Create a comprehensive Pedestrian Plan by 2008 that will provide a detailed blueprint for a walkable Toronto

Toronto made history by being the first city in North America to adopt a Pedestrian Charter that clearly endorses the rights of pedestrians to use the streets and that guides how the City should create walkable city (see www.toronto.ca/pedestrian). Toronto has now embarked on the development of a Pedestrian Plan, to be completed by 2008. Toronto must seize the opportunity to, once again, be a leader in North America in creating a walkable city.

Walking is related to most aspects of the work of the City of Toronto, from transportation to public health, from city planning to the police, from municipal licensing to parks. The pedestrian plan must include infrastructure, but go beyond it to incorporate all the many ways city policies affect walking. It must propose a permanent way of coordinating and leading pedestrian issues across many different divisions of the city.

To accomplish this goal effectively, the city must provide additional staffing and budgetary resources to support the development of the plan. As well, the city currently lacks basic data on pedestrianism in the city, other than how many people get hit by cars. It must commit to collecting extensive data on how, when and why people walk (or don't walk), and when they experience danger even when there is no actual collision, to create a plan that is effective.

The Pedestrian Plan is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As part of the plan's development, Toronto will host the international Walk21 conference in 2007, less than a year after the municipal elections. Toronto must commit the resources necessary to impressing the world, or risk being embarrassed in front of the world.

TCAT calls on the next Council to:

18. Commit to making the pedestrian plan an ambitious, groundbreaking and detailed blueprint for a walkable city by:

• ensuring that the pedestrian plan is comprehensive, incorporating all city divisions that affect pedestrians,
• including in the plan a strategy for coordinating and leading pedestrian-related work across city divisions,
• providing additional resources in staff and budget to the process of developing the pedestrian plan,
• collecting the data and statistics on pedestrians in Toronto that are required to make a comprehensive plan.