Day 3 Program

Matteo Jarre is a senior consultant on territorial analysis, policy impact assessments and strategy with Decisio, a Dutch consulting firm established in 1998 to provide programming, planning and policy evaluations from economic and social perspectives.

In this keynote address, Jarre builds the case that this analysis has a direct connection to action, or ‘bikenomics’. If every kilometre travelled carries a price tag—a kilometre driven is a cost to society, and a kilometre cycled or walked is a return/benefit— then bikenomics tells us what that kilometre is worth.

Street design then decides whether it actually gets ridden and, furthermore, the integration between bike and train can help decide how many kilometres are within reach at all.

But is this where the discussion loses application for a North American audience? Does the integration of active travel and rail networks mainly belong only in the European context?

Jarre will explain how it’s not just cities like Milan, Rome, and Bordeaux that have figured out what a kilometre is actually worth; in Melbourne, Australia, the case was made to measure the benefits after the lane was built rather than allowing forecasts to dictate policy.

In his address, Jarre will also speak to three objections familiar to British Columbians—cycling is expensive, cycling penalises normal people, cycling is a partisan topic—and the 3-step plan he, his colleagues and their clients have committed to regardless of the headwinds they face: count the benefit, design for it, and extend its reach.

Matteo works at Decisio as Director of the Italian office and senior consultant to public administrations globally on the topics of territorial analysis, policy impact assessments and strategy.

Engineer and data analyst, he combines a strong technical and statistical background with a passion for political and decision-making processes. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering and is taking a second M.Sc. in environmental political science. He has worked as a university researcher in Italy and abroad, as an environmental educator and was vice president of a private consulting firm in the energy field.

At Decisio he coordinates projects on active mobility, sustainable energy and bikenomics analyses. He has developed the social cost benefit analysis methodology for tens of cycling and mobility projects and is active in developing studies on the impacts of active mobility on society.

While many municipalities across BC have tested car-free spaces through plazas, events, and school streets, there is a growing need for guidance on how to scale them into connected, year-round networks. This session will explore how communities can move from pilot projects to permanent pedestrian spaces, with lessons on design, activations, and public/political buy-in, and clear, practical advice. The session will also highlight lessons learned from communities across BC, helping participants avoid common pitfalls and adapt proven approaches to their local context.

While many communities across BC have developed ambitious visions and comprehensive systems for safer, more inclusive, and better-connected networks, far fewer have translated into meaningful on-the-ground change. This session explores the growing gap between adopted plans and built infrastructure, and asks the critical question: what happens after Council adopts the plan? Through follow-up interviews with municipal staff and elected officials, we identify barriers to implementation, including funding constraints, political turnover, cost escalation, staff capacity limitations, and disconnect with capital programs, anchored by a case study from the Village of Belcarra, a small rural community with limited funding and minimal existing active transportation facilities. This session challenges practitioners to rethink what makes an ATNP successful: not the strength of its vision, but its ability to move from plan to pavement.

For decades, the quality of cycling infrastructure has been categorized by the type of facility that defines it. However, the each type can deliver markedly different user experiences depending on how and where the infrastructure is implemented.  Practitioners have turned to more nuanced classification approaches, based on human-centred factors such as exposure to motor vehicle volumes and speeds, as well as infrastructure width, surface, and level of separation from other road/ path users. The result? Infrastructure described using consistent language and classified by level of comfort.  In this session, you'll learn about the new comfort-based facility selection tool in the updated BC Active Transportation Design Guide, as well as how SFU, TransLink, and HUB Cycling use a comfort-spectrum to classify and track cycling network progress at the local, regional, and national scales.

Across British Columbia, communities are rethinking streets to create safer, more connected, and more equitable active transportation networks. Planners are taking audacious steps by reallocating road space, building protected cycling infrastructure, and embedding walking and cycling into broader climate, safety, and land-use strategies.

This panel brings together provincial, regional and local government staff who are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in their communities; together, their perspectives offer a candid look at the decisions, trade-offs, and leadership required to turn ambitious plans into reality.

Attendees will gain practical strategies for planning active transportation networks, advancing innovative solutions, leveraging funding, and using data to track success. Drawing from real-world examples across British Columbia, the session will demonstrate how bold ideas can be translated into implementable projects in both large urban centres and smaller communities. The discussion will highlight different forms of audacity, from reimagining constrained streets to policy-driven behaviour change, showing how bold planning adapts to context. By exploring approaches such as regional network building, pricing strategies, speed management, and performance monitoring, the panel will offer a well-rounded toolkit for advancing change.

This presentation showcases the process and lessons learned with how Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (TteS), in partnership with the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit, built a  AAA multi-use pathway on Shuswap Road, a ministry right-of-way through reserve lands.  

Completed in the Spring, this 940 metre-long, 3-metre-wide pathway provides a safer active transportation link between TteS’ Chief Louis Centre (including Secwépemc Museum and Heritage Park, Sk’elep School of Excellence, indigenous businesses) and homes in Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge neighbourhoods.  It supports mode shift, reduces emissions, and enhances regional recreation while strengthening transportation choices for local residents.

The pathway directly addresses long standing community safety concerns along Shuswap Road, a rural 70 km/h corridor with no shoulders that made walking and cycling difficult. The project was designed to meet the B.C. Active Transportation Design Guide and the MoTT Supplement to TAC standards without compromise, which required 26 metres of bicycle fencing, 355 metres of W beam traffic barrier, 4:1 slope clear zones, drainage improvements, and accessible asphalt surfacing with grades below 6%.

This panel discussion explores the evolution of a public plaza on Belmont Street in New Westminster’s Uptown Neighbourhood through a multi-disciplinary lens, demonstrating how public spaces respond to changing community needs, policy directions, and social challenges. Featuring voices from the City, the design team, and public engagement specialists, facilitated by an independent planner, the session will reflect on a decade of transformation to offer multiple perspectives.

This story reflects not only the lifecycle of a single space, but also broader lessons in placemaking, resilience, and the value of inclusive collaboration for diverse communities. Using Uptown Plaza as a case study, this session will demonstrate how integrating placemaking with broader walking and cycling improvements helps build community support, especially for complex projects. Success of active transportation projects may require going beyond mobility to focus on broader community value.

The session will cover quantitative and qualitative data analysis considered through Public Life Studies (PLS) on user experience and wellbeing, used to inform the design and transformation of the space, as well as highlight how cross-disciplinary collaboration and ongoing engagement can help navigate social challenges and sustain momentum.

Across BC, municipalities are expanding active transportation to support safer, more equitable mobility and climate goals; many are also adopting reconciliation frameworks to address systemic inequities experienced by Indigenous Peoples resulting from colonial planning and policy. Because mobility enables access to opportunities across all sectors, reliable multimodal transportation options are a critical throughline for addressing broader inequities and advancing reconciliation. Indigenous communities in BC are likewise investing in AT to address disproportionate safety risks, documented gaps in walking and cycling infrastructure, and to advance mobility equity and climate action. Yet how reconciliation commitments are documented in municipal and regional AT plans remains underexplored.

This session reports on an environmental scan of 40+ publicly available municipal, regional, and provincial AT plans published between 2012 and 2025. A review framework grounded in reconciliation principles will be used to explore how Indigenous Peoples are referenced, how inclusion is framed, and what commitments are embedded in AT policy. Recognizing the complex and shifting political landscape in the province, this session creates space for shared learning and dialogue, inviting participants’ insights and ideas for advancing reconciliation in planning and practice.

With its strong foundation of extensive regional trails and a dense urban core, Victoria is considered the ‘Cycling Capital of Canada’. But it wasn’t until the City started building a connected network of All Ages and Abilities (AAA) bike lanes that cycling mode share cracked 10%. With 25km of AAA infrastructure and pedestrian improvements installed from 2017-2022, the City’s active transportation mode share hit 44% in 2022, up from 38% in 2017. 

While Victoria’s cycling network gets much of the credit, other initiatives and policy changes have made considerable positive impact on Victoria’s streets, including a traffic calming program consisting of over 180 speed humps and 70 traffic calming curbs, local street speed limits of 30 km/h (with arterials and collectors reduced to 40km/h), an ongoing program of improved bike parking, and the recent introduction of a city-wide bike share program.

Victoria’s updated OCP calls for a 54% active transportation mode share by 2038, and Victoria has learned that a city-wide approach is required to reach equity goals and significantly increase mode share. While Victoria could sit back and rest on its strong active transportation foundations, this presentation explores how the city continues to build on these foundations with a comprehensive, ongoing approach to AT mode shift.