The town here is working on an amendment to the community plan to have smaller lots and a more compact, more densely populated town core. This is being done to encourage and promote a more walkable community.

There are also plans in the works to bring in some sort of regional transit system which would connect this small town with the neighbouring city.

Part of the reason behind these changes is the direction set out by the provincial government, but the town is trying to take a more progressive approach than merely meeting the basic requirements.

I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it may be cause for a little optimism for those of us who are interested in car-free and car-light living.

It does for me, especially when you consider that similar changes are being made in communities around the world.

I hope they also add a provision to make parking lots smaller and remove at least some on-street parking. The space saved by less parking could be converted to parks, bike lanes, sidewalks, and other improvements that make the city space greener and more pleasant.

I have seen this show before. In 1980 Davis, CA had well over 90% of trips being taken by bike or foot. The city (at that time pop 50,000) decided to go with anti-sprawl policies and densify, including forcing grocery stores into every neighborhood. The result was a city that consisted of a maze of areas of high car density. Not surprisingly, a decade later use of bikes had declined precipitously. High density means high car density which means high danger to cyclists. Since most of the people who were using bikes also owned cars, they just switched over to the safer mode. By 1990, the bike had all but disappeared from Davis.

If your city is going to densify, you need to get a city plan that includes large, open buffer spaces or you will just have building and road everywhere. Also, you need to have commitments to make the entire area accessible by bike but not necessarily by car. If you don't get that, you will find that densification will REDUCE bike use. People ride where it is safe and pleasant, not where masses of cars assault them.

every once in a while the idea of closing off portions of our down town come up, the trade off would there would have to be adequate parking so you could at least get close with a car, we have not even had support for that. The idea of smaller lots would not go over well here but in the cold snowy winters we have you don't have to think too hard to figure out why many people are not thrilled about this. Personally I would love to see some cobble stone thrown down and the road closed for a section and promote locally owned specialty shops but I don't see it happening here for quite a while at least. If it were to be done it would be nice to see a couple single track lanes for cycling rather than having people flying back and forth between the foot traffic because they would just give the considerate cyclist a bad name and may end up getting all bikes banned from the area.

A few years ago, the town put together a transportation plan. This is a difficult undertaking in a community with a small population living in a large area. Efforts were made to examine the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, as well as to consider transit options. During the planning stage, a number of cyclists, myself included, met with some of the planning consultants and did a ride around the community to examine areas in need of improvement. A group of walkers met with others from the planning firm to have a walking tour to discuss pedestrian issues.

The results have been impressive.

Bike lanes have already been added to a couple of streets where they were badly needed. Another bike lane is being considered for a portion of the highway which receives a lot of summer tourist bike traffic. Problem intersections and unsafe town streets were identified. The need for bike racks in the downtown area has been identified. Sidewalks and walking paths have been identified and in some cases, they have been put in. This has happened in the last three or four years.

Two major roads are now undergoing upgrade work and special emphasis has been put on making sure there are sidewalks and bike lanes in place.

The transportation plan and the community plan are supposed to work together. (There are other plans including a water plan, an electrical plan and an environmental plan.) If the various plans are followed, I see the potential for some great things happening, although the changes will not come quickly. The danger, as I see it, is that a future council could see some of the recommendations as too expensive and could work to make amendments to omit some important features. However, at this point, I prefer optimism.

Ottawa is an excellent example of urban design to be harmonious with cyclists, rollerbladers and walkers, they have bicycle lanes an many main routes and there is plenty of room for cars and bikes on the road, the have routes through parks so you have short cuts you can take and it have been very well design to the point where it actually increased the amount of bike traffic because it was such an efficient system. If anyone ever has a chance to visit take not and then talk them to your city council. I have always loved the area and the planning and parks they have.

Although one might note it is the nations capitol and they seem to have far less red tape to getting their fingers on that government money LOL

There's one thing I've noticed with all the Canadian cities I have lived in or visited. Everyone wants to live downtown. Real estate developers want to build as close to the downtown as possible and I suspect lobby town councils to let them build more condos/apartments.

I think this is probably also the case in many larger US cities, where there's perceived to be a lot of exciting things happening downtown. But it's a newer phenomenon in smaller cities like Des Moines. There is some movement to the downtown area, but there's no local grocery store, much of the shopping is in the malls in the suburbs and so on. So for many people, it's a bit of a lifestyle stretch... though it may happen someday.

Ottawa is a pretty neat city even if you aren't a cyclist.

It seems as if in the US there is more than one way to change a community.

https://www.dispatch.com/live/content...n.html?sid=101