaking aqueducts from hundreds of miles away to feed their dusty city; Atlanta built the largest airport in the world in a city of under 2 million in the 1970s.

Moncton is on the Trans-Canada however, which Saint John isn't. This helps it be a much better centre for distribution, etc. You can easily operate a business out of Moncton and ship to the entire Maritimes as it's centred between the three provinces.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It's easy to make fun of city-boosterism and a "can do" attitude but, over time, these things amount to fundamental changes. In many ways the vision of civic leaders at a certain time matters much more than the natural advantages a city might have in building prosperous, growing cities.

For example, Saint John has a deepwater harbour at the foot of the long Saint John River that could connect it tightly with NB's interior. It also has an enviable peninsula, almost like Boston or San Francisco, that is a good spot for a dense, important city to grow. And, of course, it was historically much larger and more important than Moncton so it had an incumbency advantage. Moncton had none of these things and is now larger and more important than Saint John.

I think there is some truth to what you say but Moncton's natural advantages are probably stronger than Saint John in the modern era.

Saint John competes (poorly) with Montreal (cold-water with a bigger regional market and better inland connections), Portland ME (warm-water with better inland connections), and Halifax (warm-water and closer to major shipping lanes) as a port and, as far as the Maritimes go, is peripheral. You would not put regional distribution infrastructure in Saint John. Back in 1840 people thought Saint John would be a kind of hub city of the Fundy/Minas/Chignecto Basin but the railways killed this.

Moncton is more central on the main highway and rail line. These ended up becoming much more important than ocean shipping in that neck of the woods. Moncton also ended up with a bunch of regional public sector stuff because of official bilingualism. Add in Fredericton and there really wasn't much left for Saint John in a NB-sized province. For example UNB SJ is pretty limited.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Toronto thinking big:

- RC Harris was a visionary city builder during the City Beautiful era who basically built the infrastructure that allowed Toronto to double in size. Toronto's geography consists of a number of snaking river valleys that prevent the city from growing outward, especially to the north and east. Many of these were overcome with large viaducts built by RC Harris - most famously the Prince Edward (Bloor) viaduct, which plays a role in Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion".

- Union Station was an impressive station for a city of Toronto's size, and is in the perfect location. Montreal was a bigger and more important city at the time and, for some reason, had 3 mediocre stations rather than 1 grand one.

- Toronto's first subway line, 1954. This was important not only because it was Canada's first rapid transit system, but because it was built at a time when transit was falling off a cliff across the rest of North America. The way it was built probably helped cement Toronto as an urban city where public transit matters. The subway was also revolutionary for its time because it featured things like bus terminals within stations to allow for easy mode-to-mode transfer.

- The reconstruction of Pearson airport in the early 2000s. They could have done the classic Canadian cheap-out move but the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, under the leadership of Lou Turpen, decided to tear down two operating terminals (both badly out of date), and build one, gigantic super Terminal 1. Pearson went from being a terrible airport to being a great one. If Terminal 1 is busy and crowded now, it's because it's a victim of its own success. I don't know how Air Canada could have turned Toronto in a major Star Alliance hub if it weren't for Terminal 1.

Toronto thinking small:

- Goddamnit, we have the biggest collection of losers on our city council. Our weak mayor, strong ward system allows [mostly] suburbanites to vote small-minded, corrupt small businessmen types who only care about low property taxes to make city-wide decisions. Makes it very hard to do visionary projects at a municipal level. Luckily, Doug Ford's culling of half the council actually removed some of the biggest offenders.

- Union station rebuild. This is a colossal shitshow and should be taught as a lesson in how not to do project management. Torontonians have endured construction for over a decade to basically build a station that will be obsolete the day it finally opens. As far as I understand, they will have to redo a good chunk of the platforms to allow for the electrified RER system GO wants to build.

- Gardiner Expressway "Hybrid" option. Instead of tearing down the eastern leg of the Gardiner or burying it, city council committed to renovating it and shifting its alignment slightly at the far eastern end. This guarantees that Toronto will continue to have a blight on its waterfront, and it will gobble up a significant portion of the city's capital budget for the next ten years, probably preventing other, more-needed projects from happening.

- Most transit projects are shortsighted boondoggles here. There are too many to mention.

The Ontario Line so far seems like a surprisingly effective project despite it's source and the politics behind it. Much more out of the box thinking that what it replaced.

The Union Station Rebuild suffers not from design incompetence or even "big thinking" issues, but from having two contractors in a row file for bankruptcy, delaying it for years.

I mean, you have to think of the context when the Union Station project started. I believe it was around 2006 - GO ran hourly service on the two lakeshore lines and had a handful of trains on the other lines during peak hours only. The stouffville line, which is planned to offer 7 minute frequencies by the end of the decade, featured, I believe, 3 trains in the peak period. GO, and the amount of traffic through Union, was completely different than today and what is proposed in the future.

There were absolutely no plans for GO RER like there are today, and the amount of employment in the core was probably about half of what it is today.

What they are constructing was "thinking big" for the time, it's just that 9 years later someone thought even bigger with GO RER.