October 4, 2023, at 12:00 PM

Original link

The meeting was called to order at 12:00 PM.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That Items 2.1 to 2.3 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

2.1   Rapid Transit Implementation – Consultant Design Contract Increase RFP20-29 and RFP20-28 due to Excess Soils Regulation

2023-10-04 - Staff Report (2.2) Rapid Transit Implementation - Consultant Design Contract Increase

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to Rapid Transit Implementation – Consultant Design Contract Increase RFP20-29 and RFP20-28 due to Excess Soils Regulation:

a)    the engineering fees for AECOM Canada Ltd. BE INCREASED to recognize the additional scope of work for the RFP20-29 - Consulting Services for Rapid Transit and Infrastructure Improvements - Wellington Gateway project in accordance with the estimate on file, by $288,834 (excluding HST), from $6,490,902 to a total upset amount of $6,779,736 in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the engineering fees for Dillon Consulting Ltd. BE INCREASED to recognize the additional scope of work for the RFP20-28 Consulting Services for Rapid Transit and Infrastructure Improvements - East London Link project in accordance with the estimate on file, by $267,881 (excluding HST), from $6,113,853 to a total upset amount of $6,381,734 in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

c)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this project. (2023-T04)

Motion Passed

2.2   SS-2023-232 Single Source Purchase Hydro Excavator

2023-10-04 - Staff Report (2.3) - SS2023-232 Single Source Purchase of Hydro Excavator

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to SS-2023-232 Single Source Purchase Hydro Excavator:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to execute a Single Source purchase in accordance with Section 14.4(g) of the City of London’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the single Source negotiated price BE ACCEPTED to purchase (1) Vactor Truvac HXX Hydro Excavator for a total estimated price of $739,804.00 (excluding HST) from Joe Johnson Equipment Inc., 2521 Bowman St., Innisfil, Ontario, L9S 3V6;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this purchase;

d)    the approval, hereby given, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval in accordance with Sections 14.4(g) and 14.5(a)(ii) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy; and,

e)    the funding for this purchase BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report. (2023-V01)

Motion Passed

2.3   SS-2023-247 Single Source Contract Snow Plow Blade Parts

2023-10-04 - Staff Report (2.4) - SS-2023-247 Single Source Contract Snow Plow Blade Parts

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to SS-2023-247 Single Source Contract Snow Plow Blade Parts:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to exercise the single source provisions of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy under sections 14.4 (d) and (e) to contract with Valley Blades Ltd. 435 Philip Street, Waterloo Ontario for the supply and delivery of Snow Plow Blades, parts and accessories on City owned equipment for a one (1) year contract with an option to renew for four (4) additional years;

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this contract; and,

c)    the approval, hereby given, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval. (2023-V02)

Motion Passed

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Joining the Smart Commute Program 

2023-10-04 - Staff Report (2.1) - Joining Smart Commute

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to Joining the Smart Commute Program:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)     the by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023, to:

i)    approve the Memorandum and Understanding between The Corporation of the City of London and the Smart Commute Association, substantially in the form as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

ii)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute any document to give effect to the above-noted authorization;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to finalize arrangements with RideShark for the provision of the Integrated Mobility Tool, used by members of the Smart Commute Program to support program services, following the procedures set out in the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to launch the Smart Commute London program in the fall of 2023. (2023-T10)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 12:31 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (49 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. I’ll call the 14th meeting of the Civic Works Committee to order. First, we are on the situation on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, Lynna Buwek, and the Atawandran peoples. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Please check the city website for any additional meeting detail information. Meetings can be viewed via live stream on YouTube and the city website.

The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cwc@london.ca or 519-661-2489, extension to 425. I’m joined here in council chambers with Councillor McAllister, Cudi, and Trasso, and then we have Councillor Van Meerberg in online as well. I’ll look to item one and e-disclosures of pecuniary interest.

Seeing none, we’ll move on to item number two, which is our consent items. There are three items under consent. There are three items under consent. 2.1 is a rapid transit implementation consultant design contract increase due to excess soil regulation.

2.2, the single source purchase hydro excavator. And 2.3, the single source contract snow club blade parts. I’ll look for a mover and seconder before we begin discussion. Moved by Councillor Cudi and seconded by Councillor McAllister.

Any questions from members of committee and hello to visiting Councillors, Councillor Pribble. Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. This is in regards to item 2.3.

This is specifically related to the snow blades, but just want to use this opportunity for refresher in terms of what is our snow plow fleet compliment. And is that exclusively just our vehicles? Or do we also have third-party providers for snow plow services as well? Mr.

McRae, or Mr. Freeman? Thank you and through the chair. The single source request is essentially to support our fleet of snow plow blades in components.

So they’re not, you know, contractor wear components. I can look up and look up the total complement of numbers. I don’t have them in the end. Follow up, Councillor?

Yes, thank you. It’s okay if you don’t have the numbers necessarily. In front of you, I’m just wondering in terms of our current complement and in terms of the growth we’ve experienced, whether we have sufficient resources in terms of the upcoming winter or would there maybe be something coming before us in terms of having to increase our snow plow fleet? Thank you, Mr.

Freeman. Thank you, through the chair. I think perhaps Doug McRae might be able to answer the operations side a bit a little bit better than I can. Mr.

McRae? Yes, certainly. Thanks for the interest in the winter road operations program. We are ready for the upcoming winter.

We have approximately 30-some sander units, 20-some plow units, 20-some sidewalk plow units. And the fleets and the resources are arranged so that we can meet the provincial, minimum, maintenance standards so that there’s information on the website about response times, triggers for implementing resources in response to winter events. And it’s a combination of both in-house resources and also contracted units from the private sector to supplement resources when big snow events occur. And the last time we renewed the sidewalk plow tender, it included additional units to accommodate the one change that has been made recently.

And that is Council’s endorsement of additional resources for sidewalk snow plowing. And so we have the resources in place to implement that higher level of service. Follow-up? Yeah, thank you.

I was just using this opportunity as we’re on the snow operations. So just in terms of the growth we’ve experienced, we feel comfortable that we have the appropriate resources then to handle the growth in terms of new subdivisions and population growth. Mr. McRae?

Yeah, the growth of the city in particular assumption of new subdivisions is accounted for through the assessment growth allocation process that annual process that allocates resources for exactly that. And so the resources are in place. A lot of that immediate growth is accommodated. We’ll both through city staff and also those outside resources.

So the funding is put in place through that assessment growth process. Go ahead, Councilor. Thank you. I appreciate all that.

Just anticipating that the winter coming up, I’m sure we’ll get a lot of questions. So I appreciate your indulgence in answering those questions right now. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Chassa.

Thank you for the chair. I’m thinking back to my first week so on council, actually my second and third month on council. And one of the questions that I was persistently getting was you’re doing a great job on the big streets. You’re doing a great job on Richmond.

But like the sidewalks, not so much. So I just want to understand what’s going to happen this year in terms of the sidewalk maintenance. And that we don’t have a repeat of previous years with the additional resources that I think council was very clear we wanted in sidewalk safety. Could you just address that a little bit generally?

Mr. McRae? Certainly, council approved additional resources to lower the trigger for sidewalk plow mobilizations from eight centimeters down to five centimeters. So once five centimeters of snow accumulates, resources are deployed.

That process was funded and implemented last year, last winter, and will continue to be this winter. Further through the chair, I’m thinking particularly about people who are using sidewalks in wheelchairs or walkers. And I’m not sure five inches, five centimeters, or five eight centimeters really makes a lot of difference if the sidewalks are just absolutely inaccessible to you if you’re in a device like that. What are we doing to address the overall mobility of the sidewalks?

Because I hear reference to, well, they’re provincial standards, and we do a little bit better than that. Mr. McRae? The increase in resources for sidewalks, snow plowing, was in response to an options review that was conducted in previous years.

Certainly, it’s a matter of funding. And if council was to choose to have staff implement or create a business case for consideration, that’s essentially what it takes. That said, achieving bare pavement on sidewalks is not possible. So it’s unfortunately always going to be a challenge for everyone to get around.

And that’s just by virtue of bare pavement requiring salt and requiring wheel action. And both of those, by virtue of our salt management plan and resources and just the nature of sidewalks is a constraint for clearing sidewalks. Well, finally, I’ll just ask one more question. What am I supposed to tell people when they contact my office and they tell me they have mobility problems, and they can’t get out?

Where am I supposed to send them? Mr. McRae? Yes, I can recognize those kind of requests are hard to receive.

City staff receive them through our service London portal. There is one program called the Referedo is the Snow Angels. It’s a volunteer-based organization that’s one way to get individuals’ assistance from within the community. Thank you.

And I just want to return us back to the topic for 2.3, which is our single source contract. I have one more question. Madam Chair, I have one more question. Just one second, one moment.

Madam Chair, if I could. One moment, please. Sorry. It’s like being near Bergen.

Yeah. Just a moment, please. Just a moment, please. Just a moment, please, OK?

I had the floor. So I just a moment, everyone. I have to interject. OK.

Can you just give me a moment? Councillor and Mayor Bergen, please. OK. So I was steering the questions back to 2.3, item 2.3, which is our single source contract.

Yes. No cloud blades. We’re talking about snowblades. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Again, Councillor, I hear you. And I’m doing my best to steer the conversation back to where we were, OK? So Councillor Trozzo, I’ll just, again, point back to what our topic of conversation is. And which item we are on the consent agenda.

And if you can frame your question around that item, please. Yes, I’ll just close then by saying I would like to have this on a subsequent agenda where we can delve into this in detail. Because the level of— and I’m not talking about people doing their own walkways. I’m talking about sidewalks where you have to get someplace.

The level of service is absolutely unacceptable. And we’re not meeting accessibility standards. And how do I get— I would like to put this on an upcoming agenda so we can discuss this without veering off topic. Because it’s of concern to my ward.

Thank you. OK. Any further questions about the items in the consent agenda? Councillor Pribble.

Thank you. I was a little bit late, so I don’t know if this was addressed. But when I saw the snowblades, in my ward— and I did go during the last winter to my ward, and we did have quite a bit of damages on the grass. And what happens is that when I went to it, the blade— and when I saw the people clearing the snow, the blade is almost as wide as the sidewalk.

And I do understand that during the night when they drive, it’s very difficult to stay within those parameters, so they don’t go onto the grass. But is there an opportunity? Because again, we don’t have to plow all the way from one side to another. Even if the wheelchair— if we consider the wheelchair, it doesn’t have to be the width of the sidewalk.

Did we ever look at this opportunity to have the blades actually more narrower, so we don’t make as much damage? Because there is a lot of in the spring I had just in my ward. I think it was— anyways, I’m not going to say it was very— it was many front yards that we had to go back and repair. Did we ever look at the size of the blade to make it more narrower?

Thank you, Councillor McRae, or Mr. Freeman? Yeah, I can start if Mr. Freeman has anything, Dad.

Yes, the blade on snowplow, sidewalks, snowplows is narrower than sidewalks. Sidewalks are 1.5 meters wide, and the snowplow blade is narrower, and that’s routinely been confirmed. So sod damage does happen frequently. The city does repair it when requests come in, and it’s a function of a snow-covered sidewalk being the challenge to follow precisely for an operator to follow it when it’s essentially invisible, it’s buried under over 5 centimeters of snow.

That is the challenge. But yeah, I can confirm that the blades are narrower than the sidewalk widths. Follow up? Thank you.

I know I do realize they’re narrower, but they’re almost the same size. And my question is if we end up— if we can look into it, if there’s an opportunity to make it even more narrower so we don’t incur additional expense in the spring to go fix the grass. And as I said, I was there during the night, and I saw them, it’s almost the same size. I do believe it could be more narrower.

And if it’s narrower, it’s going to be easier for the people to clear it without damaging the sort of the— in front of the houses. So I was just looking— can you look into this opportunity potentially to make it more narrower so there’s less damage done? Because when I consulted it as the drivers, they told me the same thing who were clearing it. They said if it would be more narrower, I wouldn’t make as much damage.

That’s the reason why I’m saying it. Was that a comment or a question? I would love to know the response from the staff. Thank you.

Mr. McRae? Yeah, certainly. We’ll look into that.

We’ll confirm. And I will also reference the minimum maintenance standards that specifies the width and just confirm that the blades are both as narrow as can be, but also medium the provincial standards. So thanks for the comment. Thank you.

No more questions? Thank you. Looking for any final questions? OK, seeing none, I’ll look to open this for voting.

Closing the vote, the motion carries 5 to 0. Thank you. We’ll move on to item number 3. There are no scheduled items.

So there’s nothing under that category 4 items for direction. We have item 4.1, which is joining this smart commute program. Mr. Stanford, I understand we’ll be providing a brief verbal overview, and then we’ll look for a mover and seconder before we start our conversation on this matter.

Mr. Stanford. Thank you, Madam Chair. What’s before committee today, essentially, is an evolution in the transportation demand management services that are being offered right now.

It’s an opportunity for us to get out the gate formally with the Transportation Management Association. These are sort of best described as a— I guess, a transportation coordinator designed specifically for businesses. And many of you are familiar with things such as carpooling and vanpooling. Obviously, transit use and the need for increased access and use of transit, biking and walking to work, hybrid and teleworking options, as well as just overall increasing the knowledge of mobility options, in particular for the commuter.

So that is really the basis of why at the city here, and Council had approved this ongoing direction with the teammate, is to elevate what we’re doing in this particular area to make sure we’re tapping into what exists out there. And a wonderful opportunity has come forward here. And it’s referred to as the Smart Commute Program, operated through what’s referred to as the Smart Commute Association. Couple terms there that are new to us.

But essentially, this is the group of municipalities in the Ontario area, Toronto, Hamilton, the region of Halton, of course, which includes Oakville, region of Durham, which includes Whitby and Oshawa, region of York. That includes Markham. Vaughan is up there as well. And they’ve begun to grow the opportunities from that network.

The city of Greater Sudbury, quite far to the north, joined in that program. City of Guelph and the region of Waterloo are looking at joining as well. It’s a great opportunity to capitalize on what has already been invested by other municipalities and the tools and access to information. So in our case here, we’re referring to it as Smart Commute London.

We’re building on what we’ve done in the past. We’ve had business travel-wise programs here. We’ve had regional rideshare in the past before the pandemic. We’ve run special projects on eco-mobility.

And as well, we’ve participated with Commute Ontario. So there’s a wonderful foundation here in London to go the next step. And our marketplace, of course, is workplaces, not only in the downtown area, but out to our industrial parks, and the opportunity to begin to further expand outside of the city London, where we start seeing those regional opportunities, and we start seeing commuters going back and forth. We’re going to take our program here an additional step further.

Traditionally, commuters, you think about the AM and PM going to and from work five days a week. Well, for the most part, that no longer exists. People move around the city seven days a week. There’s weekend commuters.

There’s people who are actually commuting for recreational purposes. People who are commuting for shopping purposes. Therefore, part of our work here, we’re going to brand it travel-wise London. So there’ll be a distinct area that focuses on traditional commuters going to and from work.

But because we’re already doing all this work, let’s make sure it’s available for those that commute outside of traditional business commuting. As I said, we’re going to call that travel-wise London. So it’s an opportunity to further extend the opportunities to more Londoners. Our base program is already funded.

And we have, as you see in our report, $40,000. That is plenty for us to carry forward. Joining Smart Commute is free. We’ll become another signature on the memorandum of understanding.

The key piece in there is that we’re going to have to work with a company, and it’s been vetted by our IT people. It’s called Ride Shark. They’re the ones that are providing the platform that other municipalities are using. So we’re very comfortable adopting that particular program.

It brings in interesting opportunities in the future, too, because for people that on the weekend that may wish to go to Toronto, students that may wish to go back and forth, these opportunities all become that much easier when you start working in a much larger network. So Madam Chair, I’m going to leave it at that and welcome any questions. But this is really, for us, an important evolution that in part we stumbled on at the same time as the area in Toronto wanted to grow. So it’s, in my opinion, just a wonderful opportunity to bring cost-effector program to London businesses and London commuters in general.

Thank you, and thank you for the overview. And I must say, I’m very excited about this opportunity. Councillor Trussa. Thank you, through the chair.

I would love to be excited about this opportunity. I’m just not seeing it yet, because there’s just so much in here on the ground in terms of what’s going to change in London. Can we focus this a little bit? Because it seems to be all over the place.

For instance, what I would really appreciate would be more attention to— it’s a workplace, but it’s also a school. And that is the elementary and secondary schools, where we have terrible traffic problems. And in the neighborhoods, will this program be able to work on that? Through the chair, the answer is yes.

That is one of the areas that we’re already doing some work now, we know more work has to occur. Part of my— the presentation and report talks about the other areas. So we have indicated there that working with the group called active and safe routes to school is a high priority for the growth area in this particular. So there’s already that active program.

It’s now getting that and helping that to elevate more. And learning from City of Hamilton that’s managed to build a nice bridge between all these programs is a nice model for us to follow. Are we— Follow up, Councillor? Are we spending money on this?

Mr. Stanford? Through the chair, joining the association and getting access to the information is done without any fees. When we start to introduce the technology that is part of the program through Rideshark, that is something that will be assigning an agreement.

And there will be— that is essentially the purple platform and the information sharing platform. That is already— the amount that will be assigned to that is already in our base budget. So it’s already approved for 2023. And it’s part of our base budget going forward.

So in our opinion right now, this is a funded program. And how quickly we grow will be in part the uptake. We will be targeting businesses. If we step back in time about three years ago, we’d communicated out to probably well over 1,000 businesses in London and heard back from them.

Under the pandemic situation, many, many things change with respect to commuting. We’re going to have to revisit those businesses again. Interest was shown. The industrial parks have increased.

There’s been increased activity in industrial parks. So a lot of these things have to be captured. So in our report, we talk about the main components of what go into this and the expansion opportunities, as I’ve suggested, schools is definitely one area that we can grow into at a higher pace. Thank you.

I’ll go to Councillor McAllister and then Councillor Caddie. Thank you and through the chair. I was wondering if you could speak to maybe the successes that other municipalities have seen. You mentioned, obviously, that there are other bigger players involved and how they’ve been able to integrate this into their transportation network.

Mr. Stanford? Our conversations have been primarily with the GTA in particular Hamilton. And Hamilton’s probably a better comparator with us.

It is on a growth spurt there. They’re seeing with the higher costs of travel and people returning back to workplaces. They’re actually seeing increased interest and increased activity. It was rather slow for about a two-year period.

We saw that here in London, but the data right now was pointing to an increase in activity. Here in London, like many things we find, it takes a while and a few folks to really get behind this. And that will be part of us, find some early adopters. We’ll be going back to those that express the greatest interest initially.

And in fact, over the last couple of years, we’ve had some newer companies that have come in. And we’ve heard about their challenges. And so they’ll be part of our target group to reach out to them. Within about a month’s time, we’ll be launching some of these pieces and getting them to their attention once we go through final counsel approval and the signing of the memorandum of understanding.

Go ahead, Counselor. Thank you, and through the chair once again. So just so I understand, is this exclusively like a ride-sharing program, or is this information that’s used to inform inner-city travel for commuters? Mr.

Stanford? Through the chair, my apologies. I may have missed that last part. No, it is much more than just ride-sharing.

It is all about information, information transfer. It is making sure that large and small businesses know about the opportunities that exist right now. We often hear from people that are not aware of the opportunities that exist. That is a key part of the information being available on the websites, and then what has to be a very strong outreach program from the city to make sure people are aware.

This is why we believe it’ll be important in London that we are also not only pushing out to businesses, but also pushing out to residents who are quite often employees at these businesses. That’s why we’re taking that approach to, we hope get greater uptake in a quicker manner. Thank you, and through the chair once more. So is this data then something that we would use in terms of our transportation network to show, say there was a demand in terms of inner-city, for instance, to say to surrounding municipalities, look at somewhere like St.

Thomas, obviously with the VW plant coming, there would obviously be more of a demand in terms of commuter services. But is this data that we would retain and then use to, say, make that case between municipalities? Mr. Stanford.

Through the chair, if I go back in time when we did our own regional rideshare program, it was expanded out to about four counties around us. That all ran their own systems through one larger system to make sure that someone in St. Thomas had equal opportunity to find a rideshare partner, for example, to come into London or vice versa. So that is a way where, right now, we haven’t approached any of those other municipalities, but we will be going back out to previous partners that had signed on with London.

And we ran that large regional program for about a four-year period. There was no additional cost to London. In fact, our price was lowered by bringing in additional partners. Thank you.

One last question, just to end on that. Thank you for all that information. And, yeah, I would just recommend that we do reach out to our surrounding partners, just because we can see the growth around us. And I think it’d be great if we’re all on the same page.

And if we were sharing that information, that would probably make our cases stronger in terms of sharing those resources accordingly. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you.

And Councillor McAllister asked my question. It’s been answered by Mr. Stanford. Whether or not there was a benchmark.

And I see that Hamill is being used as a benchmark city. And I, for one, am very excited about this. I think it’s a great program. And, Chair, through you, if I could answer my colleague’s question about getting kids to school safely in alternate ways, other than buses, you probably don’t know this.

And I will loop Mr. Stanford in it, because he probably doesn’t know it either. But the Deputy Mayor Lewis and I are working on a plan with the Tanazili District School Board to get kids off of yellow buses and put them on our city buses. And, Stanford, I will loop you into that.

And I do apologize that I haven’t at this point. But it’s all preliminary. They’re doing some testing now, right? So we’ll get that in.

Thank you, Chair. Any further questions? Councillor Trostle, and then I’ll be looking for a mover inside. Yeah, through the chair.

Thank you. Thank you for that. I think that would be very useful. As long as we’re talking about the school district, do we loop them in in terms of looking at where there are particular congestion problems or particular large streets that children have to cross to get to school?

That this program would be able to assist? Mr. Stanford? Through the chair.

Now, we’re not replacing the active and safe routes to school programs, so I’m familiar with it, but I don’t have all the intimate details. That has great involvement from both school boards. So how they interact on when a school is brought to their attention, I know they’ve just gone through a new strategic planning process. And I believe that it’s about to be put in place.

School boards have both been very involved. So this will be something that I believe they’ll be quite pleased to hear. So there’ll be more activities in that. So just so we’re clear here, our first out of the gate on this particular one though, is focusing on businesses.

But to be aligned very quickly with active and safe routes to school, so we’re able to basically make sure we’re harnessing energies on both sides. Same idea, it’s the same concept. A person who is dropping off a child at work might likely at that point be commuting to a place of work. So dropping off a kid at school, off to work.

If we can reduce one or two of those trips or combine those trips, you can just see how this energy grows quite well. My last comment, if I may, with the mobility master plan underway right now, it also just allows for that sort of resurrection of past work that some people are familiar with. So it’s a conversation piece for us now to be basically getting the word out in parallel to an important city initiative that’s already underway. Thank you.

Any final questions? Seeing none, I’ll look for a mover and seconder. Councillor Cuddy, Councillor McCallister, and we will open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion carries, five to zero.

Thank you, onto item five. Deferred matters in additional business. I have not been made aware of any additional business. We do not have any deferred matters at this time.

I’ll be looking to item six, motion to adjourn. Councillor McCallister, Councillor Cuddy, by hand. Thanks, everyone. Great rest of your day.