Week in review: February 5, 2018

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Consultations, feedback, and events

• TRANSIT: 2018 network public information centres, dates TBD
• ION LIGHT RAIL: Cambridge extension online, due Feb 16
• UNIVERSITY AVE: Streetscape public consultation
• MHBPNA PRESENTS: Inclusive neighbourhood Feb 15, Sustainable streets April 6
• LAND USE: Proposed methodology for land needs assessment for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, comments due Feb 28
• EMISSIONS: Guidelines on community emissions planning, comments due March 4
• GREENBELT: Growing the Greenbelt in the outer ring Feb 22, comments due March 7
• UPTOWN: Public Realm Forum, Feb 13
• BIKE: International Winter Bike to Work Day, Feb 9

On foot

• Kitchener pedestrian bridge over expressway lauded as ‘visionary’ (The Record)
• Uptown councillor wants city to clear core sidewalks (Waterloo Chronicle)
• Opinion: No business like snow business (The Record)
• How walk-first cities are saving lives (Curbed)
• It’s sneckdown season: what cities can learn from snow-covered streets (CBRE)
• A quick-and-dirty fix for sidewalk less streets (Streetsblog)

By bike

The City of Waterloo published its first “Cycling in the City” email newsletter, providing some information on snow clearing for trails, and highlights recent infrastructure projects.

• How dockless bike shares could fix America’s broken cities (Wired)
• Self-driving cars aren’t good at detecting cyclists. The latest proposed fix is a cop-out (Slate)
• Winter Bike to Work Day scorecard update:
  1. Waterloo Region - 56
  2. London - 43
  3. Hamilton - 25
  4. Guelph - 14
  5. Windsor-Essex - 13
• Register and ride your bike on February 9!

In transit

• What does high-speed rail mean for Wilmot? (The Record)
• Union Station and GO RER: Metrolinx’s Phil Verster on the Future (Urban Toronto)
• Lessons on ridership, from the national literature (Transit Center)

The shape of our cities

A new study by UW researchers looks at concerns over affordability of housing in mixed-use developments, the kinds of developments light rail is intended to encourage. While we recognize the concerns, we would hope that reducing restrictions against mixed-use development outside of core areas would help make walkable communities more affordable by making more of them.

• Schneiders plant demolition to start by early spring (CBC)
• What happens when you ease parking requirements for new housing (Nick Magrino)
• Everything you need to know about parking policy (TransitScreen)
• Density’s next frontier: the suburbs (CityLab)

The road ahead

• Montreal-based Vrtucar to take over Community CarShare (CBC)
• Apps are not transforming the urban transport business (Human Transit)
• Canadian Senate’s report on autonomous cars is actually pretty comprehensive (Driving)
• Sidewalk Labs is building a platform for making the city of tomorrow (Wired)