Guidelines for Creating Safe and Efficient Freight-Supportive Communities

As communities change, through growth and intensification, it will become increasingly important to consider the needs of the freight movement industry. Efficient and effective freight networks, integrated with freight-supportive developments, will help ensure that consumers and businesses have access to the goods and services they need and will help support local economies. Recognizing that goal, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has produced this first-of-its-kind draft Freight-Supportive Guidelines.

The purpose of the draft Guidelines is to help municipalities, planners, engineers, and other practitioners create safe and efficient freight-supportive communities. The draft Guidelines address planning, site design and transportation operations, and include strategies in each area to support freight movement. The draft Guidelines indicate how to conduct a freight audit to review existing supply of freight facilities and also measure the demand for these facilities. The freight audit is the first step in data collection and analysis that will help communities in their subsequent planning efforts for freight movement. The draft Guidelines also include case studies of best practices from Canada and international locations.

This paper focuses on key guidelines for supporting freight within multimodal environments. It describes the freight audit process, and highlights best practices examples. This paper is in effect an executive summary of the complete draft Freight-Supportive Guidelines report, and is designed to enhance the reader’s understanding of how freight fits into a modern community as it works to achieve other objectives such as complete streets, congestion management and metropolitan mobility.

As the Freight-Supportive Guidelines report has been prepared on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, its intended audience is Ontario local municipalities, regions and counties, and private developers working in Ontario. While select guidelines may be Ontario-specific, the Freight-Supportive Guidelines provide pertinent information regarding land use and transportation planning, site design and roadway operations that could help create freight-supportive communities across Canada.