Importance of Active Transportation
Throughout North America the importance of healthy
community design and active transportation is increasingly recognized by the
planning, health care, and allied professions as being particularly relevant in
light of environmental; chronic disease; personal safety, and personal mobility
issues. Add to this the needs of an
aging population, and the negative economic impacts associated with
neighbourhoods that are not active transportation “friendly”, and the effects
on communities’ overall quality of life continue to mount.
For example, in terms of personal safety our recent history of
auto-centric community design has had such great negative impact that the
Office of the Chief Coroner of the province of Ontario has unfortunately
determined that it needed to influence how we design our towns and
transportation systems. In 2012 the
Coroner published the Pedestrian Death Review and Cycling Death
Review, in which the first recommendations of both were for a more active
transportation friendly “complete streets” policy to guide the (re)development
of communities throughout Ontario. This
approach considers all modes when designing transportation infrastructure, and
in terms of mobility needs, helps create more safe and equitable neighbourhoods
and towns.
Momentum for quality urban design standards, complete streets policies,
and active transportation plans is growing with more being adopted across US
and Canadian cities/states every month.
Policy statements and community growth plans that address the need for
creating communities that are supportive of active transportation may not be
cutting edge anymore, but neither are they common place yet. However, it takes much more that policies,
guidelines, and plans to achieve meaningful results.
Missteps
One of the problems that is slowing down the effectiveness of this shift
in perspective toward active transportation, is that for the most part the
solutions are not appropriate to the problems.
Having reviewed close to 200 hundred active transportation plans and
policy documents and their implementation I have found that for the majority of
communities these plans are too big to manage, too complex to understand, too
costly to implement, and too boring to capture the interest of citizens. Unfortunately, the result is that most of
these plans quickly fall “out of fashion” once the easy projects that closely
match current funding and staff resource levels have been completed.
While the details and engineering of how we build facilities are
significantly improving, the underlying assumptions of most of these plans are
still based on a previous generation of thought. This is one where the planning, designing,
and building of our communities is focused on large scale infrastructure
solutions and technical fixes. In
general terms, there are four characteristics of this that can be seen:
A) Lacking systems approach:
Disregarding key components of active transportation
supportive environments such as: urban design; user needs; and, culture.
The result is a loss of: contextual built form; compatible land uses; effective
education and citizen engagement programs; and, human-centred design.
B) Focused on growth:
Principally based on active transportation being
supported through large infrastructure works. These plans define many
construction projects for the creation of on and off-street networks that tend
to be difficult to fund, particularly for smaller towns and cities. These projects are also seldom easy to
initiate or complete in phases; leaving them half done, or altogether
passed-over.
C) Lost sense of time:
Most plans include a series of projects that would take
far longer that their identified implementation timeline. When overburdened with these unrealistic
visions these plans become unmanageable, confusing, and stale.
D) Poor communication:
Active transportation plans are generally not written to
be easily understood by citizens, and elected officials. They tend to be
extremely technical in their presentation and content, resulting in plans that
are, not only confusing, but also uninspiring to the community. Effectively making them easily ignored,
unimplemented, and forgotten. This does
little to support the culture of active transportation that is such a necessary
component for communities.
A Step Forward
Recognizing this conflict between the needs of
communities to be more supportive of overall community health and active
transportation, and the approaches being take to initiate this change, there is
a clear argument for adapting planning perspectives and practice to be more
effective.
In 2010 I had the pleasure of creating an Urban Design
Manual (UDM) for the Town of Collingwood, Ontario which was inspired by
Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. It developed into a
ground-breaking document now being used as a template for many other
communities and as a teaching reference in university planning programs. It includes a number of regional, provincial
and national firsts, for example: first design manual to be adopted as law (not
guidelines) in Ontario; first in North America to include natural playground
design standards for neighbourhoods; and, first social media engagement
strategy in the region. The UDM’s
requirements support healthy community design and active transportation and its
implementation has resulted in efficiencies for application processing, more
contextual and human-centred developments, and better functioning sites. Upon reviewing the UDM, international active
transportation expert Dan Burden (Walkable and Livable Communities Institute) referred
to it as “one of the best in North America” and uses it to in his work with
communities throughout the US and Canada.
Blue Zones has also adapted this manual for their programs, and it is
featured in a number of planning design courses in universities and colleges.
In 2012, I decided I would build on the successes of the
UDM to specifically address the active transportation challenges described
above. The result was an Active
Transportation Plan (ATP) that advanced contemporary stakeholder engagement,
focused on healthy community design principles, defined placemaking strategies,
integrated cultural shifting programs, and supported asset based community
development.
Although early in it’s implementation, this Active Transportation Plan
has also become a resource for other communities seeking to adapt it to their
context. The use of animated videos to
describe its content; the integration of a series of “100 Day Implementation”
projects; the use of a citizen “Do Tank”; the facilitation of urban acupuncture
pilot projects; the performance based structure; and reader friendly content
are some of the reasons why this is the case.
The plan sets the parameters for cooperative
multi-disciplinary transportation planning/design work between Planners, Engineers,
Landscape Architects, and citizens. The results from this framework are:
a) Changed Culture: Making active transportation
easier for daily activities; and supporting the local neighbourhoods and
economy.
b) Changed Environment: Addressing all aspects of
active transportation, including: people-oriented design; better biking
facilities; better signage; and, complete streets approaches; that will all
make the built environment more supportive of active transportation.
c) Empowered People: Making it easier for citizens
& neighbourhood groups to get involved in real projects and facilitate test
projects in partnership with the municipality.
d) Changed Scope: Facilitating real measurable
improvements within a five year timeframe to the various aspects of active
transportation; having a range of implementation projects that will “make
things happen” in the community.
e) Changed Expectations: Improving understanding of
active transportation and municipal implementation projects by citizens,
elected officials, and professionals, and; include ongoing community input
throughout the Plan’s life.
Where Do You Think You’re Going?
Seeing the effectiveness of this non-typical approach to
planning, and the number of people interested, I have designed workshops to
engage, inform, and inspire communities and professionals so that they can
adapt the UDM and ATP to their context.
Through storytelling, hands-on group work, videos, and animations,
participants are immersed in techniques, examples, and challenges that teach a
variety of skills. These “tools” are
useful at all stages of developing and implementing these urban design and
active transportation initiatives. The
most critical skill learned during the workshops is that of “design
thinking”.
Design is a process of examination through which ideas
are identified, tested, and refined before being realized. It is the
process undertaken both when developing an active transportation plan; as well
as, when implementing its recommendations in the built environment. Participants of the workshops develop a
design focused awareness, understanding, and basic skills. The intent is that Planners, Engineers, and
citizens will develop creative approaches to effectively manage and direct
positive change in their communities.
For all our towns and cities the difficulties of the
future will require us to choose new ways of thinking about our problems and
the solutions we develop to address them.
This includes initiatives for healthy community design and active transportation.
Creative design thinking is the key.
This isn’t easy, and will often mean that we have to change the culture
of the organizations we work in. However, my experiences with the UDM and
ATP illustrate that this is possible; and the workshops I have developed that
ask “Where Do You Think You’re Going?”
can at least point people in the right direction and inspire them to take their
own first steps. I look forward to
working with other groups of change agents at my next workshops in Toronto,
Peterborough, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls this summer. For those that cannot attend, I offer these
words from Ze Frank, to help you make the choice for creativity and design
thinking over the status-quo: “Choices aren’t things that happen to you, they happen, when you happen
onto things, and choose them. So happen!”
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