Abstract Manager

Complete Streets are sometimes thought of as an urban-only concept. However, some cities are taking Complete Streets to the suburbs and showing that this concept can also belong to less dense areas. Consequently, those areas benefit from more equitable transportation and people-centric streets which help break car dependance, particularly as some of these areas are starting to densify and benefit from transit expansion. Suburban arterials have a landscape that creates unique challenges. This presentation will focus on unique challenges and lessons learned from various projects.

Despite their wide right-of-ways, suburban arterials are usually oversized roads sided by boulevards with many utilities, trees, relatively narrow sidewalks, and no cycling infrastructure. The challenges of design and implementation are both in the physical and operational constraints. In the Victoria Park Avenue project in Toronto, Complete Streets concepts were developed considering different implementation techniques: quick-build, limited reconstruction, and increased reconstruction. Every technique addressed those challenges and their benefit-cost in different ways in this 6 km-long corridor with a frequently changing land-use context. The project prioritized applying an equity lens in addressing transportation needs and barriers. An equity consultant was brought to the team to help identify how to centre equity, diversity, and inclusion.

On the Victoria Park Avenue and Warden Avenue projects, unique approaches were used for managing trade-offs. Special attention was given to existing trees with an assessment methodology developed to determine their health condition and maturity in early stages of design. This assessment was essential to inform the alignment of the active transportation facilities and conflict prioritization.

Protected Intersections (PI) can form an integral component of Complete Streets projects where cycling facilities are introduced to minimize conflicts and move towards achieving Vision Zero goals. Along suburban arterials, re-configuring intersections and introducing PI’s provides an opportunity to reduce massive intersections between two major roads. An example from a multi-km Complete Street project in the City of Kingston, a total of nine PIs were designed. Among various challenges were the redesign and removal of right-turn channels, transitions between different types of cycling facilities, and managing high-volume turns.

Often, suburban arterials are also existing or planned transit corridors. As such, transit elements must also be incorporated into Complete Street redesigns. Victoria Park Avenue includes consideration of bus lanes and queue jump lanes, as well as the redesign of transit stops to address conflicts between transit users, cyclists, and pedestrians.