Designing for Toronto’s Pedestrians
Toronto streetscapes
Toronto has 5,600 km of roads, almost 8,000 km of sidewalks, over 2,000 traffic signals, and 500-plus pedestrian crosswalks. The city’s resident population of over two and a half million people swells each day with more than 500,000 commuters from the surrounding areas. Regardless of their primary mode of transportation, every person who lives or works in Toronto is, at some point during their journey, a pedestrian.
Pedestrian Projects focuses on the needs of Toronto’s pedestrians and is a unit within the Public Realm Section of the Transportation Services Division. Central to Pedestrian Projects’ work is the Toronto Walking Strategy, a plan approved by City Council in 2009 to make Toronto a great walking city – a city where people love to walk. The Pedestrian Projects’ operating budget is funded by revenue generated through the Astral Media Street Furniture program. This creates a guaranteed revenue stream for pedestrian enhancements for the duration of the 20-year street furniture contract.
Pedestrian Projects collaborates with other sections of Transportation Services, including traffic management, signal control, and infrastructure management along with other Divisions such as City Planning, Technical Services and external partners, to apply data and mapping tools to identify the best opportunities for investments in walkability across Toronto. Key to our successful implementation of policies and projects is an approach focused on building partnerships and leveraging resources.
Identifying pedestrian priorities
Pedestrian Projects employs a variety of tools and programs, including mapping technologies, policy development, and roadway design interventions to create a vibrant public realm that promotes walking. In order to prioritize our efforts in the reality of fiscal constraints, we are developing a methodology that assesses both latent pedestrian demand and the current supply of walking infrastructure. Area Priority Mapping for Pedestrian Improvements identifies areas of Toronto that have a density of destinations that could generate or attract significant numbers of pedestrian trips. These destinations include transit stations, schools, public libraries, recreation centres, and areas with high population or employment densities. In addition to areas of high pedestrian demand, the Area Priority Mapping tool also integrates information about activity levels of vulnerable users such as children, the elderly and low-income residents. Mapping areas of the greatest pedestrian need allows strategic investments in streetscape modifications that will benefit the greatest number of people and support the most vulnerable street users.
In addition to Area Priority Mapping, data on pedestrian injuries in Toronto helps identify the types of roadway modifications that are important for pedestrian safety and well-being. Between 2005 and 2009, about sixty percent (60%) of collisions resulting in pedestrian injury took place at intersections and, of those, ninety percent (90%) of the time the pedestrian had the right-of-way. These figures highlight the importance of intersection designs that increase pedestrian visibility and slow vehicles, in ensuring pedestrian safety. Sixteen percent (16%) of collisions occurred when a pedestrian was crossing the road at an uncontrolled midblock location, raising interesting questions about how the built environment influences road crossing behaviours and choices and how mid-block crossing infrastructure might reduce pedestrian collisions.
There are a variety of proven best-practices for streetscape design that can decrease vehicular speeds while maintaining traffic flow, and increase pedestrian safety by maximizing their visibility and reducing the opportunity for potential vehiclepedestrian conflicts. One of the best traffic calming practices is increasing pedestrian activity. To create a great walking city, pedestrians need to feel and be safe on our streets, making intersections and roadway design innovations a central tool of the Pedestrian Projects Unit. Designing a public realm that makes pedestrians feel comfortable and safe will increase pedestrian activity, which in turn further enhances the walkability of the street. The benefits of enhanced walkability extend to adjacent landowners who see higher property values and retail rents as a result of increased foot traffic – an incentive to maximize streetscape enhancements and ensure they are well maintained.
How do we do it?
In an era of fiscal uncertainty, advocating and implementing public realm enhancements demand innovative approaches to funding and partnerships. Pedestrian Projects regularly identifies existing capital reconstructions projects where streetscape enhancements can be designed by ‘topping-up’ the funding rather than paying for the full reconstruction. These ‘top-up’ funds can be secured through fundraising by Business Improvement Areas (BIAs), partnerships with private organizations or developers, or the release of Section 37 funds to capitalize streetscape projects that benefit the community.
BIAs are associations of commercial property owners and tenants within a defined area who work in partnership with the City to create vibrant business areas. BIAs are run by volunteer Boards of Management elected from their members. Each BIA creates its own budget that is approved by its members and then ratified by City Council. The BIA then charges a levy on all commercial and industrial properties within its boundary, based on the proportionate value of each property. Once the City collects the levy, it returns the funds to the BIA to manage. The City’s Capital Cost-share Program provides matching funding to BIA partners for streetscape beautification projects. BIAs are often champions of pedestrian enhancements, realizing the value of increased walkability by transforming streets into shopping and cultural destinations.
Section 37 funds are payments received by the City from developers, secured by City Planning approvals that exceed the base zoning density or height provisions of a given site. These funds must be used to resource «community benefits» that align with Toronto’s Official Plan and can sometimes be accessed for pedestrian and streetscape enhancements. Again, by identifying where major reconstructions are already happening, Section 37 funds can be stretched to go further and achieve bigger impacts by covering the difference between walking infrastructure that meets existing levels of service and infrastructure that provides enhanced new pedestrian amenities.
However, building the project is only the first step. Sustainable success requires an ongoing maintenance plan that does not depend on the City’s operating budgets to cover the cost of maintaining streetscape enhancements, such as additional planters, lighting, etc. Pedestrian Projects often facilitates the negotiation of maintenance agreements with adjacent landowners to ensure the new assets are properly maintained. BIA members can monitor maintenance issues immediately, and many also have maintenance capacity (through contracted services or on-site staff ). As a result, many public realm improvements are funded and maintained through relationships with BIAs. Building buy-in and support as well as identifying maintenance issues early in the project process from all stakeholders – local councillors and citizens to private developers and BIAs – are essential for the projects’ long-term success.
Bringing innovations to Toronto’s standard street design practices
A major element of Pedestrian Projects’ work is normalizing the types of streetscape interventions we champion in specific projects. «Flexible Streets» are a unique roadway configuration that allows the public right-of-way to accommodate a greater diversity of uses by increasing the flexibility of the space. Through the creation of a zone that can be used alternately as parking, an extension of the pedestrian boulevard, or event space, depending on the time of day, day of week, or time of year, «flexible streets» maximize the utility of the public rightof- way. In designing and building flexible streets in Toronto, Pedestrian Projects has worked to ensure they are accessible to all, including legibility for the visually impaired.
The Market Street project in downtown Toronto, adjacent to the historic St. Lawrence Market, is an excellent example of how Pedestrian Projects builds partnerships and buy-in, and creates awareness of technical adjustments to roadway design standards that can benefit all public realm users. A local developer approached the City about a heritage property redevelopment adjacent to Market Street and ways they might increase their outdoor patio and retail space on the street. The availability of on-street parking and ability to receive deliveries were concerns for local merchants, particularly in the winter months, and needed to be addressed.
Pedestrian Projects, in partnership with the developer, created a design featuring removable bollards that could be relocated to extend the sidewalk. One lane on the west side of the street can be used as patio space in the summer or street parking in the winter, and trench drain technology was used to prevent sidewalk flooding during heavy rains. In the future, as the street develops as a pedestrian destination and attraction, the entire street could be easily closed off for weekends or special events.
The developer is investing about $1 million to redesign Market Street. In doing so, this project has stimulated and leveraged further investment from the neighbouring St. Lawrence Market to transform the entire street. The eastern side of the street is now being redesigned to also be curbless and will be funded through Section 37monies and maintained by the local BIA and the St. Lawrence Market. In addition, the St. Lawrence Market is now planning to reorganize the lower level of the market and to expand the retail exposure along the street. New partnerships and the leveraging of resources on Market Street have yielded a complete streetscape redesign that will animate the right-of-way with patios and public spaces, while enhancing pedestrian safety and the street’s retail potential.
While «flexible streets» are common in Quebec City and Montreal, they are a new concept in Toronto, so Pedestrian Projects worked with internal and external partners to build acceptance for the design interventions during the project approval process. The designs are aligned as much as possible to meet City of Toronto’s existing road and maintenance standards, and the project additionally has capital and operating funding independent of the City’s budgets. A precedent study was needed to justify the change from Toronto’s standard curb design specification for Market Street, but now a number of other streets with flush and/or rolled curbs have been approved or are being considered as a result. A City standard for this type of flexible design feature is also being considered to simplify future approval processes.
Walking forward
The conversion of Market Street to a «flexible street» showcases one of many possible design interventions intended to increase pedestrian safety and the vibrancy of the streetscape. Pedestrian Projects works on a variety of initiatives across the city – some augment the built form of streets and intersections, while others push forward policy development to normalize walkable environments for all road users. Pedestrian Projects can use the success of projects like Market Street to advance walkability concerns city-wide.
Looking forward, Pedestrian Projects will continue to champion roadway designs that meet the needs of pedestrians, local businesses, cyclists, public transit users and motorists. Each successful project supports the revision of the City’s design standards to better support walkability. Precedents once established for pedestrian design interventions can be translated into a variety of built environments, including both downtown and suburban streetscapes, and implemented in priority areas identified by the pedestrian priority mapping methodology. Together, these efforts support the larger goal of implementing the Toronto Walking Strategy and its vision of «an environment where walking is an appealing, convenient, safe and stimulating experience for everyone in every Toronto neighbourhood.»
