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Consultations, feedback, and events
- CYCLING:
- #CycleON strategy Action Plan 2.0, comments due March 7
- Cambridge Cycling Focus Group looking for members, due Feb 27
- Cycle tourism questionnaire
- TRANSIT: 2018 network public information centres, dates TBD
- ION LIGHT RAIL: Cambridge extension online, due Feb 16
- UNIVERSITY AVE: Streetscape public consultation
- MHBPNA PRESENTS: Inclusive neighbourhood Feb 15, Sustainable streets April 6
- LAND USE: Proposed methodology for land needs assessment for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, comments due Feb 28
- EMISSIONS: Guidelines on community emissions planning, comments due March 4
- GREENBELT: Growing the Greenbelt in the outer ring Feb 22, comments due March 7
Making space
How inclusive are our discussions of urban and transportation issues? Melissa Bruntlett of Modacity writes about the issues that can arise when advocacy becomes disproportionately dominated by the white, able-bodied, and male. She’s challenging herself and others to make more space for those who aren’t exactly like us, because our cities are made better when everyone is heard.
On foot
- Councillor wants Cambridge to shorten deadline to clear sidewalks (The Record)
- Pedestrians First: A new tool for walkable cities (Institute for Transportation and Development Policy)
- The case against sidewalks (Curbed)
- Why transport planning for walking is different (Karl Baker)
By bike
Ontario is seeking feedback on its #CycleON cycling strategy Action Plan 2.0. Our first skim-through of the plan revealed some promising commitments – like updating cycling facilities standards using best practices from elsewhere in the world and helping municipalities complete their portions of a provincial cycling network. We also found some things that need improvement, like a lack of funding to fix provincial highway crossings beyond the designated provincial cycling network, and labelling education and awareness campaigns that don’t change fundamental road designs as “mak[ing] highways and streets safer.”
- Based on the tally on the Winter Bike to Work Day website, at least 84 people in Waterloo Region braved the heavy snowfall to ride their bikes to work on Friday.
- Kitchener-Waterloo riders cool for year-round cycling (The Record)
- How to make winter biking more appealing (Ryerson TransForm Lab)
- Why protected bike lanes are good for motorists (Lisa Schweitzer)
- Looking for the fulfillment that car ads promise? You won’t get it from driving (Streetsblog)
- E-bikes are destined for something bigger than replacing regular bikes (Slate)
In transit
ION vehicle testing continues, and is expected to cover the entire route over the next week or so.
- Ontario appoints chair for high speed rail project (Ontario)
- Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Catherine Fife asks Minister McGarry about the status of two-way all-day GO trains (Twitter)
- The needless odyssey: Taking a bus between Brantford and the Tri-Cities (Dude Where’s My Bus Map)
- What’s ‘adequate’ transit service? (CityLab)
- Sidewalk Toronto puts ride-hailing ahead of public transit (Paris Marx)
The shape of our cities
- $80-million development expected to boost Kitchener downtown’s east end (The Record)
- Eaton’s Lofts building in downtown Kitchener getting a street-level facelift (The Record)
- Public forum explores possible expansion of greenbelt into Waterloo Region (The Record)
- Toronto offers up gifts of the past (The Star)
Vision Zero
Kitchener is planning traffic calming reviews this year for Patricia Ave, McGarry Drive, and Old Chicopee Drive. West Ave and Stirling Ave S also ranked high on the traffic-calming priority list for the year, but these streets are candidates for a pedestrian crossover and bike lanes, respectively, which may mitigate some traffic issues.
- Forgiving design vs the forgiveness of slow speeds (Strong Towns)
The road ahead
The province has shelved plans for a new 400-series “GTA West” highway, on the advice of the Advisory Panel it had appointed to study the project. The panel, recognizing the reality of induced demand, found that congestion pricing would offer ten times as much time-savings as more highways could.
- Uber issues remain a year after officially approved: Taxi alliance (Kitchener Post)
- Big bad data: the uninformative Inrix scorecard (City Observatory)