Reimagine: Designing a healthy Peterborough
About 42 per cent of residents are inactive
Decisions being made in the current Official Plan Review about how we move around the city and how we use our local land will have a large and lasting influence on the pattern and style of growth for our future. A more dense mix of land uses and support for multiple modes of transportation could make a big difference in our city, and improve our daily lives and health.
In last November’s excellent Designing Healthy Living report, Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam wrote about these possibilities. “Our neighbourhoods and how they are built influence how healthy we are … Chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of death in Canada. … [They] could be reduced by seamlessly integrating healthy living into our daily lives which can be achieved, in part, by designing and redesigning our communities.”
The health signs are all around us in our epidemics of obesity and diabetes, in poor air quality, and in road traffic injuries. This is in part due to our over-reliance on using cars - distances make many trips walkable or cyclable, yet 42 percent of Peterborough residents report that they are inactive. We may strive to live more active lives but are pushed to drive everywhere due to the design of our communities.
How do we make healthy living easier in our daily schedules? Partly it is by applying design principles. These include shorter block lengths and connected streets (easier walking), multiple services nearby, higher densities as well as greenscaping to add shade and reduce heat island effects. Easy access for all to healthy food can make a difference, too, with local groups like Nourish creating new opportunities and gardens here.
The new Atria and recent Ashburnham Realty developments are taking advantage of the access, convenience, and healthy walkability of downtown, which serves residents’ daily needs. The coming Lily Lake developments are taking some steps forward towards creating complete communities. A complete community has many of the services, jobs and amenities needed for a rich urban living experience, without having to travel more than a few minutes from home. In urban villages, walking, cycling, public space and transit become more of a priority.
One leading example of this is the Vauban subdivision in Freiburg, Germany. Here, 3 to 5 storey residential buildings flank local businesses, schools and community spaces along a central transit corridor. Parking garages are placed on the periphery to encourage walking and cycling within the core area. Lots of greenspace, gardens and rooftop solar panels add to the vibrant neighbourhood and support the world-leading solar industry and standards in that city. Active citizen engagement and specialists helped design this innovative community.
Neighbourhood design can also affect our mental health and safety. Front yards and porches, walking, and having destinations close by as places for people to gather can all foster social inclusion and interaction. It can also help prevent isolation - an issue so serious the UK has appointed a Minister for Loneliness. The City’s plans for developing design guidelines could assist with applying such principles in new and redeveloped neighbourhoods, as Cobourg and Kingston have done.
Many studies have shown that greenspace and access to woods and water are linked to lower stress and living longer lives. Such areas are also important for children’s physical and social development. Early planning for such green networks is essential to both our mental and physical health in the city.
On the financial health front, car-reliant subdivisions on the city outskirts commit taxpayers to paying for the maintenance and servicing of kilometers of new roads, water pipes, and sewers as well as emergency services. City reports that the road and sidewalk network require major investments raise concerns about the huge need and costs to maintain our existing roads.
Good planning can address several issues together: the financial liabilities of low density development, the physical consequences of car-reliance and less exercise, and the mental health dimensions of stress and social isolation. Higher density developments with a stronger tax base can fund their future infrastructure needs without being overly dependent on ratepayers in the rest of the City. These new, more complete communities would have more services, local shopping, transportation choices and recreation close at hand for its residents, instead of everything being a drive away.
Better yet, a pattern of interconnected higher density neighbourhoods and nodes means better transit, shifting travel patterns, and more opportunities for healthy, active transportation for work and recreation. It's based on sidewalks, walking trails, cycling paths and greenspace, all linked into a vastly improved public transit network and a complete streets design.
These land use and transportation strategies have many benefits:
• A healthier, safer and more attractive Peterborough for young families and new businesses
• Improved and safer mobility for seniors and people with disabilities
• Reduced pollution and its environmental impacts on people, wildlife, buildings and climate
• Reduced number of cars on the roads, making it easier for all users to get where they need to go
• Decreased commuting distances and times, leaving people with less stress and more time for loved ones, recreation and contributing to our community
• Reduced taxpayers’ costs for fewer roads, both from less need for expanded or new ones plus the costs to maintain and replace them in the future
• A more livable, equitable and prosperous city.
Reimagine Peterborough believes that it is important to serve the needs of all of the area’s population and avoid some of the land use, transportation and financial problems found elsewhere in Ontario. That is the intent behind the province’s Growth Plan policies and the City’s current Official Plan surveys. The City is asking for public input on these issues. Reimagine’s approach to the City’s Survey on Land Use is that new subdivisions don’t yet -- but should -- provide residents with more services and variety, density and affordability of housing types. We feel downtown needs to maintain its heritage character and include more apartments, condominiums and affordable housing.
Our approach to the City’s Survey on Transportation includes a focus on improved intersections with turn lanes, use of new technology, and coordinated, modernized traffic signals. With safety a growing priority in road design, we know that traffic calming, good sidewalks and protected bike lanes keep pedestrians, cyclists and drivers moving safely. For public transit, we would like a change from the current hub system to better routes and more frequent service - recent federal and provincial funding announcements should help.
Many of these ideas and others could be woven into the design of our community. Your voice in the City’s new land use and transportation surveys will help create an attractive and vibrant future and a distinctive new Official Plan for our city. Check out the surveys (and the cool mapping functions) and be sure to add your own comments and suggestions!
Ian Attridge is an environmental lawyer and Sara Whitehead is a public health physician, both based in Peterborough. Reimagine Peterborough is a citizen-led movement that sees better urban planning and public engagement as essential to our social, cultural, environmental, democratic, and quality of life needs. For updates and a Toolkit to help groups contribute to the Official Plan, follow Reimagine Peterborough on Facebook, Twitter, at reimagineptbo.ca, and join our mailing list.