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The Active Transportation Master Plan (ATMP) is a planning document that the City of Brampton is developing in 2019. Once complete, the plan will provide recommendations to assist in planning and delivery of cycling and walking infrastructure over the next 25 years.

The ATMP will build upon Brampton’s rich legacy of recreational trails and build a healthy, accessible, and sustainable community where active transportation is a key element of a safe, innovative and integrated transportation system that connects where we live, work, and play. A primary objective for the plan is providing infrastructure to encourage cycling as a viable means of transportation for both recreational and utilitarian purposes for Bramptonians.

The City of Brampton is dedicated to becoming a “bicycle and walk friendly community” that fosters and promotes active transportation, where residents and visitors can easily access community and neighbourhood destinations as well as employment areas through the use of a safe, connected, and convenient network of on-road and off-road active transportation facilities.

Becoming a bicycle and walk friendly community involves addressing and delivering a number of essential priorities (plans, projects, programs, etc.), that are categorized according to:

  • Engineering: Creating safe and convenient places to walk and ride.
  • Education: Giving people of all ages and abilities the skills and confidence to ride.
  • Encouragement: Creating a strong bike culture that welcomes and celebrates bicycling and walking.
  • Enforcement: Ensuring safe roads for all users.
  • Evaluation & Planning: Planning for bicycling and walking as a safe and viable transportation options.

The City’s Active Transportation Master Plan will define our vision priorities in each of the aforementioned categories and provide staff with the framework to address/implement each.

The goal of the Active Transportation Master Plan study is to encourage, promote and enable cycling and walking in the City as viable, safe, and attractive transportation modes through the implementation of active transportation infrastructure, policy and programming. The broad scope of the master plan study includes the following:

  • Research and assess active transportation initiatives currently being implemented within the City relating to infrastructure/programming/policy and consolidate them to provide the basis of an active transportation strategy.
  • Establish a comprehensive active transportation network of on and off-road active transportation facilities that will encourage utilitarian and recreational travel by walking and cycling.
  • Develop an implementation strategy which will guide staff in the delivery of an active transportation network.
  • Strengthen Active Transportation polices, and adopt policy changes and associated processes to make cycling and walking a viable, safe and attractive mode of travel.
  • Improve programming aimed at enhancing the culture of cycling and walking, expand established programs and develop new programs to encourage, educate and support active transportation within the city.
  • Create a framework to measure and assess the progress of active transportation in the City.

Brampton, like many other municipalities, has a variety of challenges that it will need to address in the coming years related to establishing active transportation as a viable way to get around. These include:

  • Safety and security - riding in traffic, unsafe pedestrian road crossings, missing or unmaintained sidewalks, and/or unmaintained roads and bike lanes.
  • Existing land use patterns - low-density, single-use, auto-dependent development makes walking and cycling between destinations time consuming and unrealistic.
  • Cold climates and physical barriers - Cold, wet, or snowy winters along with highway and river crossings make walking and cycling uncomfortable and inconvenient.

The following provides an overview of some of the key benefits of expanding and supporting active transportation in the City:

  • Public health and safety - healthier form of transportation, well-designed networks and purpose-built infrastructure can also greatly improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.
  • Environment and sustainability - generates far less air pollution emissions and is far less carbon intensive than other forms of transportation.
  • Economic and financial – construction and maintenance costs are far lower than other transportation infrastructure, have positive local economic development impacts.
  • Community and quality of life - positive impacts on overall community and individual well-being, social cohesion and community identity.
  • Transportation and connections: improves connections to, and between, community destinations, which improves the broader transportation network, transit trips begin and end with walking, therefore there are public transit ridership benefits.

The Planning and Development Services Department (P&DS) is acting as the project lead for the delivery of the ATMP, working closing with other City Departments, along-side communications, community engagement and financial planning staff. The City has also engaged an external consult (IBI Group) to assist in the development of the plan.

The ATMP is anticipated to be presented to Council for approval in Spring 2019.

A primary objective in the development of the ATMP and an emphasis made in the retention of the consulting team for the project is the design of an innovative consultation processes that would maximize the opportunities for public outreach, learning and sharing. The general public and stakeholders are being invited to provide input in a variety of ways:

  • Take our Survey – will be available in January 2017.
  • Come to our Public Meeting – January 18, 2017 at the Bramalea City Centre
  • Leave us a Comment – Submit a comment to us from our ‘Have Your Say’ page.