Toronto Papers
Innovative Approaches to Pedestrian Planning at Toronto’s Union Station
Jeff Bateman, Senior Transportation Planner, Transportation Planning, City of Toronto, Tim Laspa, Program Manager, Transportation Planning, City of Toronto, Erin Morrow, Senior Transportation Analyst, Arup
Summary: Union Station is the most important transportation hub serving the Greater Toronto Area. The revitalization of Union Station is intended to improve the delivery of local, regional and national rail passenger services. The revitalization process is being facilitated by the City of Toronto and other parties that have an interest in Union Station. These parties are working together to coordinate transportation and pedestrian planning initiatives that are intended to respond to anticipated increases in transit rider ship over the next 20 to 30 years and to address the constraints that this growth will place upon the existing infrastructure. Given the growth expected, there is a need to consider existing and future pedestrian movements and interactions both inside and outside of the station building and understand how these movements tie into the urban fabric of the downtown business district and waterfront. Specifically, there is a need to address the permeability of pedestrian flows within the station building and from the station onto the public sidewalks. The Union Station Master Plan (2004) and Union Station District Plan (2006) advocate strong pedestrian connections leading to, through and from the Station. They define parameters for specific studies that have been undertaken to help improve the overall pedestrian amenities within and in the vicinity of the Station. Since the adoption by city council of the Master Plan for station redevelopment the Transportation Planning Department has commissioned Arup to undertake two studies of pedestrian movement in and around Union Station. The Union Station Area Pedestrian Study identified present and future pedestrian conditions in the vicinity of Union Station and developed measures and infrastructure requirements needed to address increasing demands and improve the overall quality of the pedestrian environment at below and at-grade locations in the vicinity of Union Station. The Union Station Internal Pedestrian Circulation Study included an analysis of forecast pedestrian volumes and levels of service to confirm the adequacy of planned facilities at Union Station. The intent of this work has been to provide greater insight into the existing and future operation of Union Station from a pedestrian flow perspective and to refine concepts for the layout of retail, commercial and transit-related components. This paper examines the policy foundation for pedestrian planning at Union Station and the approach the City of Toronto and Arup have developed for ensuring that redevelopment plans for the station facilities meet policy objectives. ... More
Leading and Navigating Policy and Practice to Value Walking
Roopa Umesh, VicHealth, Australia
Summary: Valuing the importance of walking or getting walking on the agenda in our ‘car centric’ world is a mammoth task. International research and practice about the processes involved in achieving a culture shift highlights that there is no quick solution to eroding the car culture. Therefore, as agents of positive change we have to be persistent in ‘putting pedestrians first’ on the agenda. This journey requires a wide range of polices, actions and programs that are aimed at the community and all levels of government. The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) in Victoria, Australia has been working to achieve this outcome for several years by engaging various players in government instrumentalities and also funding innovative community program/projects and research to get ‘walking’ on the agenda of all. Recently in Victoria, the Department of Infrastructure established ‘the walking and cycling branch’. This is a very positive move that highlights the need for infrastructure improvements to create walkable environments. Another positive change that has occurred recently is that the Planning Institute of Australia’s (PIA) Victorian division put health at the centre of planning by overtly stating and acting on the importance of urban planning for community health. These sorts of changes did not occur as a result of direct action from one particular agency; it involved many players and various actions over few years. In these instances it can be said that VicHealth played direct and indirect roles in navigating action through advocacy and other strategies. As much as VicHealth inputs into policy change, it leads in developing and implementing innovative and tangible activities to get walking and livable communities on the agenda of local government and communities across Victoria. Some of the examples are, • promoting the role of art and place-making in health and wellbeing by funding local government and ‘commissioning the development of a scoping paper focusing on existing arts practice designed to develop railway stations as community hubs’ . • the creation of a structure and funding model for implementing successful Walking School Bus programs in 75% of the local government areas in Victoria; • funding and supporting a pedestrian safety research called the Green Light Project; • commissioning research which identified the value-adding impacts of Walking School Bus on the built environment; • funding ICLEI (International Council for Local and Environmental Initiatives) to develop an online Active Transport Quantification tool; • funding the promotion of the ‘Walktober’ concept in Victoria and conducting a state-wide Walktober Walk to School campaign for primary schools; • designing and promoting 2 successful state-wide symposiums in 2 consecutive years to get walking and active transport on the agenda of government, schools community members and local councils; • funding Metro Active program in local Council areas to explore how local government can work both internally and in partnership with community organisations to create ‘active people-active places’; This aim of this paper is to showcase the different steps that VicHealth has undertaken to increase the level of walking. It will illustrate how VicHealth has played the role of leader and navigator to get communities thinking, talking, planning and actioning walking for community wellbeing. ... More
Level of Service Criteria for Pedestrian Flow in European Historical Built Up Areas
Giulio Maternini, Michèle Pezzagno, University of Brescia
Summary: In the XX century in Italy pedestrian mobility was subordinated to motorized mobility. Only recently pedestrian flow has been deepened in relation to the renewal of urban areas. In literature there are several researches and studies focusing on pedestrian path Level of Service, in particular the LOS parameters proposed by Highway Capacity Manual 2000, Transport Research Board, are one of the most common used reference. It is known that the LOS criteria for pedestrian flow are based on subjective measures. It is possible to define ranger of space per pedestrian, flow rates and speeds, which than can be used to develop quality of flow criteria. The input data required to estimate the LOS in an urban street are: - geometric data (length of sidewalk, effective width, street corner radium, crosswalk lenth); - demand data (analysis period, number of pedestrians in platoon, pedestrian walking speed, pedestrian start up time) There are also environmental factors that contributes to the walking experience like the comfort, the convenience, safety, security and economy of the walkway system. - Comfort factors include weather protection, climate control, arcades, transit shelters and other pedestrian amenities. - Convenience factors include walking distances, pathway directness, grades, sidewalk ramps and any other features making pedestrian travel easy and uncomplicated - Safety is provided by the separation of pedestrians from vehicular traffic, also in relation to traffic control devices - Security features include lighting, type of street activity, etc. - Economy of the walkway system relate to the users costs incurred by travel delays and inconvenient. The pedestrian LOS parameters proposed by the HCM are refereed to experimental data collected in USA. European settlements are quite different from USA realities, especially for the historical centers morphology that characterizes some urban areas. Starting from this consideration the paper focus on how the LOS proposed by HCM should be adapted and changed to take care of the European environmental context and its influence on pedestrian flow. The research, carried out trough data collection in a medium urban settlement, evidenced that several parameters introduced by HCM, due to the different environment, are not usable in European realties. New measures of the environmental factors mentioned above are proposed to determine pedestrian LOS in European urban areas deepening pedestrian environment and pedestrian flow analysis in historical settlements. ... More
London: Building a Business Case for Walking
Adrian Bell, Transport for London
Summary: This paper presents work underway in London to build a business case for investing in walking projects. The presentation looks at the transport case for walking and the social case for walking and how we capture the dimensions of these into an economic case. This includes personal health, air quality, community activity, allocation of space, provision of infrastructure, safety and congestion. Through a range of tools including PERS and WAVES and analysis of road safety data, TfL is building an economic framework for walking projects. The presentation concludes with a case study for Legible London - a wayfinding system for the whole of London. ... More
Making Children’s Independent Mobility Part of the Planning Agenda
Julie Rudner, Australasian Centre for the Governance and Management of Urban Transport, The University of Melbourne
Summary: This paper argues that children’s independent mobility (CIM) confronts dominant conceptions of freedom and mobility that are embedded within neo-liberal economic and democratic practices. Using traffic risk as a theme, approaches to risk management that support existing institutional and cultural structures are presented. It is asserted that these structures adversely impact CIM, and that planners may be able to influence these structures by increasing children’s political participation. Child focused planning frameworks provide a possible avenue for change by including children’s views and urban needs into planning practice. ... More
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