Keywords: urban planning, canada, smart growth

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Interesting. This is one of the first thorough, scientific attempts at understanding cycling collisions that I've seen. The sampling methodology is always tricky, and their approach here is certainly not perfect. I would have liked to see questions about the type of facility where falls/collisions happened in their survey-this seems like vital information. The actual dataset also has its problems: only a small fraction of total exposure was on paths or sidewalks (6%). Additionally, the study area only contains a small amount of path facilities (74km), and from what I know of Toronto paths, most were built quite a long time ago and are very poorly designed and maintained. Many sections of the Martin Goodman waterfront trail were horrific when I rode it to work in 1999, and there are some really dodgy sections in the Don Valley system.

But otherwise, the study methodology is fairly sound, and the authors are suitably conservative in their conclusions. I don't fully understand their weighting system, but I'll reread that at some point.

Overall, I'd be very hesitant to condemn paths or sidewalks on the basis of a study like this. Sidewalks definitely have problems, but this study really only shows that badly designed/maintained paths are unsafe-not a surprise, really. And it says nothing at all about the “bicycle segregation” debate, despite popular citations on Wikipedia for that purpose.

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada, toronto

Keywords: transport modelling, canada

An empirical study is presented of the long-range temporal transferability properties within a fixed geographic area of disaggregate logit models of work trip mode choice. The study area is the greater Toronto area, Ontario, Canada. The two temporal contexts are 1964 and 1986, with models estimated from 1964 data being used to predict 1986 travel choices. In addition to the very long transfer period (which does not appear to have been previously examined), a major feature of this study is that a wide variety of model specifications, ranging from the simplest possible market share model to a complex market segmentation model, are tested to investigate the relationship between model specification and transferability. Major findings of the study include (a) as in most transferability studies, model parameters are not temporally stable; (b) pragmatically the transferred models provide considerable useful information about application context travel behavior; (c) in general, improved model specification improves the extent of the model's transferability; (d) an important exception to Point c is the complex market segment model, which appears to be “overspecified” and, in the face of changing contextual factors during the 22-year period predicts 1986 conditions quite poorly; (e) Point c notwithstanding, simple level-of-service models perform very well in terms of their spatially aggregate predictions (which are often of primary practical importance to planners); (f) the models that best fit the estimation context (1964) data do not always transfer the best to 1986 conditions; and (g) “transfer scaling”, in which modal utility constants and scales are updated, can significantly improve model transferability.

Keywords: transport modelling, canada

Sounds interesting-looks at the impacts on real estate around the Spadina line.

Keywords: transport planning, canada, land use transport link

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada

Keywords: sociology, canada

Keywords: sociology, canada

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: canada, urban planning

Keywords: canada, urban planning, geography, transport planning, history, urban economics

This paper demonstrates that over the 25-year period, 1971-96, the majority of Canadian cities have undergone transition towards an increasingly decentralised urban form. The trends, however, are quite diverse, pointing to fundamental differences in the respective importance of growth in central and outer parts of the metropolitan area. On the whole, the relatively high densities observed in Canadian central cities, in comparison with US ones, appear to reflect residual centralisation rather than continued growth in metropolitan regions' innermost parts. Only Vancouver, and to a lesser extent Toronto and Victoria, exhibit indisputable evidence of post-1971 central-area growth. The predominant trend has been towards suburban-style, low-density expansion, albeit with considerable intercity variation regarding changes in central-area and suburban density. Findings presented here point to previously unidentified trends towards recentralisation in a few CMAs and, in about half of the surveyed metropolitan areas, densification of suburban tracts.

Keywords: canada, urban planning, urban form

An interesting little essay, including some historical facts about Vancouver cycling groups that I wasn't aware of, such as the fact that BEST was originally an offshoot of Bicycle People. Too bad there's no online copy... reading it on microfiche on UBC campus is a pain.

Keywords: activism, bicycle planning, urban politics, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: canada, parking

This Monitor first updates energy matters discussed in previous Monitors. The updating concludes that reducing transport fuel use should be the overriding goal of Canada's transport policies, more important than reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and perhaps a better strategy for making progress towards sustainable transport.

This issue then discusses three of the many ways in which transport fuel use could be dramatically reduced. The first would allow short-term gains. It is to make more efficient use of trucks on the road. The second would have its main impacts in the medium term. It is to achieve major reductions in fuel use by new personal vehicles. The third is for the longer term. It is to secure much greater use of tethered vehicles (which get their energy from a rail or wire rather than from an on-board source such as a gasoline tank, a hydrogen storage device or a battery).

Some interesting thoughts on fuel usage: the rise in fuel use associated with freight transportation, and the low loading-levels of trucks; the need for a return to tethered transport.

Keywords: canada, energy, goods movement, transit

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, canada, transit

detailed annotation

Keywords: transit, urban planning, transport planning, canada, land use transport link, urban form, transit-oriented development

An excellent, through report of bicycle/motor vehicle collisions, in a Canadian context. See also: Tom00.

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: transport planning, transit, canada

detailed annotation

This was my real introduction to transport planning, and now in retrospect I can see that this document represents a very progressive stance on transportation planning. See some of my detailed comments on cycling at the VACC website; I've been the lead person on downtown issues for the VACC for the last several years.

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, goods movement, transit, canada

Keywords: parking, zoning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

By the time I actually got around to reading this, I was familiar with much of the content. I'm still surprised by how slowly they're implementing the non-downtown recommendations, but I suppose the downtown needs are by far the most pressing, and quite time-consuming. I like the fact that they actually define level-of-service measures for bicycle routes-I'd be curious to run the counts through a GIS and see how the existing routes do in terms of LoS.

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: canada, history

Keywords: general interest, history, canada, transit

Keywords: urban planning, geography, canada

Keywords: transport planning, traffic calming, canada

Some interesting notes, especially relevant for my work with Vancouver's Downtown Transportation Plan. They discuss a consensus-building approach they used in discussions over the plan, bringing stakeholders together in an effort to find some common ground.

Keywords: transportation demand management, transport planning, canada

Keywords: canada, transport planning, land use transport link

In this study, self-reported cyclist collision and fall information from a mail-back questionnaire was analyzed for a sample of 2,945 adult cyclists who commute to work/school in Toronto and Ottawa. Analysis focused on incident frequencies by month, time of day, location, road surface condition, and injury level. These results are presented in order to provide a valuable complement to other sources of bicycle incident data obtained primarily from emergency room hospital records. Only a small percentage of collision and fall incidents resulted in a major injury and would therefore be found in a bicycle accident database compiled from emergency room hospital records. Slightly more, 19.2 and 11.7% of the collisions in Ottawa and Toronto, respectively, were reported to police. The results of the study found that collisions were more sensitive to automobile traffic, whereas falls were more sensitive to the prevailing roadway surface conditions. There was a higher proportion of falls than collisions during the winter months in both cities. However, the severity of injuries from collisions and falls were fairly consistent across time periods. Even when the severity of collisions and falls were considered for different roadway environmental conditions and between roads and off-road, no difference was found. This analysis suggests that minor collisions and falls should be considered in accessing the safety experience of bicyclists.

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada, travel behaviour

Keywords: geography, canada

Keywords: canada, transit

Comparison of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, canada

An empirical study of the temporal transferability properties of entropy-type trip-distribution models, applied within a fixed geographic region, is presented. Data for the study were drawn from three travel surveys conducted in 1964, 1986, and 1996 in the Toronto region. Very long transfer periods were examined, and a wide variety of model specifications were tested. These specifications ranged from the simple proportional flow model to an occupationally stratified, doubly constrained entropy model, for which spatial separation was measured by highway travel time. These models were estimated using data from 1964 and 1986. The estimated 1964 models were transferred to 1986 and 1996 to predict the distribution of travel. The 1986 models also were transferred to 1996 to predict the distribution of travel. Results showed that the travel-time parameter was not temporally stable. However, pragmatically, the transferred models were found to provide forecasts very comparable to those generated by models estimated in the respective application contexts. Improved model specification consistently resulted in improved precision of the forecasts obtained. In particular, stratification of the data by worker occupation category resulted in models with the best fit to estimation data, as well as forecasts. However, from a decision- oriented perspective, the improvement in precision obtained from additional complexity in specification did not warrant a recommendation for use of more complex models. Thus, the simple, doubly constrained entropy model with spatial separation measured by highway travel time appears satisfactory for use in practical modeling efforts.

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Planning faces the predicament that as recommendations become bolder possibilities for implementation deteriorate. This is imputed to society's transition from a Fordist and modern to a post-Fordist and postmodern era. On the one hand, postmodern values account for more public participation and heightened environmental sensitivity, which translate into proposals for alternative forms of urban development. On the other hand, the implementation of these proposals is impaired by reduced public sector resources as a result of the economic instability associated with post-Fordism. Another impediment is the difficulty to achieve sufficient support for planning objectives in the postmodern context. This context is marked by a fragmentation of values, attachment to the existing built environment, and suspicion between social groups. The empirical focus is on Toronto's bold metropolitan planning proposals. Most recent planning documents call for reurbanization efforts, a compact urban form, and reduced reliance on the car. In this paper I cast doubts, however, on the eventual actualization of these proposals by highlighting weaknesses in the present and anticipated implementation context. These are tied to factors that are specific to Toronto, but also to a greater extent to the post-Fordist and postmodern environment.

A few interesting ideas. He argues that the postmodern attachment of value to public participation and plural views could undermine processes aimed at changing suburban form to better accommodate plurality. He suggests that NIMBYism arises from suspicion between factions in a fractured society, and this will in turn hinder changes to existing urban form (infill, etc.) and favour greenfield development where such arguments can be avoided. In the light of his arguments, I find policies such as urban growth boundaries more appealing: they prevent greenfield alternatives and force NIMBYism to be confronted directly. Toronto already seems to be headed in this direction, as social housing projects are increasingly recognised as necessary and located in all wards, instead of being fought off by all wards.

Keywords: geography, urban planning, politics, canada, urban form

Keywords: urban planning, canada

An excellent, detached and comprehensive overview of postwar trends in the Toronto region. The hypothesis that Toronto may have “the best of both worlds” by having both dispersed and concentrated environments is an interesting one, although the retention of that status would require both realms to grow at similar rates, which has not been the trend in recent decades.

Keywords: canada, urban planning, geography, urban politics, toronto

The smart growth concept has recently achieved prominence within the planning profession. It represents a reaction to mounting resentment towards the adverse consequences of prevailing forms of urbanization: air pollution, high development costs and deteriorating quality of life. The article examines the possibility of implementing smart growth proposals within the prevailing political, economic and value environment. After drawing lessons from the lack of success of attempts at altering urban development over the last thirty years, the article proposes two smart growth strategies. To maintain their implementation potential and capacity to modify urbanization trends, the strategies avoid clashes with entrenched preference patterns and powerful interest groups. The first strategy consists in an expansion of the high-density transit-oriented compact urban realm into the ambient low-density car-dependent dispersed realm. The second strategy involves the creation of mixed-use high-density corridors, hospitable to transit use and walking, within newly urbanized areas.

An excellent article, aimed at realistic incremental policies to change urban densities, the main obstacle to mode share changes. The solutions he presents are not new at all, but the political context and discussion of suburban values are worth thinking about.

Keywords: urban planning, urban politics, canada, urban form, smart growth

Keywords: urban form, canada, toronto

Keywords: urban politics, canada, urban planning

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

The paper compares density patterns of the three largest Canadian metropolitan regions with those of a sample of 12 U.S. urban areas with comparable populations. It verifies if such patterns support claims of Canadian urban distinctiveness prevalent within this country's research literature. Findings indicate that regional differences among U.S. cities are as important as cross-national distinctions. Measures of centrality and overall density place observed Canadian metrpolitan areas within the same category as older U.S. East Coast metropolitan areas. Inter-city comparisons of historically and geographically defined zones suggest a period of cross-national convergence before World War II, when the inner city was developed, followed by a period of divergence from the 1940s to the 1970s, when the inner suburb was built. The development of the outer suburb, which began in the early 1970s, marks a return to cross-national convergence. These results question the continued relevance of the literature on the distinctiveness of Canadian urbanization.

Very interesting. They find that Canadian cities, as a group, do stand out from American cities-they are denser overall (than American cities of comparable size), and denser in their cores and inner suburbs. In the outer suburbs, however, densities are indistinguishable from American cities. Beyond that, however, Canadian cities have much smaller exurban regions than their American counterparts. They fit a cubic polynomial to the density/distance-from-CBD graph, and don't find Canadian cities to be as distinctive in that measure; I'm not sure how solid their analysis there is, though (haven't read it closely enough). Generally, the Canadian cities are distinctive as a group, since all of the major Canadian cities are dense, but are generally similar to northeastern American cities. The U.S. just has a wider variety of cities. “Our work does not so much refute the perspective espoused by the Canadian urban specificity literature as situate it historically and geographically. According to zonal findings and events that have marked the evolution of cities in the two countries, most of the noted cross-national differences can be linked to the period that ran from the end of World War II to the 1970s.” Overall, I don't think their results justify the final sentence of their abstract (repeated in their introduction); I think Canadian cities are quite distinctive. In particular, they don't discuss exurban trends very much, although these are a very significant part of American city development today: the Canadian cities have only 18 percent of their population in exurban areas, while the American cities are clustered closer to 30 percent, with some as high as 50 percent (Atlanta, Boston).

Keywords: urban planning, urban form, canada

Keywords: location choice, urban planning, canada, geography

Keywords: urban planning, canada, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: canada, urban planning, urban form, zoning

Keywords: urban planning, urban form, transport planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: spatial modelling, ilute, canada

Keywords: spatial modelling, ilute, canada, urban planning

Proximity to transportation infrastructure (highways and public transit) influences residential real estate values. Housing values also are influenced by propinquity to a shopping facility or a recreational amenity. Spatial autoregressive (SAR) models were used to estimate the impact of locational elements on the price of residential properties sold during 1995 in the Greater Toronto Area. A large data set consisting of 27,400 freehold sales was used in the study. Moran's I was estimated to determine the effects of spatial autocorrelation that existed in housing values. SAR models, using a combination of locational influences, neighborhood characteristics, and structural attributes, explained 83% variance in housing values. Using the “comparable sales approach,” a spatiotemporal lag variable was estimated for every property in the database. This research discovered that SAR models offered a better fit than nonspatial models. This study also discovered that in the presence of other explanatory variables, locational and transportation factors were not strong determinants of housing values. On the other hand, the number of washrooms and the average household income in a neighborhood were found to be significant determinants of housing values. Stepwise regression techniques were used to determine reduced spatial hedonic models.

Keywords: ilute, canada, urban planning, land use transport link

Keywords: urban planning, smart growth, canada

detailed annotation

Keywords: urban planning, history, urban form, canada

Keywords: transit, transport planning, urban planning, land use transport link, canada

Some very interesting notes regarding immgrants' use of public transit. “We find that recent immigrants are much more likely than the Canadian born to use public transit to commute to work, even after controlling for age, gender, income, distance to work, and distance between place of residence and the city centre. Two factors seem to explain this high rate of transit usage. First, immigrants tend to use public transit in their commute to work more when they are new to Canada (independent of other factors such as age and income) but their rate of transit use declines as they reside in Canada for longer periods of time. Second, newer cohorts of immigrants have higher rates of transit use than earlier cohorts, suggesting that they may be different in some ways that have not been observed. [...] Projections for future public transit needs could take into account that the urban population is not only growing, but is also compositionally shifting towards a high-usage group.” They also found some interesting results about immigrants' source countries: “In both Toronto and Montreal, the incidence of public transit utilization is highest among immigrants from the Carribean, Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Africa; they are lowest among immigrants from Easy Asia, Europe, West Asia, North America and Oceania.” Results from Vancouver were unfortunately very distorted due to the transit strike that took place during the 2001 census, especially changing usage patterns in Skytrain-serviced areas versus bus-serviced areas. It's worth noting that immigrants from all of these source nations were much more likely to use transit than the Canadian born, usually by margins of at least 50%.

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning, sociology

Keywords: sustainability, canada

Keywords: streets, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, canada, street design, urban design, prioritisation

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

A brief survey of literature on Toronto, San Francisco, Washington, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Calgary, Edmonton, Portland and San Diego. Many, many good references.

Keywords: urban planning, transit, transport planning, land use transport link, urban form, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, transport modelling, canada

An ongoing topic of interest in urban transportation engineering is the impact of changes in road network capacity upon the amount of vehicle travel made in the urban area. In many cases the debate focuses on the potential increases in vehicle travel occurring with increases in road capacity - the phenomenon of “induced demand”. Some studies have also looked at the effects of reductions in roadway capacity, and found that in many of these cases reductions in vehicle travel occur, generally confirming that a relationship exists between roadway capacity and vehicle travel.

This paper provides additional information on this subject, in a North American context.

The City of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada is a thriving major urban centre with a population of over 850,000, and a Downtown employment of over 100,000. Centre Street Bridge is a major road bridge across the Bow River connecting Downtown Calgary to the residential area in the north part of the City. The bridge carries over 34,000 vehicles per day, with heavy peak period flows. In August of 1999 the Centre Street Bridge was closed to car and truck traffic for a period of 14 months for major repairs.

A detailed study was undertaken of changes in weekday traffic, transit and pedestrian flows changes that took place in weekday travel patterns during the closure. This included both analysis of observed count data before and during the closure; and an interview survey with over 1,300 car users of the Centre Street Bridge and the other bridges serving the north side of the Downtown.

This paper summarizes the major findings of this study. Particular emphasis is placed on explaining what happened to the vehicle trips that used the Bridge before the closure.

While I'm not pleased with the results they report, I'm not too surprised. I imagine some of this can be attributed to the fact that it's car-addicted Calgary, but it's still a disappointing result: very little mode shift (<10%). On the upside, the city didn't stop working during the bridge closure; drivers just had to shift their travel times and routes. This isn't very politically acceptable, though; many would feel hard done by if this occurred during a Burrard Bridge lane closure.

Keywords: induced travel, canada, transport modelling, streets, roadspace reallocation

Keywords: urban planning, urban economics, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: canada, toronto, transit, urban planning, urban form, transport planning

Keywords: canada, toronto, transit, transport planning

Keywords: urban planning, canada

This was a first good discussion of telecommuting that I've seen. It went into more detail on the types of work where telecommuting might be a reasonable substitute, the possible effects on urban form and exurbanisation, and the context of the changing structure of work in North America. I found his discussion of Coppack quite itneresting, talking about competition for “natural” amenities at the urban fringe, and the leapfrogging and outwards movement that can result when rural/natural amenities are considered valuable. His discussion of the growing role of nonroutine activities in the workplace was also valuable in a telecommuting context. The discussion of Mokhtarian (1991) was also good, reducing some of my concerns regarding telecommuting; overall, it seems like it produces some benefits, although the impacts aren't likely to be enormous; distance is by no meanby no means dead yet.

Keywords: telecommuting, transport planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Some interesting criticisms of New (Sub)urbanism as a rebranding of older modes of subdivision building, in the context of Vaughan. I didn't read the article very closely, and I'm not sure what the overall thrust is. My sense is that it builds on a quote from Lef91 to explore the urbanisation of the rural and the ruralisation of the urban.

Keywords: geography, canada, urban planning, new urbanism

Keywords: transit, transport planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada, urban form, land use transport link, transit

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada, urban form, transit, land use transport link

Keywords: history, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: sociology, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: parking, canada

Keywords: geography, canada, equity

Keywords: transportation demand management, canada, energy

This paper provides a quantitative analysis and comparison between the recent Toronto Activity Panel Survey CHASE (Computerized Household Activity Scheduling Elicitor) dataset and a previously collected Quebec City CHASE dataset with the focus on household agenda formation.

The CHASE datasets were analyzed in the context of a newly developed event-driven time-series based activity scheduling framework that explicitly incorporates individuals' agenda formation. The modelling framework, based on McTaggart's concept of time, has two levels of agenda abstraction: conceptual and perceptual, where the second level of abstraction includes provisional sequences of activity episodes. CHASE has been designed to provide detailed observation of scheduling processes and agenda formation. In particular it allows one to trace activity schedule evolution from the planning phase, through modification phases to the execution phase. An original computer algorithm has been applied to the datasets to allow the analyst to visualize the development of provisional activity sequences.

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada, travel behaviour

Keywords: transport planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: equity, canada

Keywords: equity, canada

Keywords: canada, firm behaviour, location choice, urban planning

Keywords: transport planning, canada, climate mitigation

Keywords: transport planning, canada, climate mitigation

Comparison of Melbourne and Toronto transit performance. Discusses the failure of privatization of bus services due to loss seamless connections, etc.

Keywords: transit, transport planning, canada

Keywords: canada

Keywords: parking, canada, transportation demand management

Keywords: canada, urban planning, transport planning

A clear overview of the classic four-stage transport model, with applications to Toronto, including more emphasis on multi-modal trips etc.

Keywords: transport modelling, canada

Keywords: canada, transport modelling

Some empirical findings are presented on the relationship between urban form and work trip commuting efficiency, drawn from the analysis of 1986 work trip commuting patterns in the greater Toronto area. Work trip commuting efficiency is measured with respect to the average number of vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) per worker in a given zone. Preliminary findings include VKT per worker increases as one moves away from both the central core of the city and from other high-density employment centers within the region; job-housing balance, per se, shows little impact on commuting VKT; and population density, in and of itself, does not explain variations on commuting VKT once other urban structure variables have been accounted for.

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada, urban form, land use transport link

Keywords: transport planning, transit, canada

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada, travel behaviour

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada, urban planning, transport planning

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning, urban planning, land use transport link

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the historical evolution of personal travel behavior in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) over the past 35 years. The analysis indicates that in many respects the GTA taken as a whole is similar to other cities within North America in terms of increasing auto ownership; increasing individual auto-drive trip rates; increasing suburbanization of population and employment into areas poorly served by transit; increasingly complex travel patterns; and transit, at best, maintaining a constant number of trips per capita but losing modal share. The analysis also highlights ways in which the GTA, particularly the city of Toronto, deviates from the North American “norm.” These include transit per capita ridership, overall mode splits, revenue-cost operating ratios are still extremely high by North American standards; the regional commuter rail system has been very successful in attracting increasing numbers of commuters from outside Toronto into the Toronto central area; the continuing strength of the Toronto central area has provided a strong, viable transit service; and more generally, the relatively high density and transit orientation of development throughout the city of Toronto is highly supportive of transit.

Some very useful background on the transportation context of Toronto. While I grew up in that city, I actually knew fairly little about the evolution of its transportation system, so this was quite useful to me. Not very revolutionary in content (it's just a basic historical review), but worthwhile; a few good references (Mee02, Shi97, PucLef96, WriLov02).

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, canada, transit, urban form

A good report, with a realistic and progressive vision for the future. I found the maps comparing Toronto, Square One and Pearson trip ends extremely interesting (figures II.7 - II.9).

Keywords: transport planning, canada, urban planning, transit, land use transport link, urban form

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning, urban planning, land use transport link, urban form

Keywords: canada, transport planning

Keywords: urban form, canada

Keywords: transit, canada, transport planning

This paper was presented at the 'Cost-Effective Traffic Operations Through Innovation' session. The importance of parking policies as complementary policies to an overall urban transportation strategy has been acknowledged as a key component in influencing both transit use and ridesharing. The main focus of this article is the relationship between downtown long-stay parking supply and transit use, and the implications of this relationship for developing downtown parking policies. Based on a survey of Canadian cities, it was determined that peak hour transit modal split to downtown areas is inversely proportional to the ratio of long-stay parking stalls per downtown employee. The analysis indicated that this relationship is highly statistically significant for Canadian and American cities. The implication of the findings is that the main choice with respect to establishing a long-stay parking policy is directly linked to the modal split goal. Thus, policy makers should first establish a desirable and achievable modal split goal and then establish a long-stay parking strategy which would match the supply of long-stay parking with the modal split goal.

Keywords: parking, transportation demand management, canada

Parking policies can complement an overall urban transportation strategy by influencing both transit use and ridesharing. This article presents a study of the downtown parking supply and transportation policies of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in relation to other Canadian cities. The focus of the study is the relationship between downtown parking supply and transit use. In a study survey, a strong relationship is found between peak-period modal split to public transit and the supply of downtown parking. Specifically, the proportion of downtown commuters using public transportation is inversely proportional to the ratio of parking stalls per downtown employee.

Keywords: parking, transportation demand management, canada

This was the first I read by these authors; this article and their 1989 book are classic texts in the field.

It's an ambitious and impressive effort, although I doubt that anyone will ever completely believe either their data or their results. Nevertheless, the data collection effort is laudable, especially when they include information on parking and relative speeds. Since reading this, I've improved my stats quite a bit, and I'd like to revisit it (or their 1999 followup) and see if I buy their results and conclusions. I'd also like to look into the econometric models they criticised.

One choice quote: “Toronto has a much stronger transit system (50?? vehicle miles of service per capita) than do U.S. or Australian cities, a feature with its dense land use; its provision for automobiles is also much less than that in U.S. and Australian cities. The diversity of its transit systems, which include commuter rail, subway, modern trams on-street and new LRT on separated tracks, electric trolleys, and diesel buses (as well as comprehensive cycle ways), provides a powerful comparison to nearby Detroit, which has an almost complete commitment to the automobile. The per capita gasoline consmuption in Detroit is double that in Toronto; transit use is 0.8 percent of total passenger miles in Detroit, compared with 16.7 percent in Toronto. However, the difference in gasoline consumption in Detroit and Toronto cannot be explained simply by the difference in transit use. For example, if all of Toronto's transit users transferred to car the per capita use of gasoline would increase by 53 gallons, making Toronto's usage still 184 gallons per capita lower than that of Detroit. The Toronto transit system is part of an overall more energy-efficient city, despite Toronto having lower gasoline prices in 1980 and less fuel-efficient vehicles than the U.S. Indeed, Toronto is one of the few cities in the world with well-developed policies for transportation energy conservation based on land use strategies.”

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, canada, energy, land use transport link, urban form, transit

detailed annotation

There is a growing international movement, “The New Urbanism”, which seeks to reconnect transport with land use and in particular to establish transit-oriented development where higher-density, mixed-use areas built around high-quality transit systems provide a focused urban structure that can help to loosen the grasp of automobile dependence. There are many case studies around the world of cities which demonstrate this process of reconnecting land use and transport. The cases of Singapore, Hong Kong, Zurich (Switzerland), Copenhagen (Denmark), Freiburg (Germany), Toronto and Vancouver (Canada), Portland, Oregon (USA) and Perth (Australia) are briefly described here to show the various levels of achievement in very different environments around the world.

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, canada, land use transport link, urban form

detailed annotation

Keywords: general interest, transport planning, urban planning, canada, land use transport link, urban form, energy, sustainability

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, geographic information systems, canada

Keywords: climate mitigation, urban form, canada, lifecycle analysis, toronto

Keywords: canada, transport planning

Keywords: transport planning, canada

Keywords: canada, governance

I found their description of Houston interesting. I'd heard a lot about Houston's laissez-faire no-zoning policies, but I'd never read anything about the details. It sounds like they still suffer from the same social exclusion effects as many U.S. residential areas, but they use deed restrictions to enforce the exclusion instead of zoning laws. The authors give a surprisingly positive review to the HOV system overall, quite different from what I'd heard about HOV lanes in the present day context. Overall, Houston sounds like a depressing place to live or work. The complete rejection of land use control and the overwhelming dominance of the automobile turn me off. The Washington, D.C. case study wasn't very interesting to me, focusing mainly on transit-oriented development plans. The Portland section was slightly more interesting, again focusing on how land use goals are achieved by the agencies involved. The Vancouver section was mostly familiar, but did contain some interesting details that were new to me. There are some strange comments, though-they claim that the “European and Asian heritage of the region has also made the Vancouver community more accepting of transit” and characterise Vancouver as very unique within Canada. That's total rubbish-Canadian cities generally have an accepting attitude towards transit and a diverse cultural mix, and American cities have as much of a “European heritage” as Canadian ones. Sure, Vancouver is younger-but that should put it in the same boat as other young west coast cities, like Seattle. Some of their discussion regarding the history of SkyTrain is interesting, however, especially the idea that the Expo line was deliberately run through empty industrial areas to reduce NIMBY resistance and to allow new, denser transit-oriented development. They also note that TransLink does not own the land under the SkyTrain, allowing existing owners to make good use of the land, building towers around the tracks, etc. This is vastly better than the freeway model, where the land underneath and nearby is just dead space. Interestingly, they note that both Canadian and American government agencies put out a Request For Proposals (RFP) for a low-cost site, but only Canadian agencies can make location a requirement-i.e., requiring a site on the SkyTrain line.

I'm a bit dubious about their Ottawa section. They speak in glowing terms about many of the details of the system, and it doesn't always jibe with my experience when I lived there. Granted, I lived in a lousy area (far from the transitway) with a poor commute pattern. But there was a huge chunk of underserviced city where I lived, and I did see how the policies were working out on the ground. However, the policies sound like good ideas, at the least. They started with a bizarre statistic to make Ottawa look good: “Passengers per route mile in the first year,” a statistic biased towards bus systems, before development associated with a fixed rail system is completed. It's nice that (like Vancouver) they officially prioritise transit over road improvements, and that they consider it an official service. Their policy of building early in suburban areas is also an excellent idea, as is the policy of forcing regional shopping centres to be within 5 minutes walk of a transit station. (I have to wonder if that applies to big box zones, though-they were certainly abundant in the Ottawa area when I lived there. The abhorrent South Keys development all happened under these policies.) The Transitway design is clever, since they left enough room to allow later conversion to a rail system. One telling quote: “These services are adapted to, and as a result, help reinforce, the region's suburban landscape. In Ottawa-Carleton, it is accepted that low-density living environments are preferred by most residents, and that transit programs should in no way seek to alter this settlement pattern, but rather to serve it.” To be fair, that pattern may be changing now-the condo boom has definitely hit Ottawa. I suspect some of these sentences reflect the suburban American audience of this report. Ottawa also has taken a serious attitude towards directing job growth to transit corridors, in a manner similar to the Dutch ABC system. They also route buses through subdivision collector roads instead of arterial streets, to make for easier pedestrian access and avoiding the fight to access buses on arterials. (This may explain some of my confusion with the bus system, since I was more accustomed to the Toronto approach. It may also explain why buses were often poor choices for reaching retail areas, usually located on the arterials. It sounds like that was mostly political bad luck, though, not design-developers have insisted on siting commercial development on the arterials, not the planners' first choice.) Their reduction in downtown parking is admirable, with a 15% reduction from 1975 to 1984, a period of regression for most cities. They don't really comment much on the fact that many Transitway stations are built in parkland with no adjacent development, but they do note that future stations are being built in advance of development, with an aim to integrate better with mixed-use neighbourhoods. They claim pessimistically that the high-density transit-oriented residential demand had reached saturation point (!!) in Ottawa by 1993. At the end of the day, they've had difficulty achieving their goals, with regional employment share near transit stations remaining fairly static from 1986-1991. But they're still far ahead of most of North America.

Keywords: transit, transport planning, urban planning, canada, land use transport link

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning

Keywords: urban politics, canada, transport planning

Keywords: canada, transport planning, urban form, land use transport link

Metropolitan plans are commonly based on a system of suburban office clusters. The large variation among recent plans suggests a poor understanding of their nature and impacts. A taxonomy of office clusters could provide a necessary framework. Six hypotheses on the type, frequency, location, employment base and travel characteristics of suburban clusters were tested in a case-study of the Toronto region. Six physical types were identified and found to be associated with certain locations, employment activities and travel mode characteristics. The Toronto metropolitan plan was found to be successful when it conformed with these findings and unsuccessful when it did not. The results lead to provisional guidelines for future metropolitan plans.

Keywords: canada, location choice, firm behaviour

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: parking, canada, transportation demand management

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning

Keywords: canada, transport planning

Bicycling accounted for an average of 1.2% of work trips in Canada in 2001, but with considerable variation by province and metropolitan area. In this study, we chose six Canadian cities for detailed analysis of their cycling trends and policies: Montreal and Quebec City in Quebec; Ottawa and Toronto in Ontario; and Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia. All of these cities have made impressive efforts to encourage more and safer cycling. Most of the cities report increases in cycling levels over the past two decades but appear to have reached a limit due to lack of funding for crucially needed cycling infrastructure (bike paths and lanes, parking, intersection modifications, etc.). In addition, the low-density, car-oriented suburban sprawl spreading around most Canadian cities has been increasing trip distances, thus making cycling decreasingly feasible outside the urban core. Finally, Canadian cities and provinces have not imposed any significant restrictions on car use or imposed increases in taxes, fees, and other charges for car use, such as most European cities have implemented to discourage driving and increase transit use, walking, and cycling. If Canadian cities really want to further increase cycling levels, they will have to further expand cycling infrastructure, curb low-density sprawl, and impose more restrictions and charges on car use.

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

In spite of their colder climate, Canadians cycle about three times more than Americans. The main reasons for this difference are Canada?s higher urban densities and mixed-use development, shorter trip distances, lower incomes, higher costs of owning, driving and parking a car, safer cycling conditions, and more extensive cycling infrastructure and training programs. Most of these factors result from differences between Canada and the United States in their transport and land-use policies, and not from intrinsic differences in history, culture or resource availability. That is good news, since it suggests the possibility of significantly increasing cycling levels in the United States by adopting some of the Canadian policies that have so effectively promoted cycling and enhanced its safety.

Very interesting. They perform a regression on some fairly aggregate data: provincial and state modal share and statistics. They find that precipitation, gasoline price, cycling fatality rates and temperature are the major factors determining mode share when American and Canadian data are combined, with median work trip distance almost as significant.

Some of the most interesting findings: average length of work trips in similar-sized cities are twice as high in the US; cars are really quite a bit more expensive in Canada: 33% of income, compared to 18% in the U.S.

I'm curious to see their sources for Canadian cycling injury stats; while I can see how they estimate total injuries, I can't imagine how they convert that to injuries per 100 million kilometres.

I looked at the results a little more closely, and tried to normalize the input variables prior to doing correlation, to give a sense of their rank in affecting cycling mode share. (This effectively just amounts to multiplying the regression parameter by the standard deviation of the variable.) Using this approach, I found the parameters to be, from most to least important: 1) gas price, 0.30; 2) precipitation, -0.19; 3) work trip distance, -0.10; 4) temperature, 0.09; 5) fatality rate, -0.09.

I'd be curious to see a similar analysis done in a purely urban Canadian context.

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada

detailed annotation

This book examines the development of Vancouver's unique approach to zoning, planning, and urban design from the early 1970s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. By the late 1990s, Vancouver had established a reputation in North America for its planning achievement, especially for its creation of a participative, responsive, and design-led approach to urban regeneration and redevelopment. This system has other important features: an innovative approach to megaproject planning, a system of cost and amenity levies on major schemes, a participative process to underpin active neighbourhood planning, and a sophisticated panoply of design guidelines. These systems, processes, and their achievements place Vancouver at the forefront of international planning practice. The Vancouver Achievement explains the keys to its success, and evaluates its approach to planning and design against internationally accepted criteria. Generously illustrated with over 160 photos and figures, this book - the first comprehensive account of contemporary planning and urban design practice in any Canadian city - will appeal to academic and professional audiences, as well as the general public.

Keywords: history, canada, urban planning, urban politics, architecture, streets, urban design

Keywords: transport planning, canada

Keywords: canada, transport planning, urban planning

Keywords: geography, canada

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada

Recent work in the area of comprehensive transportation modeling systems in a microsimulation framework, more specifically auto ownership modeling, has recognized the need for increased experimentation with dynamic models. Implicitly, dynamic models require longitudinal data. A Toronto area car ownership study was conducted to design and administer a longitudinal survey to fulfill the data requirements for such a dynamic model, to validate the survey results, and to conduct preliminary analysis on those results. An in-depth retrospective telephone survey was conducted with the help of a computer aid in Toronto, Canada. Simple univariate analyses were conducted on the data to determine the relationship between characteristics of the household and the occurrence of vehicle transactions, the choice of vehicle type, the duration a vehicle is held, and the degree of consumer loyalty to different types of vehicles.

I read this after Mohammadian's later papers. It looks like they did collect home/employer locations during the surveys-why didn't they use this information?

Keywords: transport modelling, ilute, canada

Keywords: canada, transit, transport planning

Keywords: urban planning, canada

Keywords: canada, urban politics

Keywords: canada, urban planning

This looks like a great book, with some fascinating examples of bad ideas from a former mayor of Toronto.

Keywords: canada, urban planning

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, ilute, canada, urban form, land use transport link

Keywords: transit, canada

Keywords: governance, urban politics, canada

Keywords: urban politics, canada, governance

Keywords: canada, transport planning

Keywords: transit, governance, canada

Keywords: canada, transport planning

Keywords: transport planning, canada, congestion pricing, energy, climate mitigation

Some excellent insights into the reasons why transit ridership is so low in the United States. A particularly interesting note regards the historical growth in Europe and the US: European cities have experienced relatively little growth during the age of the automobile, which goes a long way towards explaining their limited suburbanisation. The comparison between Canada and US is more apt, since both have experienced similar growth levels during the automobile age.

Keywords: transit, urban form, land use transport link, canada, history

Keywords: transit, transport planning, canada

Keywords: urban planning, canada, smart growth

A good article summarizing the history of the GVRD and the effectiveness of its growth management. Invaluable for anyone new to the Vancouver planning scene, or for those who just want to step back momentarily and look at the big picture.

Keywords: urban planning, canada, smart growth, urban growth boundary

In many provinces in Canada, development charges are collected by municipal governments to help pay for the capital costs associated with urban growth. Hardly anywhere, however, is there an attempt to structure development charges so as to achieve planning goals. This article examines the disconnect between fiscal and planning goals by tracking the evolution of development charge regimes in a particular urban region, namely the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. The authors pose the question: why do so many municipalities adopt average cost approaches to calculating development charges when it is widely assumed that a marginal cost approach is superior from an infrastructure and land-use efficiency (i.e., planning) perspective?

The typical explanations put forward to account for this preference are examined and found wanting. A fuller explanation requires an understanding of developer-municipal conflict over the principles involved in the design of development charges. This leads us to an account of the emergence of development charges in Ontario and the evolving debate between municipalities and developers over who should pay for the infrastructure needed to support growth. This story reveals that there has been a gradual shift in municipal infrastructure financing practices from a marginal cost or “site-specific” approach, favoured by developers, to an average cost or “municipal-wide” approach, favoured by municipalities. In the conclusions, a number of factors underlying this evolution are identified.

Keywords: canada, urban planning, urban politics, finance

A good analysis of 2600 collisions over a two-year period. Valuable insight in a typical Canadian context. See also full report (CT03).

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, canada

Keywords: canada, transport planning, transit

Keywords: canada, data, bicycle planning

Keywords: canada, data, transit, transport planning

Keywords: canada, data, transport planning

Keywords: parking, canada

There are many parts to this document on the JPinT DMG website. Full data is available through their Internet Data Retrieval System (iDRS).

Keywords: canada, data

An interesting read. It has a lot of useful Vancouver context, in more detail than other similar reports that I've read. That said, it makes a classic planning mistake: they make some decisions by surveying neighbouring jurisdictions and looking at averages.

Keywords: parking, transport planning, canada, transportation demand management

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Keywords: bicycle planning, canada

Some interesting historical notes on regional government: the abandonment of regional government in London, Barcelona and Copenhagen in the 1980s, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul tax sharing arrangement. He argues in favour of direct election of regional governments (e.g., Portland) rather than selection from local government officials (e.g., Vancouver, San Francisco) or appointment by state (e.g., Minneapolis-St. Paul). The article also has a more realistic view of governance and planning in the Greater Toronto Area than most articles I've read.

Keywords: sustainability, urban planning, governance, canada, public participation

This paper analyses the evolution of urban form in two North American metropolitan regions (Portland and Toronto) and asks how more sustainable regional form might come about in the future in these and other urban areas. In the past, dominant patterns of urban form have emerged in such regions at different historical periods. These morphological phases include mid 19th-century grids, streetcar suburb grids, garden suburbs, automobile suburbs and New Urbanist neighbourhoods (which have only recently made an appearance and may or may not become widespread). Judging by the performance of past types of urban morphology, five design values appear particularly important for more sustainable urban form in the future: compactness, contiguity, connectivity, diversity and ecological integration. Although these principles were not well supported by 20th-century development, contemporary movements such as the New Urbanism and Smart Growth re-emphasise them. The example of these two regions indicates that, in the absence of new technological, economic or geographical forces, public sector institutions and urban social movements represent the most likely means to bring about new, more sustainable types of urban form.

Keywords: urban form, canada, streets, history, transport planning, urban planning, new urbanism

Keywords: urban planning, canada