Healthy planning: planning the design of communities for physically active transportation

This study addresses the policy problem of the physical inactivity of Canadians by examining the attention two Lower Mainland municipalities give to physically active transportation in the planning process. My goal is to acquire an understanding of the municipal planning process in order to recommend policy options that will incrementally improve support for physically active transportation within the built environment. Data for this analysis comes from analysis of documents, observations of these communities, and interviews with municipal officials and residents. My results suggest that some communities can achieve incremental improvement to the built environment through improving their Official Community Plans. In other cases, continuing with the status quo and moving towards collaboration with other jurisdictions on further research are the most effective options.