The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Stage 2 Report: Issues and Prepared for The City of Calgary by: Challenges Watt Consulting Group In association with Approved by Council: December 17, 2018 David Kriger Consultants Inc. and CPCS Transcom Ltd. Contact: Tomasz Kroman Senior Consultant Watt Consulting Group Ltd. 403.569.8721 [email protected] #310, 3016 5 Avenue N.E. Calgary, T2A 6K4 calgary.ca | contact 311 03 Executive Summary This report describes the issues and challenges that are associated with goods movement in and around Calgary. These issues and challenges were identified through an extensive stakeholder engagement, which was conducted as part of The City of Calgary’s Goods Movement Strategy. The findings of this report will be used to explore potential opportunities for addressing the issues and challenges, through a subsequent review of how other jurisdictions address the issues and challenges and through a literature review of best practices. The engagement used several means to gather information from stakeholders in the Calgary goods movement community. These comprised: • Informal one-page surveys that were distributed at the February 2017 project kick-off meetings, which were held at meetings of goods movement and economic development industry associations and other groups. • One-on-one interviews that were conducted with stakeholders. These stakeholders comprised a wide range of perspectives: the provincial and federal governments, infrastructure and facility owners, emergency services, utilities, retailers, distributors, carriers, couriers, aggregates producers and industry associations. • Stakeholder meetings, which were held with four groups: o Operational Advisory Group (OAG), an external body set up to advise the Strategy on short term issues and solutions. OAG members are drawn from retailers, grocery chains, long-haul truckers, local and long-distance couriers, the construction industry, industry associations and academia. o Strategic Advisory Group (SAG), an external body set up to advise the Strategy on long term issues, solutions and strategies. SAG members are drawn from the Province of Alberta, the Calgary Regional Partnership, infrastructure owners, commercial developers, economic development and academia. o Internal Advisory Group (IAG), which comprises representatives from several City of Calgary departments and business units. o Regional Advisory Group (RAG), which comprises representatives from the neighbouring municipalities and counties. Participation in these advisory groups and meetings is voluntary. All responses remain anonymous when reported. Many issues and challenges were identified. These were arranged into the following themes: 2 2 February 1, 2018 The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Prepared by Watt Consulting Group Ltd. for The City of Calgary • Existing road network. This theme consists of operational, congestion and capacity issues with the current road and highway network. • Addressing emerging trends and needs. This theme consists of issues that concern demographic, economic, environmental and technological changes, and how they impact goods movement in Calgary. • Long term planning for goods movement. This theme consists of long-term issues regarding existing goods movement infrastructure, corridor protection and land use planning. • Last kilometre deliveries and accessibility. This theme consists of local circulation issues, parking issues, site access issues, loading issues and building design issues that are associated with deliveries and pick-ups, all in the face of changing consumer and business purchasing demands. • Protecting for future needs while maintaining flexibility. This theme consists of issues that are associated with long term planning for new infrastructure and with the need to incorporate flexibility in the face of changing future demands. • Implications of regional needs. This theme consists of issues that concern the broad perspective of Calgary and the surrounding region as an integrated economy and as Western Canada’s dominant distribution hub. It can be seen that the themes, issues and challenges all have elements of both short- and long-term considerations. Note that the themes, issues and challenges are all derived directly from the stakeholder input. This report elaborates these themes and breaks down specific issues. Two other sources and data analyses were used to provide a context for the issues and challenges. These were: • Findings from an analysis of GPS truck trip traces to identify bottlenecks, which were used to corroborate operational, capacity and congestion issues identified by stakeholders. • A roadside truck origin-destination survey that was conducted in June-July 2017 along the roads and highways that lead to and from Calgary. Stakeholders also described what an ideal goods movement system for Calgary would look like. They expressed possible solutions that The City and others could potentially apply to help achieve this ideal goods movement system and to address the various issues and challenges. Based on this assessment, twenty-two initiatives were identified for further examination. The examination considers the solutions suggested by the stakeholders, and identifies other possible solutions through a jurisdictional survey and best practice review. This is conducted in the next stage of the Strategy. The twenty-two initiatives are listed below: 3 3 February 1, 2018 The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Prepared by Watt Consulting Group Ltd. for The City of Calgary 1. Continue inter-governmental communication, collaboration and coordination to promote integrated network planning in the Calgary region. 2. Continue collaboration and communication with industry and with the public. 3. Avoid land use planning conflicts with use of intermodal terminals and key goods movement corridors. 4. Ensure utility coverage in new development areas is sufficient to meet emerging logistics needs. 5. Consider the need for additional road-rail grade separations. 6. Recognize the special requirements of freight hubs as key employment centres. 7. Consider options for managing growth in air and freight traffic. 8. Consider options to shift goods from trucks to other modes, to ease congestion. 9. Examine how changing industrial land use designations would impact goods movement. 10. Improve planning for deliveries, especially in mix-used developments. 11. Plan for e-commerce. 12. Plan for emerging goods movement technologies and techniques that improve efficiencies. 13. Investigate additional ways that transit and other alternatives to driving can get vehicles off the road and help workers get to their jobs. 14. Promote multi-agency collaboration and consistency in design and operational standards. 15. Improve accessibility and circulation, reduce parking costs and clarify enforcement of truck route regulations through operational and regulatory enhancements. 16. Promote company compliance with electronic logging devices (hours of service). 17. Consider more ways to reduce traffic disruptions during road reconstruction or rehabilitation. 18. Investigate potential partnerships with the private sector to test innovations. 19. Investigate information-sharing possibilities with the private sector. 20. Allow the private sector to support new goods movement infrastructure. 21. Collaborate to promote international trade connections. 22. Promote inland port to circumvent congestion in Vancouver. Stakeholders also identified another five initiatives. The solutions to these solutions are mainly found locally; that is, determined in large part through further stakeholder consultation and, as noted below, the ongoing City of Calgary – Alberta Transportation Deerfoot Trail Corridor Study. These five initiatives are listed below: 4 4 February 1, 2018 The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Prepared by Watt Consulting Group Ltd. for The City of Calgary 23. Ensure robustness of Calgary’s road network. 24. Investigate ways to improve Deerfoot Trail operations and throughput. It should be noted that this initiative is being investigated as part of the ongoing City of Calgary – Alberta Transportation Deerfoot Trail Corridor Study. 25. Promote use of the Stoney Trail as a bypass for external truck traffic. 26. Review clearances on routes that carry over-dimensional loads. 27. Reconsider the potential for implementing a registration program for aggregates industry. 5 5 February 1, 2018 The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Prepared by Watt Consulting Group Ltd. for The City of Calgary Table of Contents 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Study Overview 9 1.2 Sources of information 10 1.3 This report 12 2 Themes identified from stakeholder consultations 13 3 Elaboration of issues and challenges 16 3.1 Overview 16 3.2 Existing road network 16 3.3 Addressing emerging trends and needs 18 3.4 Long term planning for goods movement 20 3.5 Last kilometre deliveries and accessibility 22 3.6 Protecting for future needs while maintaining flexibility 24 3.7 Implications of regional needs 25 4 What do the data tell us? 27 4.1 GPS truck trip traces 27 4.2 Comments from the roadside origin-destination survey 27 4.3 What this means 29 5 Potential solutions 30 5.1 An ideal goods movement system 30 5.2 What The City can do 31 6 6 February 1, 2018 The Calgary Goods Movement Strategy Prepared by Watt Consulting Group Ltd. for The City of Calgary 6 How the findings will be used 36 7 Appendices 38 7.1 Interview guide (generic) 38 List of Tables Table 1- 1: Discussion list of issues ....................................................................................................