Features
LA Students Aim to Make Town More ‘Walkable'
Class puts their best foot forward for assignment
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Running a 42-kilometre marathon around the town of Minto might appeal only to diehards. For most residents or visitors in this rural municipality north of Guelph, a more likely pace would be a leisurely Main Street stroll or a brisk hike along a former rail trail.
In either case, the goal for U of G students in a project course this semester has been to help the community become more livable by making it more “walkable.”
About 50 landscape architecture students hope their “walkability” plans will yield high marks both in their design studio course and for Minto and its constituent communities of Palmerston, Harriston, Clifford and Drew. The mainly rural town sits on the northwestern boundary of Wellington County on the way to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.
Picking up on a “walkability” move now afoot in more communities worldwide, Minto hopes to improve quality of life by making it easier for pedestrians to get around. Making the community more foot-friendly is also intended to strengthen connectedness and a sense of identity.
There are safety and accessibility issues, too, says Andrew Anderson, co-instructor of the third-year landscape architecture course in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD). Hence the students' suggestions for traffic-calming tools such as rumble strips and properly marked pedestrian crossings.
And connecting the town's constituent communities through improvements to former rail trails may help attract more tourists beyond the numbers that already visit for such events as the annual Minto Redneck Games. One plan by student Brian Caicco even proposes upgrading roads and trails for a new marathon course that would take runners along a roughly leg-shaped route through the community.
The town turned to U of G earlier this year looking for ideas. Through SEDRD's community outreach program, a connection was made with the course taught by Anderson, a senior associate at LANDinc in Toronto, and sessional instructor Shirley Hall. Both are Guelph BLA grads.
For their students, the assignment offered a chance to practise skills and concepts in a real-life setting. Following a class outing to Minto earlier this semester, town representatives visited campus last month to view initial design ideas and discuss plans.
Belinda Wick-Graham, Minto's business and economic manager, says the student plans may be displayed in town to help generate interest and discussion. She expected to mention the project during a recent meeting with a representative from the National Center for Bicycling and Walking in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this year, Minto was selected as a rural case study for “Walk 21,” an international walkability conference held in October in Toronto. That sparked visits by international experts last spring and subsequent brainstorming for ideas to make Minto more walkable. Municipal representatives were then invited to speak at the Walk 21 conference, where the students' contribution was also mentioned before some 300 delegates from around the world.
(Karen Armstrong, an employee at Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health who had already worked with U of G's landscape architecture program, approached SEDRD for this particular project.)
Specific ideas range from adding cycling lanes on roads and improving sidewalks and crosswalks to installing lighting and trees, and favouring a grid of intersecting streets over development of cul de sacs that deter pedestrians. Referring to safe pedestrian crossings, Anderson says: “Barrier-free access is a big issue in many rural towns.”
The idea, says student Johnathan Vandriel, is to entice people to walk — no small challenge in North American cities largely geared to vehicles. “It's not a chore to walk but a journey to walk,” he says.
Adds Wick-Graham: “It's about putting pedestrians first. The whole issue of walkability touches on more than physical health. It's been proven to attract people to a community.”
About 8,500 people live in Minto, but plans call for a population of 11,000 by 2011, she says. Besides attracting new residents, the town hopes to slow and divert some of the cottage-bound traffic that regularly passes through.