What is a Showcase?

Urban transportation showcases are multi-year initiatives that demonstrate and evaluate integrated approaches to reducing GHG emissions. They are not stand-alone “pilot projects”.

Showcases must include several coordinated measures within a transportation and land use planning framework. The keys to a successful showcase will be innovation in planning and implementation, integration of measures, and the creation of valuable information.

All showcases respond to local priorities, existing initiatives and plans. Participants have decided whether to emphasize operations or infrastructure, technology or education, motorized travel or active transportation, economic instruments or land use tactics. Many of them have drawn measures from the strategies and technologies examined by the Transportation Climate Change Table. Transport Canada has also encouraged participants to develop new analytical tools and supportive planning processes.

Some examples of possible showcase elements are:

• Transportation demand management (TDM) measures such as projects that build commuters’ awareness and use of walking, cycling, transit, carpooling, vanpooling or telecommuting
• Public transit measures such as transit priority corridors, alternative service delivery methods, marketing programs, new rapid transit lines or stations, or park-and-ride lots
• Innovative land use and economic measures that encourage mixed-use or higher-density land uses, or test road pricing or parking management strategies
• Community outreach measures that improve public understanding of travel’s impacts on our environment, or help individuals make more sustainable travel choices
• Advanced transportation technologies such as real-time information systems, traffic signal priority measures, electronic fare collection systems, or alternative fuel and vehicle technologies
• Low-cost infrastructure measures such as improved walking and cycling facilities, or the designation of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes in commuting corridors
• Vehicle use measures such as driver education, vehicle inspection and maintenance programs, or accelerated vehicle retirement incentives

Showcases have been encouraged to enhance transportation and land use plans, to improve measuring and modelling tools, and to seek better ways of integrating demand management, land use, infrastructure and technology considerations within a single planning framework.