Abstract Manager

How do you move a project or a plan from paper into the real world? What ingredients are most important to ensure that active transportation is integrated into projects that support both physical infrastructure as well as the social infrastructure to support behaviour change? You need a plan, you need budget, you need standards – but for a municipality you also need internal capacity, and that means knowledgeable, dedicated staff who can move active transportation projects forward. Because of the multi-disciplinary nature of active transportation, many communities struggle to identify a single ‘point person’ who is responsible for advancing new projects. Should responsibility rest with the Engineering department, where they oversee construction? Or in the Planning department, where new standards are developed and preliminary designs set the stage for future construction? And how do these departments connect with colleagues in Parks and Recreation, who are playing a significant role in developing new Trails that connect residents?

In this session, attendees will get support in answering these questions through a discussion of the results of a comprehensive review of active transportation staffing levels from communities across Ontario ranging in size from 75,000 to over 300,000 residents. Through surveys, interviews and in-depth conversations, some key trends about the appropriate level of staffing resources, how staff spend their time and what types of partnerships staff cultivate to support their efforts have emerged. The results of this review will be discussed in the context of NACTO’s recently released “Structured for Success” document, highlighting what communities of all shapes and sizes in Canada can learn about how their internal resources shape the success of their active transportation programs.