Transportation Planning
At the same time, there is now a greater effort to integrate land use and transportation planning, primarily because decisions made in one of these realms inevitably affects the other. For example, when land use patterns are characterized by low-density and highly-segregated forms of development (such as the separation of residential, commercial and industrial areas), this leads to increased dependence on cars because it is often too far or too time-consuming for people to walk, cycle or take public transit to their destinations. But if land use patterns are mixed, with shops, services and employment located close to homes, there is a much greater likelihood that people don’t have to rely on a car and can travel in much more environmentally sustainable ways.
An increasingly popular means through which transportation planners and other stakeholders are seeking to encourage less reliance on cars is through the development of complete streets. Rather than the more traditional focus on building roads primarily (if not exclusively) to accommodate automobiles, complete streets are designed for all ages, abilities, and modes of travel. Accordingly, they include room for not only car drivers, but also pedestrians, cyclists, transit users and people with disabilities.
Even a brief review of transportation planning documents will quickly show how environmental sustainability has become a major planning concern throughout Ontario. For example, the Halton Region’s Transportation Master Plan, called The Road to Change, includes strategies, policies and tools for the development of a balanced and sustainable transportation system through which its residents will make much greater use of public transit and other alternatives to the single occupant automobile. Similarly, the City of Ottawa’s Transportation Master Plan, adopted in 2013, is “the City’s blueprint for planning, developing and operating its walking, cycling, transit and road networks over the next two decades.” Much of the plan focuses on strategies to improve walking and cycling, and support transit-oriented development.
