Transportation Master Plan

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The Whitehorse Transportation Master Plan (TMP) is our long-term vision and strategy for transportation decision-making and investment over the next 20 years. The Transportation Master Plan guides how people and goods move around our city and sets our vision and priorities as a community in shaping a multi-modal transportation network. The TMP sets the direction for a vibrant city where people, goods, and places are conveniently connected by diverse transportation options and works towards developing a safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation network for all ages, abilities, incomes, and seasons.




Whitehorse has grown into a city of over 30,000 people. Over

The Whitehorse Transportation Master Plan (TMP) is our long-term vision and strategy for transportation decision-making and investment over the next 20 years. The Transportation Master Plan guides how people and goods move around our city and sets our vision and priorities as a community in shaping a multi-modal transportation network. The TMP sets the direction for a vibrant city where people, goods, and places are conveniently connected by diverse transportation options and works towards developing a safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation network for all ages, abilities, incomes, and seasons.




Whitehorse has grown into a city of over 30,000 people. Over the next 20 years Whitehorse is expected to grow to more than 40,000 people. With growth, we need to reevaluate how people and goods move throughout the City.

As we set the vision for our updated Transportation Master Plan, there are important decisions and meaningful discussions to be had as individuals and as a city towards developing and shaping an accessible, equitable, safe, and sustainable transportation network and ultimately a vibrant and livable Whitehorse. Transportation decisions affect us all. How people and goods move affects residents, businesses, and visitors alike whether you walk, cycle, take transit, drive, or ship products or have them delivered. All the choices we make moving forward will require some give and take, compromises, and tradeoffs.

The goal of the Whitehorse Transportation Master Plan is to establish our vision and priorities as a community in shaping a multi-modal transportation network through 2040. The plan aims to guide the City's strategic investment in transportation infrastructure and services across Whitehorse through 2040 with the goal of working towards an accessible, safe, equitable, and sustainable multi-modal transportation network.

Background

The City completed a major review of its transportation network with the completion of a 1992 Citywide Traffic Study and the subsequent 2004 City-Wide Transportation Study. The City had implemented many changes and new initiatives between the two large studies that fall under the broader category of general transportation issues. Accordingly, the 2004 study was progressive, for its time, in achieving a balanced multi-modal approach to the planning of the network. Alternative modes of transportation were considered and given more weight in the decision-making process than ever before through the identification and creation of pedestrian, cycling, and transit routes through the City, thus maintaining and enhancing the quality of life for Whitehorse citizens.

The City is responsible for all the roadways within the city boundaries, with the exception of the Alaska Highway and the North Klondike Highway, which are managed by the Government of Yukon - Department of Highways and Public Works. A number of significant studies and tasks are in progress or have been completed since the 2004 City-Wide Transportation Study. These include the following: The Transportation Demand Management Plan (2015), the Bicycle Network Plan (2018); Transit Master Plan (2018); Trail Plan (2020), numerous Area Development Studies; several new traffic signals; downtown parking studies; the development of the Whistle Bend subdivision; a new City Operations Building; plans for a new downtown City Services Building; and rapid development across the City. The City is currently developing studies that relate to the Transportation Master Plan, which are the Whitehorse 2040 Official Community Plan and the Transit Route Modernization Study. The Transportation Master Plan will build and integrate with these previous and existing planning processes and provided a unified and holistic approach for how we develop our transportation network.

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  • Transportation Priorities

    10 months ago
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    In a world with limited resources, funding, staff, consultants, and contractors how do we prioritize which projects we will undertake to develop our envisioned transportation network?

    Which objectives should we prioritize as we develop our future transportation network? Safety, accessibility, sustainability, equity, fiscal prudence, affordability, or something else?

    Which groups of people should we actively prioritize and consider as we develop our future transportation network (e.g. seniors, children, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, visible minorities, women, businesses, residents, visitors, the general public)?

    Which modes of transportation should we actively prioritize and promote as we develop our future transportation network (e.g. walking, cycling, rolling, kick sledding, transit, driving, emergency response, goods movement)? Should we prioritize and promote walking, cycling, rolling, kick sledding, transit, driving or perhaps take a more holistic approach to consider everyone regardless of how they choose to move around?

    Source: Marco te Broemmerstoet

    Overview

    The 3 Pillars of Transportation PlanningTransportation planning consists of assessing the existing and future potential transportation needs, identifying the capacity and constraints, developing a reasonable and feasible coordinated action plan that aligns with the community's vision, values, goals, desires, and priorities. The action plan includes strategies, actions, and projects that we should undertake in the future to develop our envisioned transportation network.

    The City of Whitehorse has a range of tools to develop its envisioned transportation network and enact meaningful change. The types of tools available and some examples are shown below:

    • Transportation Policy 
      • Speed limits, rules for parking near crosswalks.
    • Safety/Maintenance/Operations
      • Traffic signal timing/programming, leading pedestrian intervals, street sweeping, snow and ice clearing.
    • Active Transporation 
      • Multi-use pathways, protected bike lanes, sidewalks.
    • Transit
      • Transit stops, transit frequency, transit routing.
    • Intersections and Crossings
      • Crosswalks, rapid flashing beacons, pedestrian activated traffic signals, smart channels, laning, right/left turns, traffic signals, roundabouts, traffic circles, all way stops.
    • Streets and Roads
      • Laning, capacity improvements.
    • Parking 
      • Signage, meters, enforcement.
    • Partnerships and Advocacy
      •  Alaska Highway through Whitehorse, Yukon Motor Vehicles Act, school travel planning

    Source: Tom Flood

    Address Existing and Future Potential Issues and Opportunities

    Transportation plays a large role not only in how we move around, but intersects and overlaps other existing and future potential societal and community issues and opportunities such as climate change, the housing crisis, affordability, public health, or active living. Minimum parking requirements often pose a barrier to development and are known to impact the cost of housing and affordability. We can no longer assume that everyone has a vehicle or can afford a vehicle to move around the City. The cost of everything is rising including owning a vehicle, daily needs, building housing, and developing infrastructure. In Whitehorse and the Yukon broadly, our climate is changing before our eyes, requiring us to take new approaches to how we develop resilient infrastructure, manage risk, and design and maintain our streets. As one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, we are experiencing the growing pains that come with rapid growth such as traffic. And the Yukon has the second highest rate of traffic related serious life altering injuries and fatalities. The status quo can no longer remain the status quo.

    Below is a list of some of the issues and opportunities that we have today and might need to anticipate in the future as it relates to transportation:

    • Housing
    • Affordability
    • Community Growth
    • Climate Change and Sustainability, Environmental Protection, Resiliency
    • Asset Management, Infrastructure Deficit
    • Traffic, Operations and Maintenance
    • Active Transportation
    • Truth and Reconciliation
    • Traffic Safety and Vision Zero
    • Accessibility, Equity
    • Local Economy, Vibrant City, and Vibrant Downtown 
    • Transit
    • Emergency Response
    • Tourism
    • New Mobility
    • Electrification
    • Transportation Demand Management
    • School Travel
    • Livability and Active Living
    • Culture and Identity

    Our community faces certainly faces many challenges, however its important to recognize that with each challenge comes an opportunity for us to enact meaningful change in our transportation network.

    Source: Tom Flood

    Vision, Values, Goals, Desires, and Priorities

    You can infer a lot about a community by how they design their streets. The design and allocation of space within streets can indicate what a community cares about, what a community values and prioritizes, and which road users a community wants to accomodate and prioritize.

    Inherently, our transportation network, streets, and roads are public space that can be used for the public benefit of moving people safely and conveniently to access the places we shop, live, work, and play. As much as concrete and asphalt feel very permanent, our streets are not static and can be changed to meet changing needs and desires and reflect the vision, values, goals, and priorities for our community. The way we develop our transportation network and the way we choose to move around is often rooted in things like culture, geography, climate, societal preferences, trends, and values. And as a community changes over time, so do its values and vision. It's important to ensure that the transportation network, streets, and roads reflects the community's collective vision and desire. 

    Our community vision for transportation and mobility is shaped by the recently approved Whitehorse Official Community Plan (OCP). The OCP includes vision and policy statements that set the direction for how we develop and link our community. The graphic below includes the Transportation and Mobility policy statements from the OCP. 


    Whitehorse OCP - Transportation and Mobility Vision, Values and Goals

     Capacity and Constraints

    Demand vs. Capacity


    Fundamentally, there are upper limits and constraints to everything, and our transportation network is no exception. The City has limited sources of revenue generation such as development cost charges, property tax, user fees, and intermittent funding. The Yukon continues to experience one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. And the City strives to balance low taxation while providing the quantity and quality services that residents enjoy today.

    Conversely, there is never a shortage of things we can do to improve our transportation network. Our demands typically exceed the City's capacity and budget to implement change. Our collective wish list is long, always growing, and always evolving.

    This means that we sometimes have to make difficult decisions of what we will do, who we will prioritize, when we do it, and how much are we willing to pay for improvements to our transportation network (scope, time, budget). More importantly, we also have to make decisions of what we will not do or post pone to a future date as funding and capacity permit.

    Constraints are a barrier, but they present an opportunity to make us come together to assess our limited resources, develop a collective vision for how we move around, and prioritize the changes and environment we wish to see as we develop our envisioned transportation network.

    Rome was not built in a day, and neither will our envisioned transportation network. We need to be honest with our capacity, recognize our constraints, and remain strategic and focused so that we prioritize the changes that bring about the most value in our transportation network with the resources we have.

    References

    99% Invisible (May 16, 2023). Paved Paradise. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/paved-paradise/

    Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health (2020). Motor Vehicles in Yukon: A Public Health Perspective. https://yukon.ca/sites/yukon.ca/files/hss/hss-imgs/yukon_cmoh_motor_vehicle_report_2019_web.pdf 

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  • Goals and Targets

    10 months ago
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    By 2040, we want 10% of all trips by walking, 6% of trips by cycling, 15% of trips by transit, 7% of trips by carpooling, and 60% of trips by driving.

    Do you think these targets are too ambitious or not ambitious enough?

    Overview

    Mode share is a key performance indicator (KPI) that indicates the proportion of trips made by a specific mode of transportation (walking, cycling, transit, driving) relative to the total number of trips made in a community. The below figures summarize Whitehorse's existing and proposed future mode share.

    Setting goals and targets is just as much of an art as it is science. If we set our goals and targets too high, the risk of failing to meet those targets increases if the targets are set arbitrarily high and not grounded in the reality of what can be accomplished within the current context. Targets that are set too low are subject to scrutiny and criticism for not being ambitious enough in moving towards goals. However, if goals and targets that are set low are achieved, this can often bring about positive reinforcement and momentum towards pursuing those goals even further. A common framework for setting goals is the S.M.A.R.T. framework. The smart framework for setting goals and targets is summarized in the figure below.


    Source: Canadian Management Centre

    When we set goals and targets, we need to balance realism and idealism, capacity and constraints now and into the future to bring about the change we wish to see in our transportation network.

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Page last updated: 13 Mar 2024, 12:35 PM