Transportation Planning

Campus and Community Planning is dedicated to improving sustainable transportation options for the campus community. We are committed to improving transportation choices by ensuring that you have a variety of safe and sustainable transportation options for your commuting and on-campus needs.

Students walking on Main Mall
Students walking on Main Mall

Transportation Planning

Since 1997, Campus and Community Planning has actively worked with the campus community to reduce automobile trips to and from UBC. We have changed the way the campus community gets to and across campus by encouraging more sustainable options such as transit, carpooling, walking, and cycling. UBC commuters are getting to campus in more sustainable ways now more than ever. 

From 1997-2018, the number of transit trips to and from campus increased by 303% while single occupancy vehicle trips only increased 5%. Through this same period, the campus population increased by nearly 40,000 people.

In 2014, UBC released the UBC Transportation Plan, which replaced the 2005 Strategic Transportation Plan. It brings together existing policies and objectives that reside in a variety of other planning documents into one comprehensive plan. The Transportation Plan addresses gaps in existing plans related to movement, circulation, servicing, and access and focuses on improvements to on-campus travel. 

What We Do

We play a critical role in the day-to-day functioning of the university by addressing acute and long-term transportation issues. We do this through:

Strategic Planning

Campus and Community Planning has laid out a sustainable transportation future for the UBC Vancouver campus, guided by extensive campus consultation and alignment with the broader campus vision. The Transportation Plan for the Vancouver campus is the guiding document for transportation objectives and initiatives on campus. This plan is informed by the 2015 Land Use Plan and the 2014 Vancouver Campus Plan and the 1998 Strategic Transportation Plan.

Research

We conduct research related to land use, transportation planning, and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) with an emphasis on campus transportation management. We conduct research on best practices and case studies to inform our programs.  We also conduct regular research in the form of traffic counts, and transportation surveys to monitor travel trends, opinions, and satisfaction. See the research and reports page for more information.

Program Management

Many transportation programs are run or coordinated by Campus and Community Planning, from Vanpools to Bike Share to the Emergency Ride Home Program. We work with partners such as the Bike Kitchen, TransLink and developers to ensure a variety of dependable and useful transportation options are available to UBC community members.

Capital Investment

We fund and manages capital improvement projects to meet objectives and goals from the 2014 Transportation Plan. This includes intersection improvements, cycling facilities upgrades, pedestrian connections, traffic calming and more. We also have a part in large infrastructure updates like the Wesbrook Mall upgrades that priorities sustainable modes like walking, cycling and transit.

Marketing and Outreach

We work to get information to people who need it. We run and participate in community programming like Bike to Work Week and Safe and Sustainable Transportation Month, in addition to providing information to the community about transportation options as well as education and awareness programs predominantly focused on safety.