| Abstract |
What are leading cities in Canada doing to update their street design practices? WSP’s Active Transportation and Complete Streets team has been on the front line of developing some of the most cutting-edge street design guidance for a range of municipalities including City of Hamilton, City of London, and City of Guelph. The presentation will discuss three key themes:
- Integrating land use and transportation: truly “complete” streets are those which align street classification with existing and planned land use. A street running through an industrial area with stable land use should look very different from one in an area where walkable, mixed-use development is occurring. The term “stroad” has been popularized in recent years to describe a street that is “trying to do too much”, serving both throughput and access needs and creating significant safety challenges as a result. Dissecting stroads requires conversations about street design, land use, and access management.
- Innovations in design: the latest implementations of complete streets look very different than those implemented even a few years ago. Protected intersections are being implemented to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists at large intersections, continuous sidewalks are being proposed to create an exceptional walking experience, and local streets are being narrowed to improve livability.
- Change management: even the most well-written design manual will go largely unused if it lacks the support of a municipality’s stakeholders. Developing complete streets is a significant change from the traditional way of doing things an as such requires a deliberate and thorough process where all municipal departments, as well as the public, are engaged. Well-designed complete streets manuals also provide municipal staff with decision-making tools to help assess trade-offs that will inevitably occur.
Attendees will be encouraged to discuss and reflect on the value that a complete streets design manual could bring to their organization.
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