Our History
Fifty years ago, BA Group started operations in Toronto.
The firm started as the Canadian branch office of the Chicago based Barton Aschman-Associates (BAA). Barton-Ashman Associates was a specialist transportation firm in the Chicago area that was founded on the idea that the fields of transportation engineering and transportation planning had become too isolated from each other and needed to be more closely integrate in order to address the complex challenges that come with urban land development. So it was that George Barton, a traffic engineer, and Ted Ashman, a transportation planner – that came together in 1960 to form Barton-Ashman Associates.
In the late 1960’s BAA had started to establish a growing base of work in the Greater Toronto Area. BAA had become involved with the transportation planning for several of the major regional shopping centres in the GTA. This steady stream of work provided the confidence needed to open a new Canadian office on Avenue Road in February 1974. That small Canadian office of BAA, which later became a wholly independent Canadian firm in 1987, is now known as BA Consulting Group Ltd.
Since our beginnings in 1974, BA Group has become renown for providing high quality, solution oriented advice that helps clients achieve their development vision. This has helped BA Group grow to become one of the GTA’s leading transportation planning and engineering consultancies for land development projects. Our team now features approximately 100 individuals who specialize in solving complex transportation problems. While other transportation consultants work from within large, generalist engineering firms, BA Group has, for 50 years, continued to focus purely on transportation issues in support of high-quality urban environments. And perhaps most importantly – BA Group continues to approach our work in the way George Barton and Ted Ashman envisioned: through close collaboration between landowners, architects, designers, engineers, and planners to seek the best outcomes.
BA Group celebrated our 50th Anniversary of operation with a Client Appreciation Party on October 29th 2024. We transformed our Toronto workspace for one night into an event space. Over 200 guests attended, including architects, planners, engineers, developers, alumni, current staff, and all manner of collaborators who have been a part of our growth and success over the past 50 years.
Interactive activities were located around the office to provide first hand demonstrations of BA Group’s history and the types of work and skills we use to achieve client goals. Highlights included:
- A BA Group ‘Driving Simulator’ where participants and clients could try out preparing a vehicle swept path analysis by driving a truck into a loading area.
- A curated BA museum that featured various drafting tools and historical reports used over the years in our work.
- A BA Museum Visuals in the networking spaces, illustrating BA projects and awards, a promotional video and information panels.
- An demonstration of BA Group’s interactive WebApp tool which we use to create value for our clients by getting insights from the significant data collected through our work.
- A celebration of BA employees and alumni visualized through a timeline dating back to employee # 1 in 1974.
As we close out this milestone year in BA Group’s history, we thank all the clients, collaborators, and alumni who attended the event and contributed to BA Group’s success over the past 50 years. BA Group has come a long way since 1974, and we look forward to many more years of partnership and mutual success.
Also a sincere thank you to the various BA Group staff who helped coordinate, plan, and pull of the wonderful Client Appreciation Party. The event was a wonderful success and all guests had a great time thank you!
If you would like to see viewing photos from our celebration please client the link below. The photos of the event were taken by Adam Vanderlaan Photography.
https://vanderlaanphotography.pixieset.com/bagroup50thanniversary/.