The mandate for the Environmental Task Force was transferred to the Sustainability Roundtable and then to the Roundtable on the Environment. The following material is provided for archival purposes.

In diversity our strength:
New mobility for the new millennium
Draft report of The Sustainable Transportation Working Group

Summary | Recommendations

Executive summary

Toronto City Council formed the Environmental Task Force (ETF) in March of 1998. A major activity of the Task Force is to recommend an Environmental Plan for the City of Toronto. Early in the process, the ETF recognized the importance of transportation and land use to the city's ecology, economy, and quality of life. The ETF requested that a chapter be prepared for the Environmental Plan on Sustainable Transportation.

To carry out this work, a Sustainable Transportation Working Group was formed and formulated this report as a basis for the Environmental Plan chapter. Its purpose is to:

• Demonstrate the immediate importance of sustainable transportation to the future of our city and the growing region - environmentally, socially, and economically
• Offer a preliminary vision and outline key steps to evolving a leading edge sustainable transportation system for the new Toronto as we enter the new millennium
• Stimulate the development of a coordinated plan or mechanism and ongoing function at the City of Toronto as leading sustainable transportation city with the purpose of:
• bringing together and building on the successes of existing City of Toronto sustainable transportation and land use policies and programs
• providing a coordinated framework for addressing emerging transportation and land use challenges and opportunities as the city and region grow and change
• identifying and implementing new policies, programs, processes and partnerships for sustainable transportation infrastructure
• reducing the significant and growing environmental, health, social, and economic impacts of transportation in Toronto
• supporting Toronto's growing sustainable transportation business sector
• making the provision of transportation in Toronto more cost effective

1. Information: The First Step to Action

2. Infrastructure: The Foundation

• Sustainable Land Use
• Sustainable Transportation Modes and Networks
• Telecommunications: The Emerging Virtual Transportation Network

• Modes and Systems
• Governance Structures and Responsibilities (City within a Region)
• City Departments Related to Transportation
• Other Issues and Sectors

• Public Funding
• Innovative Financing and Partnerships
• Sector Development: Attracting Investment to Sustainable Transportation

6. Implementation: Beyond Policies and Principles

7. Innovation: For emerging needs and markets

8. Indicators of Progress: To Inform Future Action

Recommendations

The Environmental Task Force requests:

1. That City Council recognize the urgent and growing importance of sustainable transportation to the environmental, social, and economic health of our city in the light of current challenges:

• A projected 40 per cent population growth in the Toronto region over the next two decades
• Rapidly increasing congestion levels related to increased reliance on single occupancy vehicles
• Rapidly increasing congestion levels related to increased truck volumes (projected to double across the region in the next ten years)
• Increasing urban sprawl, directly affecting costs and efficiencies of providing services and producing food
• Declining air quality and water quality directly and indirectly related to transportation activity (transportation is the largest and fastest growing source of CO2 emissions)
• Increasing sickness and death and associated health costs directly and indirectly related to transportation activity ($9 billion per year in Ontario)
• Recent international findings on the end of cheap oil (International Energy Agency)
• Increasing costs of using and providing transportation (Canadians spend more on transportation than they do on food)
• Shifting demographics leading to exacerbated health, social, and financial impacts for a growing aging population, as well as youths, homeless people, and the unemployed.
• Decreasing public investment in transportation by senior levels of government
• The absence of a coordinated transportation and land use plan for the growing region (and at present, for the City)

And emerging opportunities:

• Recent World Bank findings that cities that invest in sustainable transportation infrastructure (including Toronto) are more internationally competitive, more equitable, attract more businesses and residents, enjoy higher quality of life, and spend the least per capita on transportation
• A growing worldwide sustainable transportation sector that is developing and providing a range of new and improved options as well as business and employment opportunities.
• A growing public awareness of transportation and land use issues as they relate to sustainability and quality of life
• A growing awareness by business, government, and media of the need to address sustainable transportation issues
• New City planning processes and restructuring resulting from amalgamation and emerging regional issues affording opportunities for innovation and improvement

2. That City Council build on the successes of the former municipalities and establish the new City of Toronto as a leading sustainable transportation city by:

• providing all Toronto citizens and visitors to Toronto with the widest range of sustainable transportation options that are seamlessly linked, safe, convenient, enjoyable, affordable, and economically competitive, and applying the best available measures to significantly reduce the environmental, health, and social impacts of personal transportation
• significantly reducing the congestion, pollution, danger, costs, and inefficiencies related to the movement of goods - the fastest growing segment of the transportation sector, with emerging consolidation systems, cleaner freight vehicles, and intermodal approaches.
• replacing or reducing the need for transportation (of people or goods) where appropriate with emerging telecommunications technologies and stringent land use and development policies and practices

3.1 That the Commissioners of Urban Planning and Development Services and Work and Emergency Services report to their respective standing committees by May 2000 on staff and resource requirements for the establishment of a comprehensive, co-ordinated plan or mechanism for achieving the goals of a leading sustainable transportation city, as outlined in (2) and described in this report, through the Transportation Implementation Plan of the Official Plan, or through the Strategic Plan, or through a multi-stakeholder and public involvement plan modeled after Vancouver's comprehensive transportation plan, or a combination thereof.

3.2 That the mechanism or plan for achieving the goals of a leading sustainable transportation city include the following:

a) Development of an integrated framework / vision for the future of transportation and land use for Toronto as leading sustainable transportation city based on Toronto's context and available world bests (including detailed door to door scenarios for a wide range of key transportation users and transportation needs, applying the City's advanced modeling expertise to these sustainable transportation scenarios and proposals)

b) Consultation and partnership with all relevant City Departments and agencies, key transportation industries and agencies across the region, all levels of government, the Toronto business community, citizens, labour, community, and environmental groups and agencies both in developing and implementing the plan

c) Short and long term goals and principles for sustainable transportation development

d) Ambitious targets (and hence indicators) for 2021 and 2031 equal to or surpassing local and world bests in the following areas to establish a Toronto Sustainable Transportation Protocol:

• Modal shift (to walking, cycling, transit, car sharing / pooling and other emerging options) (suggested starting point 75 per cent)
• Reduction in number of single occupancy vehicles (suggested starting point 20 per cent)
• Reduction in vehicle kilometers traveled (vkt) by SOVs (suggested starting point 25 per cent)
• Reduction of number of car trips less than 7 km.
• Increase in average speed of transit relative to cars
• Increase in service kilometers / miles of transit relative to road provisions
• Increase in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure relative to road provisions
• Decrease in bicycle thefts
• Reduction in vkt by trucks (suggested 40 per cent)
• Decrease in noxious emissions from trucks
• Increase in proportion of goods and food produced locally
• Transportation related air quality targets (CO2, Nox Vocs, Particulates, and # of smog days and transportation related hospital emissions
• Decrease in traffic injuries and deaths (and related costs)
• Decrease in traffic speed limits
• Reduction in land devoted to automobiles (roads, parking, drive throughs etc)
• Increase in population within the City of Toronto limits related to brownfield and other progressive development approaches
• Increase in densities around transit hubs
• Decrease in average commute to work
• Reduction in public money spent on transportation (through avoidance of duplication of efforts and by applying relatively less costly sustainable transportation systems
• Increase in percentage of spending on sustainable transportation as described in this report (provide current spending baseline on all transportation modes and related systems by City Departments and agencies and adapt according to sustainable transportation framework)
• Increase in promotion of sustainable transportation relative to automobile advertising
• Increase in investment attracted to and employment created by sustainable transportation industry
• Other, as identified through various planning processes

e) Assembly and where appropriate, City-wide implementation of all existing policies initiatives related to sustainable transportation as described in this report, relating to movement of people, movement of goods, and not moving people and goods (including Anti-Smog Strategy Transportation Section; Cycling Master Plan; Sustainable Transportation and Land Use Elements of All Former Municipalities' Official Plans, and other identified policies and initiatives)

f) Assembly and where appropriate, implementation of proposed Sustainable Transportation policies and pilot initiatives included in current reports (Board of Trade Infrastructure Report, Pollution Probe Transit Action Plan, GTSB working documents, Coroner's report on Cycling Deaths, Federal Climate Change Table Recommendations (forthcoming))

g) Establishment and application of an integrated mechanism for ongoing development of new policies, practices and pilot initiatives based on world bests related to eight key steps (see 4.2) and all areas listed in the Transportation Association of Canada's "New Vision for Urban Transportation" adopted by City Council in the fall of 1999, including:

• Urban structure and land use
• Walking
• Cycling
• Transit
• Automobile
• Parking
• Goods movement
• Inter-modal integration
• New technology
• System optimization
• Special user needs
• Environment
• Funding / Financing
• Additional categories, as identified in the planning process

h) Implementation schedules

i) Required resources, financial sources and mechanisms, and strategies for stimulating investment in sustainable transportation sector (including current baseline of transportation related spending by all departments and agencies, by mode, system, and program)

j) Staffing requirements and mechanisms for ongoing co-ordination of sustainable transportation efforts

k) Mechanisms for establishing new and building on existing partnerships and public participation

l) A communications and public outreach plan

m) Recommendations related to City of Toronto sustainable transportation goals to key agencies, other levels of government, businesses, institutions and community agencies

n) Detailed evaluation and monitoring mechanisms (see Recommendation 3b)

4.1 Request that this Sustainable Transportation Working Group report be submitted for incorporation of relevant elements into the following planning processes with consultation with the Sustainable Transportation Working Group as required:

a) Official Plan
b) Strategic Plan
c) Strategic Transportation Planning Group
d) Annual Budget Process
e) Economic Plan
f) Social Development Strategies
g) All other current and future planning processes that relate to any aspects of transportation and/or land use

4.2 That all relevant departments, agencies and planning processes report annually to the proposed Sustainability Roundtable or City Council, beginning in May of 2000, on progress to date and plans for the future, in all areas found in the Transportation Association of Canada New Urban Vision and the following key areas related to sustainable transportation :

a) Information
b) Infrastructure
c) Integration
d) Involvement / Partnership
e) Investment
f) Implementation
g) Innovation
h) Indicators

To be submitted for promotion of successes in these areas through City and other communication channels

5. Request the Commissioners of Urban Planning & Development Services and Works and Emergency Services to work in partnership with the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (TAF) in consultation with relevant agencies and report back by February of 2000 on the feasibility and resource requirements for developing a two-tiered quick-start public outreach approach to sustainable transportation to include:

a) A sustainable transportation interactive web-site as part of the City of Toronto site, to provide up-to-the-minute detailed information on sustainable transportation options, schedules, fares, information, links to further information, and facts and tips about sustainable transportation and climate change and impacts of various forms of transportation etc, as well as links to more detailed information on leading edge City of Toronto sustainable transportation policies and initiatives, and other leading initiatives around the world

b) A one time only door to door information piece similar to the very successful Waste Watch and Water Watch (WES), to inform Toronto citizens of both the coming challenges of transportation in the growing region and the many new and improved options available for a healthier, more convenient transportation system, and to promote the launch of the City's sustainable transportation web-site

Sustainable Transportation Working Group minutes
January 25, 1999
February 24, 1999
March 10, 1999
March 24, 1999