Transit-oriented development (TOD), when applied to the roughly 4,000 square kilometres of Greater Montreal, is like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. The sparse housing patterns covering most of its territory have been indelibly imprinted by highways. Inserting residential clusters around new transit nodes will not be easy.

TOD gained currency during the 1990s and is now on the lips of every North American urban planner. While a useful concept, TOD is not new. By the early 1900s, TOD was being practised as suburban rail lines sprang up around central London. Towns such as Epsom, Surbiton, Wimbledon, Richmond and Twickenham became thriving suburbs with commuter train stations.

Closer to home, Westmount, Montreal West and T.M.R. were founded or flourished thanks to commuter rail. Then, during the 1960s, with the arrival of the métro, Montreal got TOD redux: at the western terminus of the Green Line, the Alexis-Nihon complex and Westmount Square were logical products of TOD.

Another 60 years later, TOD “re-redux” mobilizes a new........

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