Safe System Analysis
Every municipality wants their roads to be free from fatal and serious injury crashes. Such roads avoid the tragic consequences and high tax-payer costs associated with such crashes.
Safe System uses an ethical basis that believes that our roadway system must be free of serious injury or death. Safe System is consistent with Vision Zero. It is also a means to achieve Vision Zero.
At A Path Less Travelled we employ a Safe System approach that acknowledges humans make mistakes and are vulnerable to injury. Given these mistakes and vulnerabilities we then evaluate a range of designs to reduce injuries. The range of designs includes strategies specific to single car crashes, multiple vehicle crashes, and vulnerable road user crashes.
Ideally Safe System works best when diverse professionals work together to analyse problems and recommend solutions. These professions include engineers (both infrastructure and vehicle design), enforcement personnel, law makers, medical personnel, marketers and educators.
At A Path Less Travelled we are thrilled to work together with other professionals. We also recognize that at times scope will be limited. In such cases we can work within our engineering specialty. As always we will provide a report recommending infrastructure that is consistent with Safe System philosophy and principles.
Active Transportation Planning
When it comes to active transportation at A Path Less Travelled we walk, bike, bus, and drive the talk! Our President and sole employee, Marcel J. Huculak, M. Sc., P. Eng., typically travels by bicycle in his daily life, but also walks, buses, uses Pogo car share, Uber, and taxis. This gives him a unique view of how active transportation best interacts with other travel modes. It also informs him about how our transportation systems safe and more sustainable.
Active transportation is wheeling and walking by human power or by power that is deliberately governed to low speeds. Bicycling, power-assist bicycling, e-scooters, roller blading, wheel chairing, and mobility scooters are types of active transportation.
Planning for active transportation identifies the legal framework and the infrastructure needed to support active transportation. The legal framework includes both municipal and provincial laws. The infrastructure includes its type as well as its location.
A good active transportation plan will define the modes included in active transportation, the facility types that accommodate these modes, and where these facility types should be deployed.
Community Planning Assistance
Residential and business communities often face development proposals impacting their lives, property, and livelihood. These communities often feel powerless to respond or, if they respond, they feel their concerns are ignored by the developer or municipality.
Our President and sole employee, Marcel J. Huculak, P. Eng., has extensive experience responding to development proposals as a community representative, as a municipal employee, and as consultant. A Path Less Travelled can help you navigate the process. We will draw on this experience to assess your situation based on an initial meeting with you – free of charge.
Our assessment will identify possible strategies for your community to constructively respond to the development. It will also advise on various means to pursue these strategies, either by yourself or with our assistance.
Municipal Planning Reviews
Often a municipality receives a plan from a developer or another agency that requires review and comment. A review conducted by an experienced and independent professional can be valuable to the municipality.
A Path Less Travelled offers professional reviews for the following plan submissions:
- Transportation Impact Assessments
- Parking Impact Assessments
- Transportation components of Area Structure Plan, Municipal Development Plans, Area Concept Plans, and other strategic plans
- Municipal Standards Review to identify Safe System infrastructure and its typical deployment parameters
- Development permit plan review and zoning review to ensure compliance with higher level plans and with best practises for active transportation and Safe System
Mentoring Staff
With over 30 years of experience as a Transportation Engineer, Marcel J. Huculak, P. Eng. has often mentored younger engineering staff. This includes co-workers as well as for other organisations, particularly while providing assistance with planning reviews.