Category: Resources

Links to useful information about walking policy and advocacy.

Resources

Toronto Walking Resources

Walk Toronto

The City of Toronto has a wide range of policies related to walking, but it’s not always easy to know about them or to find them. This post provides a convenient list of links to these various policies, so that anyone who is interested can get an overview what the City is doing, or at least says it should be doing, to improve the pedestrian experience in Toronto.

List revised in February 2014 to update links to new City of Toronto website, and links are added as they become available–last update March 2023.

Various non-municipal organizations also provide useful information about walking policy and programs:

 

Resources

Anti-Racism Walking Resources

Walk Toronto

To be truly committed to building safe streets for everyone in our communities, we need to address the systemic racism that exists and perpetuates through the street design process and decision making. Walk Toronto’s values and advocacy prioritizes the urgent need to address these injustices. We are committed to actively educating ourselves, collective listening, and collaborating against systemic racism now and always.

We have put together a list of resources and guides that educate us on systemic racism and oppression around walking experiences and infrastructure. This list is just a small sample of the abundance of resources available online. Over time, we will continue to add to the list.

Toronto

Beyond Toronto

Resources

Past City of Toronto pedestrian collision reports

Walk Toronto

For many years, the City of Toronto published one-page breakdowns of the statistics about collisions between vehicles and pedestrians in Toronto, and posted them in the “walking” section of the City of Toronto website. They stopped publishing them in 2013, and the old reports seem to have disappeared from the website. Instead, we now have some open data, which has interesting visualizations but only provides statistics on deaths and serious injuries, not all collisions, which does not give a full picture.

Thanks to the Internet Archive (hat tip to Gil Meslin for finding this), the old reports can be retrieved. They give an in-depth series of statistics on pedestrian collisions over 12 years (2000-2012). They also show the level of detailed information about pedestrian safety that the City of Toronto could be providing, but chooses not to, despite its Vision Zero rhetoric.

The way the statistics stop abruptly in September 2013 shows how suddenly the City decided to stop collecting this important safety information.

Resources

Leading a walk

Walk Toronto

Walk Toronto encourages everyone to lead walks. It could be a local walk with neighbours, a walk to explore a part of the city with friends, a walk with fellow parents to audit safety on the way to school, a Jane’s Walk, or anything else. Leading a walk is simple, doesn’t cost anything, and is a great way to get to know neighbours or people who share your interests, to learn about your city, and to identify ways to improve your community. Here are some useful tools and resources to help you organize a walk.

Audit Tool

This tool was designed to help neighbours walk their community and identify things that can be improved to make their streets safer and more appealing to walk, roll and play on.

Jane’s Walk

Thank you to Jane’s Walk Toronto for these resources

Advocacy

After your walk, you may want to take action to get improvements implemented. Here are some resources for how to take action.

  • Advocacy Toolkit (from the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council). Includes tips on writing to city councillors and city staff, and giving deputations.

 

Resources

Accessibility and Built Environment Resources

Walk Toronto

AccessForward: Free Training Modules to meet the training requirements under Ontario’s accessibility laws


AODA’s Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment


Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation Guidelines: Part 4.1 – Design of Public Spaces Standards


Illustrated Technical Guide to the Accessibility Standard for the Design of Public Spaces


Guidelines for Understanding, Use and Implementation of Accessible Pedestrian Signals (2008, link now dead) (available to purchase from the Transportation Association of Canada)


Original post by Vivien Leong

Resources

A Toronto pedestrian pamphlet from 1997

Walk Toronto

From the archives – here is a PDF of a pamphlet, “Let’s Make Toronto a Walkable City,” produced in 1997 by a pedestrian advocacy group, Feet on the Street, and the old City of Toronto Healthy City Office. It’s interesting to note what issues are still current. Thanks to Helen Riley, former co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, for sending this in.

Let’s Make Toronto a Walkable City (PDF)

Resources

Comprehensive List of Information about Walking and Great Organizations to Connect With

Walk Toronto

We’ve compiled some great resources from around the web into one handy list. These organizations and projects are doing great things to educate and advocate for walkable places.

Best Information

Canadian Organizations

International Organizations

List compiled by Vivien Leong

Resources

Walk to School Resources

Walk Toronto

Several parents have contacted Walk Toronto to find out how they can make it easier and safer for their children to walk to school. There are programs in Toronto and the GTA, both from governments and NGOs, dedicated to increasing the number of students walking to school.

Active and Safe Routes to School is a program initiated by Green Communities Canada. They have developed a whole series of programs and resources, and they partner with municipalities and school boards. See for example the Canadian School Travel Planning Facilitator Guide (PDF).

Toronto Public Health has staff members dedicated to working on the Active and Safe Routes to School program. They are a good first point of contact to help organize activities and navigate the City and school bureaucracy to get changes made. They have recently added a “Walking to School” information page and have put together a “Why walk to school?” (PDF) information sheet.

Toronto District School Board’s EcoSchools program has a Sustainable Transportation module (PDF) which students and teachers can use to connect with the right people at the Board and get started.

The Toronto Centre for Active Transportation has published a guide, Guide to Safer Streets Near Schools: Understanding Your Policy Options in the City of Toronto. See also this short pamphlet from a coalition of academic institutions with findings from research about walking to school, School Traffic Safety in the City of Toronto (PDF).

Metrolinx, the regional transportation agency for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, is also very interested in promoting walking to school. Metrolinx conducted a large-scale School Travel Study (PDF) to identify the current state of school travel in the region and has published School Travel Planning in Action in Ontario (PDF) to feature some case studies of successful programs, with concrete examples of the measures taken in specific schools and the increase in walking to school that resulted.

It’s also helpful to get the local city councillor and school board trustee on board. They can help with working with staff, for example, the area manager for City of Toronto Transportation Services, who are the ones who will implement changes. Most importantly, your local councillor will be the person who brings any proposals for changes to the streets to the local community council. When working with elected officials, it’s always more persuasive to have a group of parents supporting any initiative, rather than just working on an individual basis.

A good starting point is often to organize a walk along the route in question, including parents, children, the local councillor, possibly local police, and relevant city staff.

If you know of other resources or have experience with working on a walk to school initiative, please let us know in the comments.