Brookside Drive – Fredericton’s First Complete Street

The City of Fredericton will upgrade 1.3 kilometres of Brookside Drive to turn it into a “complete street.” Brookside Drive is currently a collector street that serves a high volume of residential automobile traffic. The city will upgrade the street by adding curb-separated, one-way cycle tracks and sidewalks along both sides of the street. Transit stops, which are currently inaccessible and discontinuous, will also be upgraded. The pilot will include an ongoing evaluation of how users travel along the corridor as improvements are made to the street’s walking, cycling and transit facilities. The city is planning the construction of the complete street in conjunction with an existing roadway rehabilitation project. This should minimize overall municipal costs and construction disruption to the travelling public. The planned initiative is fully integrated into municipal priorities. Brookside Drive is identified in the city’s Active Transportation (AT) Connection Plan as a gap in the AT network. The plan identifies a number of other network gaps to be similarly upgraded if this pilot is successful. This pilot is supported by a feasibility study funded through FCM’s Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (GMF 15738). Innovative aspects: The proposed street upgrade would be the first in the province to include vehicular traffic lanes, sidewalks, separated cycle tracks and fully accessible transit stops. While complete streets have become a popular active transit solution in cities in larger provinces like Ontario and Quebec, the approach is novel in New Brunswick. Replicability: This project has an excellent potential for replication and lessons learned. In the short term, it could be replicated across Fredericton along several major transportation corridors. In the longer term, the complete street model is replicable in other Atlantic Canadian municipalities as an alternative to typically narrow bike lanes painted on the street and inaccessible transit. Environmental benefits: • 2% modal shift from automobiles to cycling (8 months/year) • 1% modal shift from automobiles to public transit (year-round) • Elimination of 56,000 one-way automobile trips each year, amounting to annual emissions reductions of 79.9 tonnes of CO2e   Economic benefits: • Safer and more accessible transit stops will increase ridership • Fewer cars on the road will extend the lifespan of the roadway and pavement Social benefits: • More usage of active transit will bring public health benefits • Improved transportation access will make vacant lots along the corridor more marketable for development, slowing urban sprawl (Project description from original funding application)