The 2019 Transportation Citizen Survey Results are in.
City council will hear them Monday afternoon.
Integrated Transportation Manager Rafael Villarreal says results of the survey look promising.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said reducing dependence on cars is the long term solution to traffic congestion.
“When it goes to how likely you would be to use other modes of transportation, for instance, transit, we get about 19 percent saying they are very likely but it's one thing to say you're very likely to use the mode of transportation but to actually act on it there's a bit of a difference.,” said Villarreal.
He says it will take a few years to move people from intent to action, but if just four percent of drivers started using alternate modes of transportation, there would be a significantly more space on the roads.
He said it was surprising that safety didn't rank as high of a concern for Kelowna residents.
“When we did our engagement that was one of the number one issues that was raised by people but now doing the survey we noticed that it was middle of the pack. In many places that is one of the top priorities because one of the leading causes of deaths of people in Canada is actually related to traffic accidents.”
Only 49 percent of those surveyed cited safety as the most important transportation issue in Kelowna.
72 percent said ‘helping people of all ages and abilities get around’ and 64 percent said ‘the time it takes to get places.’
According to Villarreal, the results show Kelowna is moving in the right direction, but there will be a lot of challenges along the way.
“It’s this fine balance that we'll need to have between what are the immediate needs of the people and what are the things we need to invest in so in the mid and long term we have a city that is sustainable, not just from the environmental perspective, but a financial and even economic development perspective,” said Villarreal.
Overall 75 percent of people surveyed identified themselves as a driver.
Villarreal said other numbers in the survey show people intent on shifting to other modes of transportation.