Abstract Manager

The Village of Cumberland, a rural community of about 5,000 people located in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, is a thriving recreational hub renowned for its mountain biking trails. While compact in its geography with many of its key destinations within walking distance, its auto-centric road network (e.g., lack of sidewalks, straight sections that encourage higher speeds, etc.) creates a situation where residents do not feel safe enough to bike or walk to those destinations.

As a fast-growing community with a confined road network seeing increasing pressure from new development, the Village sought to better understand what it would take to create safer transportation choices for residents, especially children who should be able to travel on their own. Cumberland was not interested in “fancy” solutions from larger communities and does not have budget for big city changes. It wanted a “made-in-Cumberland” approach with solutions tailored to its rural context and budgetary realities.

To that end, the Village updated their Transportation Master Plan (TMP) with the help of our firm (WATT Consulting Group). The TMP process offers three important lessons for other rural communities across Canada that are looking to provide safer transportation choices for their residents. We are proposing a presentation centred around those three lessons to offer the audience with implementable takeaways. They include:

1. Blanket Speed Limit Reductions Lack Creativity and Context – Cumberland, like other small communities, was exploring the idea of dropping the posted speed limit to 30 km/h on all roads. That approach though, lacks engineering rigor and is unlikely to change speeds. Instead, having a more defined traffic calming policy with speed management tools could be more effective at reducing vehicle speeds, and in saving staff time and resources.

2. Tactile Urbanism Engagement – Public engagement in most transportation planning processes has become stale and uninviting. We took a different approach by offering engagement activities that were tactile, hands-on, and interactive, which allowed residents to engage in playful transportation planning. This included setting up temporary protected bike lanes and traffic circles.

3. Shared Streets Design Options – The TMP identifies a network of nine shared streets connecting most of the community’s key destinations including school zones, parks, the downtown commercial centre, and mountain bike trails. A suite of low-cost treatment options are outlined in the TMP and will give the Village the ability to calm streets without major capital investments.