Turning transit vision into transit practice

The Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) has developed its Transit Vision 2040, a bold 30-year plan for optimizing mobility in Canadian society, ensuring that the Canadian transit industry plays a significant role in advancing urban mobility.

During the timeframe that the Vision spans, Canada’s society, economy, environment, culture and communities will undergo fundamental change that transit must be prepared to adapt to and support.

The Vision recognizes that transit is key to improving national challenges including economic prosperity, climate change and public health. It places the Canadian transit industry at the forefront of developing a strategic approach to emerging challenges, with actions designed to anticipate and respond to opportunities and obstacles.

Here we explore three of the themes of the 2040 vision that we feel are especially key to the future of transit in Canada, and reflect on the impact and improvements they could have on urban mobility.

Putting transit at the center of our communities

Transit facilities that are fully integrated with community planning and design can transform centers into high quality, safe, accessible and sustainable urban transit hubs. Demonstrably, TransLink now uses two sets of guidelines developed by SDG – the Transit Passenger Facility Design guidelines and the Transit Oriented Communities Design guidelines – to ensure that its new facilities complement existing communities, improve the customer experience and create desirable urban places that support transit and help build ridership.

Revolutionizing service

Expanding regional rapid transit networks, integrating operations and governance, and building better service in smaller communities will all serve to transform the transit experience for customers, build ridership and improve urban mobility and access.

SDG developed a TDM Strategy to support the City of Ottawa’s Confederation Line LRT infrastructure project, which will be essential to maintaining sustainable mobility during and after construction of the system. The strategy therefore identified key measures to reduce single-occupancy vehicle travel, increase transit ridership, encourage other sustainable modes of transportation and advocate flexible work arrangements.

Presently, SDG is working with several communities across the country, to expand regional LRT and BRT with projects in Surrey, Hamilton, Mississauga, GO Transit, Calgary and Edmonton.

Focusing on customers

Focusing on customers – that is, putting the passenger first – is vital to the success of any project and to moving transit forward. This often means taking a step back, gaining a fresh perspective which is focused on the customer, and allowing it to guide the design. It also means being able to respond to the needs of a growing population, with changing dynamics of diversity in age, culture, and mobility requirements.

The Hamilton Rapid transit project was developed as an ‘Integrated Transit Solution’- enhancing other transit modes, local communities and wider, long term development plans, with a passenger-first approach to ensure solutions were traveler-centered.