From left: CAO JP Ouellette, Emily Monroe and Elysia Leung of 8-80 Cities, Valerie Ouellette (no relation) from the Porcupine Health Unit and Gil Penalosa, Founder and Chair of 8-80 Cites.
From left: CAO JP Ouellette, Emily Monroe and Elysia Leung of 8-80 Cities, Valerie Ouellette (no relation) from the Porcupine Health Unit and Gil Penalosa, Founder and Chair of 8-80 Cites.

On March 30th Cochrane, Ontario was invited to attend a special ceremony held by 8-80 Cities group, where J.P. Ouellette of the Town of Cochrane and Valerie Ouellet of the Porcupine Health, Unit accepted an award from the group on behalf of the Town’s Doable Neighbourhoods Working Group.

8-80 Cities is a non-profit organization based in Toronto that’s dedicated to contributing to the transformation of cities into places where people can walk, bike, visit vibrant parks and accessible to all.

To this end, the Town of Cochrane had been selected to be a pilot community under the Doable Neighbourhood Project and was awarded the Community Innovator Award. Cochrane is the smallest of only four cities in all of Ontario to be part of the program and the only one in Northern Ontario.

Under that initiative Cochrane is determined to become the happiest, healthiest, most livable town in Northern Ontario and has already made several strides to become so.

While the list of final recommendations has only recently been issued, Cochrane launched several initiatives last year including the only public Bike Share program in the North, installed it’s first in a series of Bike Lanes, created a new Slip n’ Slide at Commando Beach and purchased water craft for the public to use daily.

The Cochrane Doable Neighbourhoods Working Group members are: Julia Martin; Valerie Ouellet; Shane Skinner; and J.P. Ouellette.

Watch for many new activities to be launched in coming months under the DNP program!

“Once again, our community is living up to our moniker of being “Wonderfully Unexpected” and breaking new trail (pun intended), explained Mayor Peter Politis.  This program is a complete paradigm shift in thinking where we plan around active people and accessing our great outdoors, breaking away from traditional focus being primarily on vehicles.”

“It will revolutionize how we in Cochrane both diversify economically by re-energizing tourism, and how we raise the social standard of living in our community at the same time.  It’s innovative, forward thinking and exactly the type of creative thinking that will pioneer our community’s efforts at building for tomorrow.  My sincerest congratulations to everyone involved.”

J.P. Ouellette stated; “It’s remarkable to see how the public has responded and become engaged with our programs, and we’re still just getting started!” The Town of Cochrane thanks all of the volunteers, staff and associations who have contributed to make these projects a success.”