Oak Bay

In November 2015, Oak Bay released dedicated Complete Streets guidelines in draft form, making it one of the smallest municipalities in Canada with Complete Streets guidelines. Unfortunately, as of July 2020, it appears that the guidelines have yet to be formally adopted by the district, and remains in draft form.  

Section 3 provides a Complete Streets Program that aims to take a proactive approach under the following steps: 

Step 1: Establish proposed Complete Streets Program  

Step 2: Establish Annual Funding
Step 3a: Gather Information
Step 3b: Catalogue Resident Requests 

Step 4: Confirm Enhancement Areas
Step 5:  Coordinate between District Departments  

Step 6: Step Prioritize Improvements with APC 

Step 7:  Present to Council
Step 8: Finalize Enhancement Areas + Priority List 

Section 4 looks at enhancing street projects through 8 steps, it has included a design checklist which asks a series of questions to consider when developing concept designs in step 3 (p. 16). There is also a stakeholder checklist in step 8 which lists both contacts within the District of Oak Bay and external contacts such as local businesses, schools, and neighbouring municipalities (p. 18).   

Section 5 of the draft has included a Complete Street Design Toolbox Matrix which outlines design standards for accessibility, walking facilities, bicycle facilities, traffic calming, transit, and placemaking. For each design standard provided, the toolbox also states which types of road classification would be best suited from a low to high priority (p. 21).  

The Official Community Plan of Oak Bay was created in 2012. Section 5.0 called “Servicing our Community” has listed a complete streets policy which council adopted. The complete streets policy states, “As the municipality rebuilds or improves roads, pedestrians’ and cyclists’ needs along with neighborhood amenities will be taken into consideration in designing road improvements and maintaining road safety. Decisions regarding transportation priorities and infrastructure improvements and spending should be guided by the following hierarchy of transportation and accessibility priorities: Walking, Cycling, Transit, High Occupancy Vehicles (HOVs) movement of goods, and Single Occupant Vehicles (SOVs).” (p. 127).  

The Victoria-area District of Oak Bay includes Complete Streets approaches in a number of documents. Oak Bay’s city council adopted a Complete Streets policy in June 2012.