Trails for Active Transportation
City of Greater Sudbury, Canada, 2009
In partnership with the City of Greater Sudbury, the Sudbury District Health Unit and Rainbow Routes, 8-80 Cities initiated the Trails for Active Transportation project to engage local citizens in active transportation issues and empower them with tools and resources to promote walking and bicycling in their community.
The City of Greater Sudbury 
is the most populous city in Northern Ontario and the largest municipality in Canada. The city is comprised of several distinct communities, ranging from very rural to highly urban. The expansiveness of the city creates a number of mobility challenges for its citizens.
At the same time, surrounded by the raw beauty of the Canadian Shield and dotted with over 300 spectacular lakes, the city has tremendous potential for developing a well connected trail and active transportation system that utilizes these natural assets.
Although transportation in Sudbury is currently dominated by the automobile, the city has committed to changing this by increasing investments in trail infrastructure and by resolving to become the most pedestrian friendly city in Ontario by 2015.
In January 2009 as part of the Trails for Active Transporatation project, funded by the province of Ontario, 8-80 Cities held a series of workshops with community leaders, stakeholder groups, students, and residents throughout Sudbury.
The workshops were followed by individual and group exercises designed to help people work together to plan specific short and long term solutions for bike-ability, walkability, and quality of life in Greater Sudbury.
Key recommendations from the community included infrastructural improvements, such as the construction of pedestrian shortcut trails and the development of a regional network of bicycle routes; programming initiatives, such as bicycling and walking promotion programs, transit improvements to support walkers, and the expansion of Car-Free Day events; and policy changes, such as a complete streets policy and an enhanced commitment to nurturing dense, multi-use neighbourhood centres.
