Photo: City of Kelowna

The City of Kelowna is giving you a chance to plan the city's transportation future.

The latest step toward preparation and completion of the city's Transportation Master Plan includes an online calculation tool that allows you to determine which of the nine options should receive the highest priority.

The budget the city has earmarked is $48 million per year, and includes everything from road, sidewalk and bike route construction to maintenance and snow removal to road improvements, transit and educational programs.

The options include more than 400 potential projects, programs and policies collected through the first two phases of planning. They include, maintenance and renewal, education and incentives, shared mobility and new tech, neighbourhood streets, biking, transit, multi-modal urban corridors, road improvements and the Clement/Highway 33 extension project.

Work on the transportation plan began last year.

A technical report found that, "even though the endorsed growth scenario will help focus investment in locations that benefit a high number of people and reduce the amount of driving per person, due to population growth, the total amount of driving and associated congestion will substantially increase if future Kelowna residents continue to drive as much as they do today," said transportation planning manager Mariah VanZerr.

"To keep Kelowna moving, the report noted it will be necessary to shift as many future trips as possible to transportation modes that can move more people in the same amount of space, such as walking, biking, transit, car pooling and personal electric mobility devices."

Mayor Colin Basran implored residents to participate in the process. He said transportation is always at or near the top of concerns raised during the city's citizen survey.

"The feedback is crucial for future planning of our community," said Basran.

"We will essentially be making major decisions based on the feedback we get back from our residents in the coming weeks. I can't stress enough how important their input is in this process."