Mavis Johnson Traffic Safety Award 2024

Implementing Healthy Urban Policy in Guelph, Ontario: Lessons from Copenhagen

By: Dr. Linda Rothman, BScOT, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the School of Occupational and Public Health at Toronto Metropolitan University and Adjunct Scientist in Child Health Evaluative Sciences at the Hospital for Sick Children

Context

The City of Guelph recently became a Vision Zero city through the adoption of its 2022 Transportation Master Plan. Guelph has chosen to prioritize equity considerations in the evaluation and application of road safety interventions and road design planning as part of this 25-year master plan. Still in its infancy, the City of Guelph is looking for innovative ways to use data-informed decision making in improving service delivery and infrastructure to equity-deserving neighbourhoods. To help guide these plans, a 5-member multidisciplinary team from the City of Guelph and Wellington-Guelph Public Health Unit, applied to and was awarded a Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Planning and Dissemination grant under their Healthy Cities Research Initiative in the winter 2023. This grant was focused on implementing healthy urban policy. The team consisted of an academic lead, the Mayor, the Medical Officer of Health, and staff from transportation and public health. The grant activities included an immersive workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark lead by 8-80 Cities, a Toronto based non-profit organization, followed by the formulation of a specific plan to transfer learnings gained upon return to the home communities through knowledge mobilization activities. This workshop was designed for the multidisciplinary teams to experience, observe and learn what makes Copenhagen one of the happiest and healthiest cities in the world through street design and transportation planning measures. The workshop included teams from four Canadian cities (Guelph, Ontario; Brandon, Manitoba; Oshawa, Ontario and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan).

Objectives

The objective of the Implementing Health Urban Policy Workshop was to bring researchers and city decision makers together to collaborate, design, implement, and evaluate healthy cities programs related to active transportation and design of public spaces in their own cities. The key objective for the Guelph team specifically, was to learn best practices with an equity lens and to help support the design and implementation of Guelph’s 2022 Transportation Master Plan including the following priority projects: new Complete Streets Design Guidelines, Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plans and the updated Traffic Calming Policy. This would assist Guelph to implement and evaluate road safety interventions that create healthy urban spaces and promote safe and equitable mobility for all residents. The key output from the 8-80 cities workshop was that the Guelph team came away with new ideas and interventions to help shape the required knowledge mobilization activities in Guelph and to implement and evaluate change in one identified community.

Target Group

The target group for the workshop were 5-member teams representing four Canadian municipalities. The target groups for the knowledge mobilization activities were city staff, public health staff and community leaders.

Activity(ies)

The Implementing Healthy Urban Policy Workshop was an immersive workshop consisting of 5 days of engaging lectures, workshops, and walking and cycling tours by a variety of government agencies, not-for profits and architectural firms and sustainability hubs in Copenhagen. The purpose of these activities was to delve into how transportation infrastructure and public spaces can foster inclusion and healthy lifestyles for all people, and then to translate learning into Canadian settings. The workshop provided the unique and invaluable opportunity to engage with multidisciplinary Canadian team members from several cities, bringing together representatives from academia, transportation and public health, who do not regularly collaborate. Interacting with representatives from Danish organizations provided excellent opportunities to consider and work towards how to translate learnings to the home cities. The workshop resulted in a well-defined plan for knowledge mobilization activities upon return to Guelph, as well as some clear plans related to specific changes to be made to the built environment in a marginalized area of Guelph. These knowledge mobilization activities were planned for participants from the City of Guelph, which included those working in Equity, Anti-racism and Indigenous Relations, Accessibility, Transit, Transportation Services, Engineering, Urban Planning, Public Works, and Parks. Participants from external agencies were recruited including elected councillors, public health researchers including those from other CIHR Healthy Cities Initiatives (i.e. the CapaCITY/E network), and knowledge users from other organizations such as the Local Immigration Partnership, United Way supported organizations, Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation, Anishinaabeg Outreach Centre. The first mobilization activity; a neighbourhood walking tour, was held in October 2023, in conjunction with Parachute, our national injury prevention charity. The walking tour was well attended by 53 participants with representation from the community, government, advocacy and professional organizations. The second mobilization activity occurred in June 2024 which consisted of a panel discussion, walking tour and a design workshop and hosted over 80 participants.

Deliverables

There were many lessons learnt from the Copenhagen workshop including equity considerations as related to active transportation and road safety, optimal urban design to promote human interaction, the importance of relevant data, and safe and functional design for cycling networks. The goals were to take these lessons and adapt them to our Canadian setting, with a lens to equitable, easy, convenient, and healthy active transportation. The grant activities have supported new collaborations between city leaders and researchers to co-develop and evaluate interventions that create healthy urban spaces and promote safe and equitable mobility for all residents. Specifically, a plan has been initialized to institute and evaluate change in a marginalized community in Guelph with respect to increasing equitable active transportation accessibility. The walking tour of this neighbourhood that occurred in 2023, set the stage for the community design workshop and panel discussion in spring 2024 that pulled together lessons from Copenhagen with local challenges and barriers to delivering safe and active transportation. The workshop brought together multi-sectoral actors in community building, including developers, urban planners, transportation specialists, community leaders and more and tackled the complex challenges and barriers to supporting equitable and safe active transportation in a marginalized community. The outcomes will become potential intervention projects for future funding under the CIHR Healthy Cities program to evaluate their effectiveness. There are plans for future collaborative grant submissions to evaluate the resulting changes implemented by Guelph.

Bio: 

Linda Rothman B.Sc.OT, Ph.D. (Research Lead) is an Assistant Professor at the School of Occupational and Public Health at Toronto Metropolitan University, an Adjunct Scientist in Child Health Evaluative Sciences at the Hospital for Sick Children, and an Assistant Professor (status only) at Dalla Lana, School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Her area of expertise is in vulnerable road user injuries in urban environments as a public health issue and has been working in this field for over 20 years. Linda is an investigator on a new Healthy Cities CapaCITY/É team grant involving researchers working together with 10 municipalities across Canada and Melbourne, Australia. This team is investigating the implementation and evaluation of interventions related to speed reduction and All Ages and Abilities Bicycle Networks. Other recent research projects include studying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on road traffic volumes and collisions and evaluating new road safety infrastructure in 4 Canadian cities with a social equity lens. Linda works with a variety of knowledge users and has presented her work in many international, national, and local venues.