Expert Offers Advice on FasTracks

Stepner, an architect and planner, was instrumental in bringing light rail to San Diego in 1981. It was the first major city in the country to get light rail, he says. But, he admitted that San Diego made some mistakes as far as the development opportunities around light rail stations.

And like the Denver area, San Diego is expected to add one million people by 2030. Earlier, that growth was expected by 2020, but the high prices of housing has driven many people outside of San Diego. That has resulted in a 60-minute to a 90-minute commute for many people, on a good day, he said.

It also makes light rail more crucial than ever. Unfortunately, he says that San Diego didn't pay enough attention to development around light rail stations, something that it is slowly rectifying with new developments. Everyone knows the ingredients of redevelopment--housing, commercial, retail and in some cases industrial, he said. The trick is to mix them together properly. If not, it's like eating flour, raw eggs and sugar separately, instead of mixing them in the right proportions and then baking them in an oven, he told the group.

He displayed photographs of a development in San Diego where there was no way to walk from office buildings to nearby housing. If someone lived where they worked, a tenet of New Urbanism, they still would have to get in their car. In another case, the light rail station is hidden behind an IKEA loading dock. Even though the retail center was nicely designed, the station was an after-thought, he noted.

In other cases, the light rail stops are nothing but "glorified bus stations," with no architecture flair that says they're in San Diego, he noted. He also showed a slide of a light rail station separated by 10 lanes of busy roads. No one will ever cross that to get to developments on the other side, Stepner said.

On the positive side, he showed a more recent redevelopment that nicely blended retail, residential and commercial uses.