Walkability Road Show: April 16 – May 3, 2007

Background
In the year leading up to Walk21 Toronto 2007, the City of Toronto and Green Communities Canada conducted a Walkability Roadshow. A key focus of Walk21 Toronto 2007 was the development of an international framework for creating and implementing local pedestrian strategies and plans. In advance of the conference, several Canadian communities worked with the Walk21 International Team, Green Communities Canada and the City of Toronto to build this model framework.

The structure of the pedestrian strategy framework is based on the International Walking Charter, adopted by the Melbourne Walk21 conference in October 2006. Communities participating in the Roadshow were audited against the Charter to assess what was being done locally to help achieve more walking, to recognize what the priorities and barriers are for future policy and investment, and to identify what external supports would assist communities to develop and implement effective local pedestrian strategies.

Objectives of the Walkability Roadshow

• benchmark participating communities against the International Walking Charter
• provide training for local professionals
• inspire decision-makers to support walking
• hold public forums hosted by Canadian and international experts to gather local input to pedestrian issues
• set the groundwork for these communities to create local pedestrian master plans and/or achieve real change for walking in their neighbourhoods
• present the findings of this year of work to the delegates of the Walk21 conference in October 2007

Schedule
The Walk21 Walkability Roadshow took place between April 16 and May 3, 2007 as detailed below:

	Monday April 16	Collingwood
	Tuesday April 17	Haliburton & Minden; Peterborough
	Wednesday April 18	Haliburton & Minden; Peterborough
	Thursday April 19	Sudbury
	Friday April 19	Sudbury
	Monday April 23	Brantford; Minto Township
	Tuesday April 24	Brantford; Minto Township
	Wednesday April 25	Toronto
	Thursday April 26	Toronto
	Monday April 30	Region of Waterloo
	Tuesday May 1	Region of Waterloo
	Wednesday May 2	Halifax
	Thursday May 3	Halifax

In each community, the Roadshow team worked with the local people, both professionals and community members, to inspire action, develop opportunities and deliver training. The Roadshow included meetings with political decision makers, workshops with communities and training for professionals. The team generally worked and travelled together but at some points the group split to manage overlapping sessions or concurrent community meetings.

Activities to date

• All communities completed a questionnaire (PDF 54KB) based on the International Walking Charter as a first step in documenting and assessing their needs.
• The following communities participated in a preliminary workshop held in December in Toronto with Jim Walker and Bronwen Thornton of Walk21, where we elaborated on the questionnaires and started to focus on specific needs analyses for each place:
• Collingwood
• Brantford
• Peterborough
• Haliburton/Minden
• Minto Township
• Toronto
• Region of Waterloo
• Post-workshop, we provided the above communities, along with Halifax and Sudbury, with the results of the December session. From these detailed notes we completed an in-depth analysis of the questionnaires and each community was assigned 'homework' to begin focusing the program and building a foundation of local knowledge.

Format of the community workshops
We split the workshops into four distinct areas as described below. However, the workshop format for each community varied depending on local needs and interests. For example, instead of a formal training session, some communities requested round table meetings to discuss particular plans and ideas.