Rural Community Active Transportation Workshop

I had an exciting opportunity on June 18 when I conducted a community AT workshop in the Village of Guysborough Nova Scotia.

There is nothing unusual with me working in a Canadian community on improving their walkability and bikeability. I have conducted similar workshops in nearly 50 towns and cities in every province.

However, Guysborough is special because it consists of a population of barely 500 people in its village, with another 4,100 spread throughout an area of more than 2,000 square kilometres. This makes it by far the smallest community to conduct an AT workshop.

Members of Council and municipal staff joined me for a walking assessment of the village, and during discussions in Council chambers we reviewed possibilities of improving AT safety in rural sections of Guysborough. At the end of the day, staff indicated that they were confident that a community Active Transportation plan could be drafted by them and adopted by Council by the end of December 2009.

This is an exciting development for AT in Canada, as we see smaller and smaller communities making efforts to improve their human-powered transportation capabilities.

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I will be in Nova Scotia working on a hiking book until early July. Regular blog postings will resume once I return to Ottawa.