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The 2010 Toronto municipal election campaigns will be upon us very soon, and in preparation for this TCAT is reviewing its 2006 platform and making updates for 2010. These updates will reflect the progress made on walking and bicycling over the past 3 years, as well as emerging active transportation ideas and priorities as a new term of city council takes office.
On Nov 16th, we will present a review of the 2006 platform and present preliminary priorities for our new platform. Based on input from TCAT Supporters, we will determine what are the cycling and walking priorities for TCAT to put forward for the 2010 municipal election.
We hope you will join us on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH AT 6:00 PM AT METRO HALL, 55 JOHN STREET, ROOM 303 for a short evening of discussion and consultation. Refreshments will be served.
Please RSVP by completing a very brief survey by clicking here. Thanks, and see you on November 16th!
If you cannot make it to TCAT's public meeting please complete the on-line survey to tell us the issues and priorities you want to see included in TCAT's Platform 2010.
P.S. Thanks to all those that have already completed our survey and provided feedback on the wording of Questions 7 and 8. We have revised the text to make it clear that we are looking for you tell us what are your top 5 priorities for bicycling and walking.
Streets designed for living? Where all users are not just considered but required in the design and redesign of our streets? That’s what we’re calling for with the Complete Streets Campaign!
Date: Monday, November 23
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Metro Hall, 55 John Street, Room 302
In the United States, complete streets policies ensure that street designs consider all users – pedestrians, cyclists, transit users and motorists – so that our streets are livable and safe for everyone. Cities and states throughout the United States have adopted these policies, and we think Toronto should lead the way here in Canada.
Interested in learning more and joining the campaign? Come to our public meeting on Monday, November 23. We’ll be giving a presentation on complete streets policies and developing a strategy to reach out to other organizations. We’re also working on a complete streets brochure for Toronto’s mayoral candidates, so if you want to find out what the candidates say about your place on the streets, this project is for you!
If you would like to help out with this initiative, please send an email to Allyson Amster to be added to our contact list.
Nancy Smith Lea, Program Director for the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, was invited to speak at the ACT Canada 2009 TDM Summit being held in Toronto November 15-18, 2009 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Nancy will speak in the Active Transportation session about reallocating road space to improve the safety of cyclists.
The fourth in a series of eight excellent Toronto walkability reports was released this week - this most recent one featuring St James Town. This series seeks to understand and improve the walking environments in the high-rise apartment neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs of Toronto, with a particular focus on the priority sites identified in the Mayor's Tower Renewal program.
This work is a unique collaboration between Principal Investigator Paul Hess in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto and the Centre for City Ecology - Jane's Walk.
The rest of the reports will be finished and posted in December. A final report will then be written by Paul Hess in 2010 which will shed more light on common themes and variations across all eight high-rise sites. It will have more analysis, maps and insights about the walking conditions across the city’s inner suburbs and high rise neighbourhoods – but these preliminary reports will help get the ball rolling for now in these neighbourhoods.
All the finished reports can be downloaded here.
The Toronto Star has updated its commuting maps and they're worth a look. It's now possible to get quite a fine-grained look at the incredible variations in cycling and walking across Toronto.
The maps are divided into postal code areas. The area with the highest walking mode share is M5T with an astounding 45% of commuters walking to work! M5S has the highest bicycle mode share at 10%. These variations indicate how important it is to assess conditions for active transportation on a fine scale.
Since many areas in Toronto have very little walking and cycling, the overall average for the entire city drops to an overall rate of 4.75% for people walking to work in Toronto in 2006 and 1% cycling to work (Census data for all modes can be found here.)
A report released this week by Transportation for America titled Dangerous By Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods) ranks the most dangerous metropolitan areas in the U.S. for pedestrians (Florida has the top 4) and the safest (Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis-St Paul.)
The study found that an overwhelming proportion of pedestrian deaths occured along roadways that share a similar factor: they were engineered for speeding cars and made little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on a bicycle.
National Public Radio has a short podcast on the subject available here. A spokesperson from the Virginia Department of Transportation is interviewed who admits that streets that were built just after World War II with the idea in mind that nobody would actually be walking on them. They're trying to turn that around now. Since 2004, all new transportation projects in Virginia are required to plan for pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Toronto Community Foundation (TCF), one of Canada's largest community foundations, currently has a call for proposals for their Vital Idea grant stream. TCF is particularly interested in seeing more applications from not-for-profits in Toronto that are addressing trends and opportunities related to GETTING AROUND (as identified in Toronto's Vital Signs).
If your organization is interested, please have a look at the grant guidelines. Note that the deadline for submissions is December 1.
The Toronto Community Foundation is a founding sponsor of TCAT and also generously provided subsquent funding to TCAT and the Clean Air Partnership for three ongoing transportation research studies. Their continued support makes TCAT's work possible.
Driven by facebook logistical reasons, TCAT has recently made the switch from a facebook group to a fan page. Now TCAT can appear in your news feed just like all your other facebook friends!
To receive updates on active transportation issues in Toronto, invitations to TCAT and other bike-related events, and much more, all you need to do is become our fan.
Click here and become a fan today!!!
If you know of other cycling or pedestrian related calendars to include, please let us know by e-mailing info@torontocat.ca
TCAT is continually looking to increase its list of supporters. It helps to be able to say how many people and organizations support the work we do when we speak with City Councillors, City staff, and the media, or put out a publication. Please send this message to any groups or individuals you think would be interested in learning more about TCAT, receiving our weekly e-Bulletin, or volunteering with TCAT.
To learn more about TCAT, visit our web site at www.torontocat.ca, e-mail info@torontocat.ca or call 416.392.0290
To subscribe to TCAT News, click here
Please consider making a financial contribution to support TCAT's work. To find out how to make a charitable donation, click here.
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