Active Transportation in Nova Scotia

Capstone PresentationMay 2016

Project Affiliations

The Team:

➔ Manuel Abreu | AGEO

➔ Sydney Homewood | AGEO

➔ Gabe Solomon | AGEO

In conjunction with:

➔ Alan Howell, MA | Planner, Planning Services |

Nova Scotia Department of Municipal Affairs

Cycling along the Cabot Trail

Source : /www.cyclenovascotia.ca/routes/cabot-trail/

Data & Software Requirements

Data/Other Resources

➔ GeoNova

➔ Nova Scotia Government - Open Data Portal

➔ Trails Nova Scotia

➔ Statistics Canada - 2011 Census Data

➔ Municipal Active Transportation Plans (PDF)

➔ Municipal Planning Strategies (Online)

Software

➔ ArcGIS 10.x suite

◆ (ArcCatalog, ArcGIS Online)

➔ PCI Geomatica

Project Deliverables➔ Mapping of:

◆ Existing and proposed AT corridors throughout Nova Scotia

◆ Blue Route

◆ Georeferencing and Digitizing

➔ Analysis of AT infrastructure in the Town of Wolfville and Windsor Area

➔ Several choropleth maps showing population density at community levels

Background on Active Transportation

What is AT?

➔ Self propelled = (active noun) + “ing” = AT

➔ Can be combined with public transit

➔ Numerous obvious and hidden benefits:

◆ Physical and mental health

◆ Financial savings are enormous

◆ Society saves money

◆ Environment is spared

◆ Increased cycle tourism

Background on Active Transportation (cont.)More Benefits:

➔ More money for things other than new road infrastructure and maintenance

➔ Healthier population that relies less on the healthcare system

➔ Exercise is a natural energiser (caffeine free)

➔ Oil prices won’t stay low forever

Background on Active Transportation (cont.)Disadvantages:

➔ Can be dangerous without proper infrastructure to support it

➔ Requires network planning to ensure route connectivity

➔ Not suitable in all weather conditions

➔ Is not as comfortable as traveling by automobile

➔ Long distances are more challenging

Obstacles to AT in Nova Scotia➔ Low oil prices

➔ More highway construction

➔ Yarmouth Survey: no bike lanes, heavy traffic, narrow pavement,

fragmented sections of sidewalk and no showers or bike racks at work

➔ Need more policies to ensure proper AT infrastructure is being built

Blue Route

➔ Project being pursued by Bicycle Nova Scotia to develop

a provincial cycling network

➔ Provide safe, well-connected cycling infrastructure

➔ The Blue Route will benefit a number of parties,

including: local businesses, tourism, the province and of

course the people of Nova Scotia

➔ Uses a combination of rail

trails, provincial roads, local

roads and designated bike

lanes

➔ There is one section of the

Blue Route open (56km)

➔ Modeled after “La Route

Verte”, Quebec’s network of

cycling routes, 5000 km long

(the longest in North

America)

Blue RouteMap

Data Preparation

➔ All 51 NS municipalities contacted regarding

AT status and available GIS data

➔ Scanned maps, trail guides & travel

brochures

➔ Plans for trails, expanding shoulders, creating

bike lanes

➔ Cleaned and organized based on geographic

location

Georeferencing and Digitizing

➔ Digitize routes

from PDF

➔ Export to

geodatabase

➔ Organized data

by municipality

Choropleth Map of Wolfville and Windsor Area

➔ Dissolve

➔ Buffer

Choropleth Map of Halifax Core

Good example

Choropleth Map of Annapolis Valley

Not so good

example

Wolfville➔ Relatively compact layout

➔ Population nearly doubles

when Acadia is fully

operational

➔ Natural beauty

➔ Topography is challenging

Windsor Area➔ Topography

➔ Strategic location

➔ Compact regional core

Python to theRescue… fixing attribute tables

➔ Organised table of

contents works well

but python can be used

to help with data

conditioning and further

consolidate feature

classes.

➔ Attribute table

before using

python, many

nulls in

FEAT_CODE

field would make

it difficult to select

by attributes or

perform definition

queries.

Nulls in Attribute Table

➔ Python script to update nulls in

FEAT_CODE field to useful

values found in the FCODE

field from the West Hants data.

➔ (see below)

Reclassification

Reclassification

➔ Results of Python

script shown in

FEAT_CODE field,

where nulls are

removed.

➔ FEAT_DESC nulls

need to be updated

Reclassifying Descriptions➔ Python script that

classifies FEAT_DESC

nulls into a usable field

making selecting by

attributes or definition

queries possible.

Updated field FEAT_DESC

➔ Nulls removed

from FEAT_DESC

field. Resulting

field is populated

with qualitative

data that can be

used in conjunction

with geospatial

info.

Adding ATstatus Field

➔ Next step is to add a new field to

each of the feature classes to help

distinguish between AT status.

Field Calculate

➔ Simple field calculator

operation to add values to

the field ‘ATstatus’ by

setting ATstatus =

‘Proposed’ (or ‘Existing’)

Geoprocessing/Merge

➔ Once data is

conditioned,

resulting feature

classes can be

consolidated with

the Merge

Geoprocessing

tool.

➔ This was done

with Wolfville and

West Hants data.

Merging Rail Trails

➔ Similarly, the Rail

Trail could be

consolidated into

one feature class by

simply adding the

trail name to a new

field ‘TRAIL_NAME’.

Inserting Trail_Name Field

➔ Inserting a text

field ‘Trail_Name’

and using Python

to add the trail

name to two trails.

Results of Merging two Rail Trails

➔ Results of merged

feature classes

South Shore

Annapolis Valley

trail, and Lahave

River Trail.

Blue Route on AGOL

NS Rail Trail on AGOL

ArcScene➔ Provides AT users

(and potential

tourists) with better

understanding of

terrain

➔ Rail Trail + 2km Buffer

➔ Clipped Mass Point DTM shapefile

➔ Added TIN

➔ Clipped, floated Landsat Mosaic

➔ Slight vertical exaggeration

Data Agreement

➔ Example of one necessary hurdle

before acquiring data from the Town

of Wolfville

Municipalities Spreadsheet

➔ Data organisation

necessary for all

51 municipalities

Project ComplicationsDigitizing and Data quality:

➔ A lot of time spent collecting data and digitizing

➔ Few municipalities with officially adopted AT plans

➔ Trails vs. Active Transit Routes

➔ Data overlap

➔ Outdated Data

➔ General misunderstanding about AT

➔ Inconsistencies in data types, projection and quality

Source: www.canadatrails.ca Source: www.novascotiatrails.com

Source: www.tctrail.ca

Source: www.trails.gov.ns.ca

What would we have done differently?

➔ Create AGOL product and invite municipalities to upload their respective content

➔ Focus on the municipalities that have officially adopted AT plans

➔ Perform more spatial analysis on route connectivity or accessibility

➔ Work on AGOL to allow for group access and sharing

➔ Better geodatabase organization

Conclusion

➔ ‘Existing’ AT data doesn’t always reflect reality

➔ Potential for province-wide collaborative effort

➔ Processing of data with ArcGIS initially tedious but very efficient

➔ AT infrastructure can easily be mapped using ArcGIS

➔ ArcGIS Online ideal for public consumption of AT infrastructure maps

Thank You and Good Luck!

➔ Dave Maclean

➔ Jimmy Verran

➔ Alan Howell

➔ Room 147 occupants