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City of Ottawa policy on walking

It is ridiculously difficult to follow a trail of decision-making on the ottawa.ca site - in fact there is no trail, as nothing is hyperlinked, so you have to navigate full-text document after full-text document, figuring out the connections yourself.

In any case, my trail ended up a City Council September 8, 2010

8. taking steps towards a cycle friendly city - MOTION
MESURES POUR RENDRE LA VILLE PLUS CONVIVIALE POUR LES CYCLISTES - MOTION

Committee Recommendations AS AMENDED

1. That Council approve the following recommendations from the attached report:

a. That best practices be deployed for marking, signage and signalization to ensure safety and to accommodate cyclists at intersections with segregated lanes.

b. That Ottawa’s Official Plan be implemented so as to reflect and respect the following guiding principle and accompanying objective, to wit – “A Green and Environmentally-Sensitive City - A Focus on Walking, Cycling and Transit - Ottawa implements policies that favour walking, cycling and public transit over the use of private motor vehicles, thereby facilitating the use of modes of transportation that are socially accessible, environmentally healthy and economically feasible.”

c. That Ottawa’s Official Plan be amended to require that the design of new sub-divisions incorporate cycle-friendly ‘short-cuts’ as part of the residential street and path network.

d. That the design of all new rapid transit stations consider the best means of accommodating the needs of cyclists who will be using the rapid transit system for a portion of their journey.

e. That, in addition to the cycling integration with road re-construction programs, an additional $5M be allocated each year, subject to budget approval, to stand-alone cycling projects to complete the missing links in the network.

f. That Finance re-categorize the Cycling Facilities Programme from Strategic Initiatives to Growth.

2. That Council refer the following recommendations from the attached report to the appropriate policy planning work, including the Official Plan, the Transportation Master Plan, the Cycling Plan, the Downtown Mobility Overlay study, and the East-West Segregated Bike Lane Pilot Project:

a. That the City of Ottawa undertake the establishment of a network of segregated lanes for cyclists crossing the downtown core in both East-West and North-South directions, even where such facilities require changes to existing parking or travel lanes.

b. That the “Copenhagen model” for segregated lanes, wherein parked cars protect the cycling lanes from regular traffic rather than have the cycling lanes protect the parked vehicles, be adopted as the standard in Ottawa on streets where cars, parked cars, segregated lanes as well as sidewalks are proposed.

c. That new roads and re-construction projects with urban cross-sections include segregated cycling facilities and budget for them accordingly.

d. That the City’s Transportation Master Plan and the Ottawa Cycling Plan be amended to reflect a revised 8% modal share target for cycling within the Greenbelt, and 5% for the city as a whole, to be achieved by 2021 (currently the target is set at 3% city-wide to be achieved by 2031).

And that staff report back with an update in Q1 2011, including plans to address concerns raised by the BIAs with respect to business impacts and potential loss of parking.

CARRIED

from http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/occ/2010/09-08/englishminutes96.htm

This follows on from a motion carried at Transportation Committee on September 1, 2010: http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/trc/2010/09-01/disposition44eng.htm

@centretowner tells me this should not be interpreted as a priority list e.g. it's not

1. walking
2. cycling
3. public transit
4. private car

it's

1. walking, cycling, public transit
2. private vehicle

The Mid-Centretown Community Design Plan consultation has a bunch of ideas about how to implement these stated priorities in downtown Ottawa, see their presentation (PowerPoint, 11MB) starting at slide 28 (from November 30, 2010). Also see their draft mobility position paper (PDF).

Apparently the city is going to do a Downtown Mobility Overlay study, but there doesn't seem to be any info online yet.

Labels: downtown mobility, ottawa, pedestrians, urban planning, walking

posted by Richard at 12:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)