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Child and Youth Friendly Land Use and Transport Planning Guidelines (Canada)

This document, published in 2005 by Richard Gilbert and Catherine O’Brien, is in three parts. The first part provides reasons as to why land-use and transport planning should be made more child- and youth-friendly. The second part sets out 27 guidelines that could be applied in the course of a municipality or other agency becoming more child- and youth-friendly in its transport and land-use planning. The third part provides some discussion of implementation issues.

The development of the guidelines were prompted by disturbing trends in young people’s transport activity and related matters. They appear to be travelling much more by car, taking time that could be dedicated to exercise, including walking or bicycling to the destinations of the car journeys.

As well as exercising less, and weighing more, other effects may be associated with the lost exercise associated with the increased automobile use. They include reduced academic performance and compromised emotional development.

Young people are especially vulnerable to adverse effects of automobile use. Notable are the effects of poor air quality, including poor air quality inside the vehicles they travel in and poor air quality arising from the overall level of automobile use in the community.

The transport needs of young people differ from those of adults, partly because their destinations are different and partly because they travel differently. On schooldays, for example, the majority of walking and cycling trips are still made by young people notwithstanding the recent large increase in travel by car. Thus, facilities for non-motorized modes are much more important for young people’s travel than they are for adults.

Overall, about 20 per cent of all local trips may be made by young people, a significant share that impels attention to their transport needs. The proposed guidelines concern land use as well as transport because land use is a key factor in determining the transport patterns of young people as it is for adults.

The 27 guidelines are grouped into six categories: concerning putting young people first in land-use and transport planning; providing for them as pedestrians, as cyclists, and as transit users, concerning school buses and young people’s travel in automobiles, and concerning how to reduce the impacts of all transport activity on young people.

Several barriers to addressing concerns about young people and transport are noted, and how they might be overcome. Opportunities for including young people in decisionmaking about transport and land use are noted, and further pointers towards application of the guidelines are elaborated.

Use of the guidelines could result in communities that are not only more child- and youth-friendly but are more agreeable for persons of all ages.

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