The commission leading the public inquiry into the Ottawa LRT is busy drafting their final report after months of sessions that included public hearings and meetings. But it wasn’t until the final session that the Ottawa LRT’s well publicized growing pains could be seen for what they were: typical.
I recently had the opportunity to attend CCPPP’s annual conference. This is typically the venue to check the pulse of major infrastructure project delivery in Canada. In the past the conference has focused on contrasting the success of major infrastructure projects delivered as Public Private Partnerships. However, a new term stood out for me this year: “Traditional P3 Projects”.
As COVID lockdowns limit other pastimes, it has been clear that Ontarians want to get outside, evidenced by growing demand. But for potential adventurers who prefer to take transit or cannot drive, options are severely limited and one of the main barriers is simply getting there.
The future of work, and the positive and negative changes that could come about for global sustainability, was a popular topic of speculation and research long before this last year. With the shock of the pandemic, however, a heightened focus on work from home has emerged.
Workplace Parking Levies are effective and equitable pricing mechanisms to incentivize road users to switch to transit when commuting. Virtually all economists agree that the best way to change behaviour and curb social and environmental externalities is to internalize them by imposing a visible and marginal cost. With road pricing, this is challenging to implement.
The bus exchange is a fundamental part of the mobility and access offering but a large, space-hungry terminal can eat up precious space, block pedestrian circulation, and leave undevelopable remnant parcels. It need not be so. A combination of network and facility design approaches along with a deliberate stakeholder process can produce spectacular results.
Transport pricing is arguably one of the most impactful and controversial policy approaches to addressing our contemporary urban challenges. It represents the confluence of financial, economic, climate, and social policy considerations and consequently, has the potential to have widespread and lasting impacts on cities.
There are many questions about what cities will look like when we emerge from this pandemic. Our travel patterns have been deeply altered and people are beginning to wonder what this means for the future of travel within cites. Travel trends can help provide insight into what we might expect in the coming months and years.
How a project to construct a new passenger terminal at Heathrow Airport 20 years ago set the groundwork for a new way to deliver risky major infrastructure projects in Canada and around the world today.
COVID-19 acutely highlights the need for resilience in our transportation systems. A resilient system deals with disruptions from external forces while continuing to function. It can bounce back quickly.
Getting people on bikes for transportation has a variety of benefits: it can help bridge the gap to rapid transit, enable lower income residents to make more trips without needing to pay transit fares, or provide a few minutes of exercise. Providing safe, separated cycling infrastructure helps remove barriers to cycling, opening the door to more people of different ages, abilities and backgrounds to cycle for transportation. Build it, and they will come.