Abstract Manager

An Active Transportation Integrated Committee (ATIC) working group has been working for the past year to synthesize the current state of practice for continuous sidewalks and bike paths in the Canadian Context. Continuous sidewalks have been used for decades in the Netherlands to better manage vehicle turning speeds and priorities at local street intersections to great success, and have incredible potential to transform the pedestrian experience across Canada. They were first used in Canada in the Town of Canmore in 2016, City of Vancouver shortly thereafter, and most recently the City of Nanaimo who went a step further by making them a standard within their own Manual of Engineering Standards and Specifications. To date, each installation has been slightly different, and with surging interest from other municipalities, it is becoming increasingly necessary to document the existing state of practice and lessons learned, with a view to inspiring more municipalities to adopt this simple and effective traffic calming technique that better aligns with desired modal hierarchies. The synthesis may also help inform the development of formal Canadian guidance within a future TAC Geometric Design Guide update. The synthesis of Emerging Practice Paper provides an introduction to their use in the Netherlands and emerging use in Canada, differentiates between current typical intersection designs and raised crosswalks, provides existing design guidance that could apply to future standards, summarizes the positive outcomes provided by such designs, a provides case studies of those already constructed as well as demonstrates rapidly evolving interest with other examples currently in the design process.