Abstract Manager

The Regional Municipality of York is in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and expected to accommodate 24% of the area’s growth over the next 30 years. The 2022 Transportation Master Plan (TMP) (approved in September 2022) will guide the planning, building, operating, and maintenance of rapid transit, active transportation, and road improvements that are safe, sustainable, and future-ready. The approved multimodal networks will support growth of 65% to 2.05 million persons and 992,000 jobs by 2051. Developing a TMP during the COVID-19 pandemic required the Region to collaborate in new and innovative ways with residents, businesses, stakeholders, and councilors using a variety of online and digital tools.

Developed primarily using internal staff, the TMP utilized a broad transportation equity lens, ensuring comprehensive outreach and engagement to deliver a plan that is inclusive to all travellers, responsive to community needs, adaptive to the changing pace of growth, and is fiscally and environmentally sustainable. 

Proposed Presentation: 

Our presentation will focus on lessons learned implementing the previous 2016 TMP, and how they informed the Region’s new approach to transportation planning, including an overview of how:

• Collaboration between staff and stakeholders using 100% online tools during the pandemic maximized engagement opportunities with residents, businesses, Indigenous communities, and local and Regional Councilors.
• Research on the operating impact of road capital investments help York Region make better design and planning decisions
• Applying an all-day multi-modal activity-based model allowed for progressive modelling and sensitivity testing
• The Region has shifted capital priorities from road capacity-based solutions to a more equitable multi-modal network

How does this topic support the session tracks/topics? 

New modelling tools and forward-thinking techniques that support fiscal responsibility and meaningful engagement were paramount to integrated transportation and land use planning. Legislated social distancing measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic required new approaches to engage and consult with the public that will continue. The approach to engagement, infrastructure, and strategy for new programs and initiatives is a model which can be used elsewhere. Attendees will be able to learn from our experience of integrating planning and engineering expertise toward developing an equitable, affordable and sustainable transportation network plan while facing fiscal, pandemic and growth-related challenges. By intersecting innovative techniques this presentation aligns with and touches on all of the following proposed presentation sessions:

• Integration of Land Use and Transportation Planning
• CapEx, OpEx & New Models
• Innovations in Transportation Systems Modelling
• Health, Equity and Transportation