Charlottetown invites residents to help shape future of active transportation
CBC
The City of Charlottetown is looking for public input as it develops a new 10-year active transportation plan.
An open house will be held on Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Charlottetown Library Learning Centre. An online survey is also available until April 10 for those who want to share their thoughts.
The city's previous plan led to the development of an active transportation path along the Charlottetown bypass and the Hillsborough Bridge, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to travel back and forth from Stratford into the capital. The network also includes connections to Cornwall and other key areas.
"We did some great work on that plan, but now we want to lay the groundwork for the next step," said Jessika Corkum-Gorrill, the city's manager of environment and sustainability.
Corkum-Gorrill said the city has hired professional consultants to build on the success of the last plan, which accomplished most of its original goals.
The project is currently in the second phase involving drafting the plan and community engagement, and a final version is expected in June.
Corkum-Gorrill said the focus now is not only on gathering recommendations for expanding the network, but also on evaluating the existing infrastructure. This involves looking at road safety, including the width of bike lanes and aligning national standards.
"Safety is a huge consideration right at the top," she said. "Some of the roads are quite busy, and you don't have a fully connected network. So that's definitely a barrier."
Another barrier, she added, is Charlottetown's many heritage areas with narrow streets and on-street parking, which weren't designed for active transportation.
"The newer neighbourhoods and new development that's happening, thankfully, is putting more consideration into those thoughts, but so finding solutions for the older neighbourhoods is one challenge."
Corkum-Gorrill said she looks forward to hearing more from residents about these barriers at the upcoming open house.
For the new plan, she said, Charlottetown's diverse urban landscape will require transportation plans tailored to different neighbourhoods, taking into account things like street width, traffic volume and speed limits.
"So in, you know, neighbourhoods where there's low traffic and low speeds, you might get away with having painted lines on the side of the road and having cyclists and walkers and scooters sharing the road," she said.
"Or you might have a prescription, let's say, for a road that's busier, faster traffic, where we want safe, separated lanes or some kind of separation provided."
More than 53,000 Manitobans have accessed birth control at no cost in the first year of the provincial government's free contraception program, the province says.
The Niagara Regional Police Pipe Band is inviting beginners and youth to try its free music program to help carry on the world-calibre musical ensemble's tradition.
Mayors of municipalities across southwestern Ontario say they’ve focused on the things they could control this year, as the U.S. trade war with Canada and the world has hammered local economies.
A house filled with snakes and spiders might be straight out of many people's nightmares, but to longtime exotic pet keeper Nolan Asplund, they’re like family.
The Ontario government is introducing new rules for publicly advertised job postings in the new year, but questions remain over whether the changes will result in tangible benefits for jobseekers.
Did you know ambulance services on Prince Edward Island were once largely provided by funeral homes?
The past 12 months brought big political headlines, new partisan players and plenty of parliamentary surprises. How much do you remember from it all?
The Ontario government has quietly given itself the power to override archaeological protections on development sites.
A freezing rain event that's left roads and trees across southwestern Ontario coated in ice has also seen emergency crews overwhelmed with calls for help from people without power and snapped trees.
Annette Dionne, the last surviving Dionne quintuplet and a champion of children's rights, has died.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is warning of multiple scams circulating leading up to the holidays.
The painted bunting usually calls the southern U.S. home and travels south at this time of year, but one decided to spend its Christmas holidays up north in Bayfield, N.B.
The Greater Montreal area could see a prolonged period of freezing rain on Monday, with potentially hazardous conditions developing across much of southern Quebec.