Agenda Index City of Vancouver

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

TO:

Vancouver City Council

FROM:

Director of Current Planning and General Manager of Engineering Services

SUBJECT:

Downtown Transportation Plan Completion

 

RECOMMENDATION

GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS

COUNCIL POLICY

Vancouver's Transportation Plan (1997) provides policy direction for the development of the Downtown Transportation Plan.

PURPOSE

This report reviews the work and budget required to complete the Downtown Transportation Plan.

BACKGROUND

In 1999, Council approved the work program and public consultation program for the Downtown Transportation Plan. This included a 19 month time schedule, five full time equivalent staff members from Planning and Engineering, and a budget of $734,000.

The public consultation program consists largely of public meetings, workshops and newsletters to draw people into the process and encourage their active involvement. Due to budget considerations at the time, the option of an enhanced outreach program and a random sample survey was identified but not pursued.

DISCUSSION

The Downtown Transportation Plan process was divided into five steps. Currently we are at the fourth step in creating a draft plan for discussion. A draft plan will be presented to the public for input from October to December. Based on the input received, the plan will be finalized and presented to Council in March of 2002.

Staff Costs

The March completion date requires an extension of the project by one month from its previously anticipated completion date. However, in terms of individual staff members, the extensions vary from one to several months due to the staggered start dates of individual team members. In total, the additional funding required for staff costs to complete the plan is $76,000. The main reasons for the additional time include the extensive background research and compilation of current and future land uses required for the development of the transportation subarea model and delays from the two month civic strike.

Graphics Technician

Consultant services were retained in the creation of the first newsletter. An existing in-house graphics technician was borrowed from other city programs to help create the second newsletter. Subsequently, the same technician was used to create other public displays and documents for the downtown transportation plan project. The availability of an in-house graphics technician allowed for greater continuity and flexibility, and prompt updates to the draft plans as they evolved. In comparison to the consultant, the in-house graphicstechnician was found to be more cost effective because of the additional services provided.
Unfortunately, the graphics technician will be unavailable without further funding in 2002. Given that a draft plan will be finalized in early 2002 for which there is a full-time need for creating high quality presentation materials, it is recommended that the in-house graphics technician be retained for three months in 2002 at a cost of $13,500.

Enhanced Public Consultation Program

To date, as part of the public consultation process, there has been an inaugural open house, seven workshops, seven `walkabouts', a `bike-about', and a symposium on Intelligent Transportation Systems, all advertised through the local papers. Staff has distributed two newsletters as inserts in the Courier newspaper, which has a circulation of about 147,000 copies city-wide. The team has created a project web site, placed a static display with brochures at 13 venues throughout the downtown, participated in the "Go Green" Transportation Fair at both campuses of the Vancouver Community College, met with all the special advisory committees of Council, and met many business, community and special interest groups. In the next few months, a third newsletter will be distributed and staff will host several public meetings to discuss the draft plan. This will be in addition to numerous ongoing meetings with all interest groups and stakeholders in the downtown area.

The number of participants in the process so far has been steady but limited. There is a concern that some interests are under-represented. To check on the responses to the draft plan and to better validate conclusions, a random sample survey of downtown residents, businesses and employees (200 from each group) is recommended at a cost of $60,000. This would be a cooperative survey in which potential respondents would be first provided with background information prior to completing the survey. It would also include the use of focus groups to help formulate the survey questions and identify areas requiring more attention. A similar approach has recently been successfully used by the Rapid Transit Office.

To improve the response rate in the third newsletter, it is recommended that it be distributed by Canada Post to all addresses on the downtown peninsula at a cost of $8,000. Finally, to improve general awareness of the Downtown Transportation Plan, additional communication efforts should be undertaken with advertisements, brochures, posters and other forms of media at a cost of $15,000.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

A breakdown of the costs is shown below. Staff costs would be included in the 2002 Operating Budget and the enhanced public consultation program would be funded from Contingency Reserve.

Additional Staff Costs (2002):
Staff team extensions $76,000
In-house graphics technician $13,500

Enhanced Public Consultation:
Random sample survey (2001) $60,000
Canada Post admail drop (2001) $ 8,000
Additional communication costs (2002) $15,000

CONCLUSION

Based on a review of the work remaining, it is estimated that the Downtown Transportation Plan can be completed by the end of March 2002. This would require a modest extension of the staff team at a cost of about $76,000. To help develop the final plan, the retention of an in-house graphics technician for three months in 2002 is recommended at a cost $13,500. To improve the response rate to the upcoming draft plan and to better validate the representation of the responses, an enhanced public consultation program is recommended at a cost of $83,000.

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