Mobility Strategy

Council approved the Mobility Strategy on April 11, 2022, setting the City’s vision for planning and making decisions about our streets and how we get around for the next decade (to 2035).

Learn more about the actions that the City will be taking to make streets safer, more comfortable, prosperous and vibrant, with easier access to sustainable mobility choices.

What’s in the Mobility Strategy?

Vision

Our vision is to create healthy streets that work for everyone. This vision sits atop the strategy framework as an aspirational guide to the plan, supported by goals and strategies to create a safe, vibrant, low-carbon city that provides plenty of options for people to get around.

Goals

This vision will be achieved through four goals.

Our streets will help our city prosper and be a vibrant place.
Our streets will support real and accessible choices for how we move around.
Our streets will be safe and comfortable.
Our streets will reduce our impact on climate change and the environment.

Strategies and Actions

To accomplish the vision and goals in the Mobility Strategy, eleven strategies are supported with actions and sub-actions.

Below are some of the highlights of the Mobility Strategy, organized into themes.

Theme 1: Make it easier for everyone to choose sustainable and affordable options for the trips we take.

Strategies and example actions:

Make walking and rolling the easiest choice for more of our shorter distance trips.

Deliver a complete, accessible, and high-quality pedestrian network.
Deliver a AAA Mobility Lane Network that connects all our neighbourhoods and key destinations.
Make our walking and rolling networks easier to navigate.

Make transit the easiest choice for more of our medium and longer distance trips.

Create enabling conditions for enhanced transit service and coverage across the city.
Support an inclusive transit system that is easy to understand, and accommodates people of all abilities.
Create enabling conditions for mobility hubs to provide seamless connections between transit and other modes.

Make shared and zero-emission vehicles the easiest choice when we need to use a car.

Support the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Support easier access to car-sharing and carpooling services.

Encourage people to make sustainable travel choices.

Collaborate with employers to increase sustainable commuting.
Expand delivery of youth-oriented programs that support safe and active travel to school.
Continue education and outreach programs for improving neighbourhood-wide and independent sustainable travel.

Theme 2: Improve our mobility experience through the design of streets and neighbourhoods.

Strategies and example actions:

Improve the safety and comfort of vulnerable road users.

Minimize the potential for conflict where different street users come together.
Manage travel speeds and access to improve neighbourhood safety and livability.
Support enforcement that reduces dangerous conduct and prioritizes protection for vulnerable road users.

Rebalance the space along our curbs to meet a wide range of needs.

Review curb space use across the city to better meet the needs of street users.
Ensure there are sufficient loading zones, pick-up and drop-off zones, and accessible parking spots in high-demand locations.

Reclaim more street space for people and nature.

Provide more street trees.
Make our streets and public spaces rain-friendly.
Reduce vehicle noise and vibrations.

Support sustainable mobility through how we grow and develop.

Use land use and development to support shorter trips and sustainable mobility choices.
Require most developments to provide Travel Demand Management (TDM) options for residents and/or employees.
Reduce the amount of vehicle parking that developers are required to provide in new buildings and increase the amount of parking for sustainable modes.

Theme 3: Improve the reliability for people and goods to move around our city and region.

Strategies and example actions:

Keep urban freight, deliveries, and emergency vehicles moving.

Support regional goods movement.
Promote and enable low- or zero-emission deliveries.
Maintain and improve key emergency response routes.

Strengthen our connections within the city, and across the North Shore and Metro Vancouver region.

Create enabling conditions for rapid transit expansion on the North Shore, and across the Burrard Inlet.
Support and deliver initiatives that increase the reliability of our street network.
Coordinate closely with the District of North Vancouver and the Squamish Nation on all boundary-adjacent mobility infrastructure and projects.

Optimize our mobility system through proactive management, operation and access to information.

Develop better experience-focused service standards.
Deploy frequent surveys and apply technology to monitor and inform predictive planning and maintenance priorities.
Work with TransLink and other partners to create a mobility management system to optimize signals, curbside regulations, and real-time traveller information.

How We Will Implement the Strategy

There are over 100 actions in the Mobility Strategy, so our focus will be to develop annual work plans over the next 10 years that prioritize specific components of the Mobility Strategy for advocacy, partnership, investment, or implementation.

Check back here on a regular basis for updates on implementation of key projects supporting the actions in the Mobility Strategy.

Mobility in our Community Today

photo of intersection Today, nearly one-third of our trips are made by walking, cycling, or transit – among the highest in the region – thanks to longstanding investments in transit priority, new cycling infrastructure, and walkable neighbourhoods. But vehicles continue to be used for nearly two-thirds of our trips – including many of our shorter trips under 5 km in length. The increase in all lengths of vehicle trips is leading to congestion, unsafe streets, and reduced neighbourhood livability.

While vehicles are important for moving around – and will continue to be into the future – adding more space for vehicles on our streets is not a viable option and will actually make traffic worse into the future. We need to make space for everyone using our streets. There is no one simple solution to addressing congestion and other issues on our mobility network. Everyone’s mobility choices and access to them are important towards improving the reliability of our streets.

How the Strategy Was Developed

The Mobility Strategy was developed with significant support from the partners, peer agencies, community organizations, and the public. We reached out to City residents, businesses, and visitors throughout our process to learn about their perspectives, ideas, and experience of traveling to, from, and throughout the City to ensure this Mobility Strategy reflected the values of our community and the people who use our streets every day.

Phase 1 engagement, during spring 2021, focused on the overarching strategy framework, and development of the vision, goals, and high-level strategies. We learned during this phase that we were on the right track, and used stakeholder and public feedback to start developing actions.

Phase 2 engagement, during spring 2022, collected input on over 100 actions that we proposed to support our vision and goals, and how these actions will be influential toward meeting our goals.

The engagement included a variety of input from various groups in the community:

50 stakeholder group meetings with partners, community groups, and peer agencies
75 days of open engagement
750 surveys completed on our Let's Talk public engagement site
1,000 downloads of resources related to our Mobility Strategy
3,000 Mobility Strategy website views