Walk-friendly neighbourhood exhibit at PAMA
Public Health's free outdoor exhibit invites you to ‘get walking’, while exploring the connection between community design and health.
The exhibit runs from September 19 into late October on the front grounds of the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) in downtown Brampton.
Visitors can explore the connection between community design and physical activity and use the circuit as a destination for walking and fitness.
“Developments in technology and car-dependent community design have largely engineered activity out of people’s daily lives,” says Dr. Jessica Hopkins, Medical Officer of Health for the Region of Peel. “We believe community design can be re-imagined to better support physical activity by making it safe, easy and fun to walk, bicycle and play outside.”
Across Canada, most adults and children don’t achieve even the minimum levels of recommended physical activity. Type 2 diabetes and other, preventable, chronic diseases like heart disease and certain cancers, can be connected to lack of physical activity.
Today in Peel, almost half of all residents over the age of 12 have at least one chronic disease while one in every six has diabetes – a rate that is 40% higher than the Ontario average.
Over the last several years, Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga have taken steps to make neighbourhoods in Peel better places to walk, bike ride and be active. Recent projects include:
Brampton
- The Franceschini Bridge which provides a crucial part of Brampton’s “City Loop”, with close to 40 km of trails, bike lanes, and multi-use paths.
- Brampton 2040 Vision to guide development over the next quarter century.
- Sustainability Community Development Guidelines to evaluate and score the environmental sustainability performance of new development applications.
- Let’s Connect – Active Transportation Master Plan to develop an implementation strategy for building a connected cycling and pedestrian network across the city.
- Nurturing Neighbourhoods Program to encourage residents to have meaningful conversations with the city – about what’s awesome, and what needs to change.
Caledon
- The Revitalizing Caledon Streets (RCS) project to make Caledon Streets safe and efficient for people who walk, bicycle, drive or take transit.
- Active Transportation Task Force to assist the Town in expanding all modes of active transportation activities.
- Bolton Community Improvement Plan to promote redevelopment, revitalization, and beautification, and to enhance Bolton's unique character.
- Town of Caledon – Transportation Master Plan to identify and address the transportation needs of the Town to the year 2031.
- Town of Caledon – Traffic Calming Strategy to help address issues of excessive speeding to improve road safety for all everyone.
Mississauga
- Tactical Urbanism pilot on Living Arts Drive.
- Healthy by Design Questionnaire to evaluate development applications from a health perspective.
- Dundas Connects to integrate transportation and land use planning.
- Inspiration Lakeview to allow people live, work and play on the lake.
