With funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, TCAT produced a research report titled Complete Streets Gap Analysis: Opportunities and Barriers in Ontario, that provides an analysis of the potential for Complete Streets in 17 of Ontario’s largest municipalities.
Executive Summary:
Highlights from a TCAT report released in 2010 comparing the performance of active transportation in Toronto against other cities in Canada, the United States and Europe using key indicators as benchmarks. This paper will be presented at the Walk 21 Conference in Vancouver, BC on October 4, 2011 and published in their proceedings.
This research, commissioned by the City of Toronto, teases out issues relevant to community-based walkability audit tools - tools administered by community members, without the need for formal training. The paper was presented at the Walk 21 Conference in the Hague, Holland on November 18, 2010 and published in their proceedings.
This report examined how to accommodate cyclists on arterial roads. Case studies from Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Portland, New York City and Berlin demonstrated how policies and practices improve cycling arteries.
With funding from the Toronto Community Foundation, TCAT produced Complete Streets by Design: Toronto streets redesigned for all ages and abilities to show how six Toronto streets could look and feel redesigned as Complete Streets.
A short promotional video of highlights from the Complete Streets Forum in 2011 organized by the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT). Each year TCAT holds an active transportation forum (Bike Summit 2008 and 2009, Complete Streets Forum 2010 and 2011) in Toronto, Ontario Canada that is attended by hundreds of registrants. The video is edited by Chris Beaver with a soundtrack featuring an original song written and performed by the Canadian band The Geese.
In response to the City of Toronto's renewed interest in off-road path construction, TCAT has developed a backgrounder on Designing Off-Road Paths for Pedestrians and Cyclists. This backgrounder is the second in TCAT's backgrounder series, the first of which focused on Bikeway Options currently under consideration in Toronto.
Bikeways are facilities designated for use by bicycles that are designed to increase the safety and comfort of cyclists and make cycling a more attractive mode of transportation. Studies show that cycling facilities can greatly increase levels of bicycle commuting and that bike trips are more likely to be made where bikeways exist.
Complete Streets are safe, comfortable and convenient for travel by foot, bicycle, transit and automobile. Finding the right balance isn’t easy though and some streets work better than others. TCAT's Complete Streets walk highlights bicycle and pedestrian innovation in Toronto’s downtown core. Providing for cyclists and pedestrians are critical elements of complete streets.
In response to concerns related to the initial Fall of 2011 rollout of the InfoPillars (120 in total are called for by the City in the agreement), and their placement on Toronto's streets, City of Toronto staff explored a number of options with Astral. These included elimination of the element entirely, reducing the numbers to be deployed, redesign the ad faces, enhanced transit shelter ad capabilities, as well as variations on the placement parameters.
New info pillars were approved by Council in the summer of 2011 and have been installed at many sites across the downtown area since that time. From these initial installations, it is clear that these pillars raise important concerns about the prioritization of active transportation in Toronto.
On November 7, 2011 the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario announced that his office will be conducting a review led by Dr. Bert Lauwers, Deputy Chief Coroner into pedestrian deaths across the province. The purpose of the review is to identify common factors that have played a role in pedestrian deaths and where appropriate, make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.
On October 24, 2011, the Chief Coroner of Ontario announced it will be conducting an investigation to review cycling deaths in Ontario. The review will be led by Dr. Dan Cass, Regional Supervising Coroner - Toronto West Region, and will include deaths from 2006 to 2010. The purpose of the review is to identify common factors that may have played a role in the deaths, and where possible, to make recommendations to prevent similar deaths.
TCAT deputation to Planning and Growth Management Committee on July 27, 2011 regarding Public Realm Improvement program in Core Services Review.
