Transportation

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Art & Science

One of Ayush Sharma’s first stops upon moving to Canada to attend the ��Ƶ was Bikechain on the George campus.

An international student from Delhi, Sharma says he had barely been in Toronto a week before visiting the educational bike repair space for students.

“I enjoyed cycling back home in India and I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it in Toronto,” says Sharma, who is completing a major in biodiversity and conservation biology and a minor in geographic information systems. “It’s a big city and it seems a little intimidating – and bikes are expensive.

“I wasn’t really sure where to start.”

Bikechain proved to be a great landing pad. The non-profit organization, which has been around since 2005, not only offers free workshops on how to fix a flat tire, do-it-yourself bike repairs and free bike rentals to students – it’s part of a supportive and growing local cycling community in and around campus.

“People come here on a basic level to fix their bike,” says Beth Austerberry, executive director of Bikechain. “A lot of people also come here because they want to learn.”

Bikechain is a non-profit on the St. George campus that offers free workshops on how to fix a flat tire, do-it-yourself bike repairs and free bike rentals to students (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

While Toronto is often criticized for its car-focused infrastructure, there’s no denying the rapidly growing popularity of cycling as a healthy, sustainable mode of transportation – a future that U of T is actively supporting through research, infrastructure and community building efforts.

On the St. George campus alone, there are 36 Bike Share Toronto stations – part of a larger, city-wide network of 680 stations and 7,185 rental bikes (U of T Scarborough also has a Bike Share station near the bus loop on Military Trail). There are also bike lanes that run through the campus along University Avenue, College Street, St. George Street, Wellesley Street, Bloor Street, Hoskin Avenue and Harbord Street, among others.

U of T is also adding hundreds of new above-ground and below-ground spaces to park your bike as part of as part of the Landmark Project, which will transform the historic heart of the St. George campus into a greener, more pedestrian friendly space on top of a massive underground geoexchange system that will significantly reduce campus emissions.

At U of T Scarborough, cycling admittedly requires a bit more planning than it does on the St. George campus – but there are enviable upsides, too.

Hanno Rein, an associate professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough, says he discovered a particularly scenic cycling route to campus that he felt compelled to share via a blog post.

“The nice thing about it is that there are no cars around, so the entire trip is all trails,” he says. “I wanted to encourage others to commute by bike, even if it is in Scarborough.”

Rein, who also teaches in the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics and the department of physics on the St. George campus, says he loves cycling because of the environmental and health factors.

“It’s very enjoyable,” he said. “It’s the nicest commute I can think of.”

However, he’s also quick to point out that infrastructure for cyclists could be better and safer.

Many U of T students, staff, faculty and librarians treat cycling as a year-round activity in Toronto (photo by Daria Perevezentsev)

At U of T Mississauga, BikeShare offers 48-hour bicycle, helmet and lock rentals to U of T Mississauga students free of charge. Located in the Student Centre extension, BikeShare has commuter-style bikes and mountain bikes for rent and is open until the end of October. The program also offers educational repairs similar to Bikechain, providing tools for basic fixups.

Cyclists at U of T Mississauga also have access to the 3.4-kilometre Nature Trail Loop along Credit River and nearby Erindale Park offers a scenic route for cyclists and mountain bikers in the area. Meanwhile, the City of Mississauga is considering the implementing a system similar to Bike Share Toronto to expand transportation options. The system would include stations with bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.

Southern Ontario’s snowy winters can pose a challenge to bicycle commuters on all three campuses – though many are increasingly treating it as a year-round activity.

Tony Harris

Tony Harris, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, says he appreciates being available to avoid traffic on his commute and likes that he’s reducing his environmental footprint by not driving.

His approach to slush and snow?

“I think it’s really important to find good routes that are safe,” he says, adding that it takes him about 30 minutes to bike to the St. George campus from his home. “In the winter, you have to be more cautious about slippery conditions.”

A long-time cycling commuter, Harris adds that he’s perfected the art of cycling during a Toronto winter.

“I wear my normal clothes and then my fleece and I have a yellow cycling jacket on top,” he described. “I wear two pairs of gloves and that really helps my hands. I have an inner glove that’s a running-type glove and then I wear a fleece glove over top. I also wear a toque underneath my helmet. “One other thing is long underwear.

“Having two layers everywhere seems to be the key.”

His advice to students who are new to cycling? Map out your routes.

“Before you head out, find where the dedicated cycling lanes are. If there aren’t dedicated cycling lanes, find one-way side streets that allow you to avoid the busier streets and cars,” he says.

U of T researchers are also playing a key role in helping to map out the university’s transportation future with sustainability – and cycling – in mind.

Marianne Hatzopoulou

Marianne Hatzopoulou, a professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Arts & Science, belongs to a research team that’s trying to understand how U of T commuters’ habits and other personal choices contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

The project, funded by the Climate Positive Energy research initiative, will launch a travel survey in January to collect data from students, staff, faculty, and librarians to understand how they commute to campus every day.

“The second part of the project is to quantify the carbon footprint of commuting and the greenhouse gasses associated with commuting to U of T to measure what our footprint is from transportation,” explained Hatzopoulou.

“The third element is to run some experiments to understand what would make people switch their mode of transportation, especially those who are driving.”

Hatzopoulou’s team wants to understand where there are opportunities to promote more sustainable and active modes of transportation and where the challenges lie.

“There’s a lot of research out there that actually quantifies the benefits of cycling as a mode of transportation,” she says.

As for Sharma, riding his bike around campus not only introduced him to the city, it saved him precious time traveling between classes on the St. George campus – not to mention lowering his carbon footprint.

Most importantly, he says, it has helped him find a community through Bikechain, where he is now a co-president and runs workshops.

“There is a mix of undergraduate, graduate, PhD students as well as faculty and non-U of T students,” he says of the group. “Bike shops in general can be dominated by cis males and it can be an unwelcoming space for other people, but Bikchain has always been an inclusive and open space for everyone.

“That’s one of the main reasons I’ve stuck with the community for so long.”

The road to net zero: U of T research group takes on decarbonization of transportation

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 20:05:16 +0000

The road to net zero: U of T research group takes on decarbonization of transportation

geoff.vendeville Tue, 02/08/2022 - 15:05

Cutline

Marianne Hatzopoulou of the ��Ƶ's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering is leading the Positive Zero Transport Futures research collaboration, which focuses on transportation's impact on climate change (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Safa Jinje

Topic

Our Community

Chemical Engineering

Electric cars aren't the only way to lessen greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, says Marianne Hatzopoulou, a professor in the ��Ƶ's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

“Decarbonization is not just about technology,” says Hatzopoulou, who leads the Positive Zero Transport Futures research collaboration. “Promoting electric vehicles won’t help communities that are already mobility-poor. What we need to do is design cities that will enable people to not have to generate as much greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. That includes making other modes of transportation – such as cycling, walking and public transit systems – more accessible.”

With Canada committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, the decarbonization of transportation remains a major challenge. In 2019, the transport sector was responsible for 25 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada – behind only the oil and gas sector, according to Statistics Canada. Since 1990, the growth in emissions was mainly due to an increase in freight trucks and passenger light trucks.

But designing new technologies that don’t rely on fossil fuels is only part of the solution, Hatzopoulou says. A holistic approach is needed to create a sustainable and equitable climate future, she adds.

To that end, Hatzopoulou has collaborated with Greg Evans, a professor in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry, and Jeff Brook, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry, to create Positive Zero Transport Futures. The initiative – supported by U of T Engineering's Dean Strategic Fund – brings together 20 researchers from a range of backgrounds, including the School of Cities and Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

“U of T has great climate scientists, clean energy initiatives and transportation initiatives. But we saw a need to specifically address the issue of transportation and its effect on climate change,” says Hatzopoulou, who has been working on decarbonization research for more than a decade.

Left to right: Professor Marianne Hatzopoulou, master’s candidate Keni Mallinen (in vehicle) and research associate Arman Ganji with the UrbanScanner. The vehicle is a rolling laboratory capable of monitoring air quality, traffic, trees and the built environment (photo by Phill Snel)

Evans, Hatzopoulou and Brook were part of the team that was awarded the 2021 Brockhouse Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering for their innovative work studying air pollution and its effects, as part of U of T Engineering’s Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research (SOCAAR).

“With Positive Zero Transport Futures, we are working toward pathways of reaching net-zero emissions that will ensure positive societal outcomes,” Hatzopoulou says. “That means designing solutions that will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also improve air quality, environmental justice, public health, and enable community engagement.”

The team is currently building partnerships with external bodies from governments, industries, non-profits and community organizations to work on multi-scale projects and research studies.

Last August, Hatzopoulou, Evans and Brook co-led a workshop called “The Road to Net Zero,” which attracted over 150 participants from industries including freight transport, auto manufacturing, consulting and banking, along with academics, government officials, NGOs and community groups. The event highlighted the need for practical approaches to create greener mobility solutions.

“You don’t study transportation inside a lab on campus. It is studied in the real world,” Hatzopoulou says. “We are going to take a living lab approach by studying innovations and policy interventions as they are deployed in a real-world context.”

One tool at the team’s disposal is the UrbanScanner, a mobile laboratory that Hatzopoulou helped develop through her work as the leader of the Transportation and Air Quality (TRAQ) research group. The vehicle has been collecting real-time air quality data across Toronto since September 2020, allowing the Positive Zero Transport Futures research team to better engage with the communities they are studying.

“Our long-term vision is to foster a learning community, so that the lessons that are derived from our research can be shared, allowing many people to benefit from the sustainable outcomes.”

‘Inadequate and unsafe’: U of T report highlights need for better walking and cycling network in Scarborough

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 15:49:54 +0000

‘Inadequate and unsafe’: U of T report highlights need for better walking and cycling network in Scarborough

geoff.vendeville Wed, 10/13/2021 - 11:49

Cutline

André Sorensen, a professor in U of T Scarborough's department of human geography, says new infrastructure is badly needed to encourage cycling, walking and other forms of active transportation in Scarborough (photo by Ken Jones)

Topic

Cycling and pedestrian infrastructure in Scarborough is “inadequate and unsafe,” ��Ƶ researchers say in a new report offering suggestions to support alternatives to driving.

André Sorensen, a professor in U of T Scarborough's department of human geography, and his co-authors say Scarborough continues to suffer from mid-century urban planning that prioritizes driving over “active transportation,” including walking, cycling, inline skating and mobility aids such as motorized wheelchairs.

“The city has failed to develop a coherent, long-term plan for Scarborough that will meet its own policy goals for sustainability and inclusion,” he says. “As a result, it continues to be dangerous and unpleasant for residents who are walking and cycling in this part of the city.”

Scarborough has the highest per capita rate of fatalities from traffic collisions in Toronto at 3.04 per 100,000 people, the report says. Sorensen says Scarborough's large arterial roads, busy intersections, lack of cycling infrastructure and unsafe crosswalks help explain the alarming rate of traffic fatalities.

Postwar urban planning was based on an assumption that people would get around by car. Yet only 40 per cent of Scarborough households have access to a car, the researchers say. Meanwhile, walking and cycling have grown in importance due to cost and the proven environmental, physical and mental health benefits.

Sorensen says it is feasible to develop active transportation networks in Scarborough. “There’s so much opportunity in Scarborough, mostly because of the wide arterial roads and existing urban form,” he says.

For one, its main arterial roads – including Kingston Road and Eglinton, Lawrence, Sheppard and Finch Avenues – are wide enough to build walking and cycling infrastructure without removing a traffic lane.

Scarborough also has higher residential density compared to other suburbs – not to mention more high-density employment and commercial areas. Finally, it has potential for an extensive off-road cycling and walking trail network.

“There’s so much wasted space – the city grows grass on three-to-four metres on either side of these roads,” Sorensen says. “Unlike downtown, where there’s less space and you have to remove a traffic or parking lane to build cycling or walking infrastructure, that is much easier in Scarborough.”

The report proposes an active transportation network for Scarborough that ensures all residences are within one kilometre of a designated cycling route and that meets other policy targets set out by the city in its sustainability and Vision Zero road safety plans.

The author’s say an interim network is needed to bridge the wide gap between existing infrastructure and the city's goals. It would expand existing cycling routes to around 150 km (six times larger than it is now), mostly along major roads such as Kingston, Eglinton, Ellesmere, Finch, Kennedy and Morningside.

The authors say a key element to creating any cycling and pedestrian network in Scarborough is connectivity. The authors suggest greatly expanding and improving off-road cycling and walking trails while improving connections to the on-road network to get people where they need to go.

These routes will need to run along the major arterial roads that are connected in a grid and already cross major obstacles such as ravines, railways and highways.

“These roads are the most direct route to get people to school, work, appointments, places to eat and shop or public transit stops,” Sorensen says.

“If we want an active transportation network that people can actually use, it has to go along these busy roads.”

The report also identifies an urgent need to improve walking networks in Scarborough. Sorensen says the network needs to prioritize safety and accessibility by creating an inviting and pleasant environment for pedestrians. These improvements include creating safer crosswalks and intersections, as well as wider sidewalks (2.1 metres minimum), more benches and better winter maintenance.

Nadhiena Shankar, a public policy and urban planning student and co-author of the report, says that active transportation infrastructure is needed to ensure transit equity in Scarborough.

“This proposal isn’t unreasonable. It aligns with the city’s existing policies on safety, climate change and accessibility,” says Shankar, who was born and raised in Scarborough.

“We hope this puts the city on notice that we deserve better. It’s also a reminder that Scarborough is for everyone, whether you ride a bike, walk, drive or take public transit – no one should be sidelined.”

The authors received financial and logistical support from the U of T Scarborough Suburban Mobilities Cluster.

Transport poverty: U of T researchers lead national effort to support equity in transportation planning

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 16:46:36 +0000

Transport poverty: U of T researchers lead national effort to support equity in transportation planning

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 06/28/2021 - 12:46

Cutline

A U of T-led project is the largest collaboration of its kind to study and address historical and current inequities in Canadian transportation systems, which affect millions of Canadians (photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Topic

U of T Scarborough

A University of Toronto-led project is set to explore the causes of transport poverty in Canada and find ways to address it.

With funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the project will examine how barriers to moving around combine with social and economic marginalization to limit full participation in daily life for millions of Canadians.

“This is a massive opportunity to create more equitable transportation systems across Canada, where the benefits of transportation investments are felt more widely and are specifically geared towards alleviating transport poverty,” says Steven Farber, an associate professor of human geography who will lead the five-year, multimillion-dollar project.

He says transport poverty occurs when traditional forms of marginalization, such as poverty or being a member of a racialized community, intersect with transport disadvantages like not being able to afford a car, not feeling safe on the sidewalk or not being served by adequate public transit options.

The partnership project, called “Mobilizing Justice,” is the largest collaboration of its kind to study and address historical and current inequities in Canadian transportation systems. It brings together a team of 33 academics from 15 universities and more than 30 contributing institutions including the federal, regional and municipal governments, universities, non-profits, industry partners, unions and professional associations.

The team will conduct a national survey of transport poverty and use it to develop transportation equity standards, evaluation tool kits and community-centred transportation planning processes that will be used by planners, decision-makers and advocates.

One of the project’s primary goals includes developing national transportation equity standards to clearly set equity goals and targets, while at the same time setting a baseline standard level of accessibility that should be provided to all Canadians regardless of their financial means, personal abilities or place of residence. Concepts such as the 15-minute city, an urban design principle that attempts to guarantee walking, biking or transit access to a set of core amenities within a 15-minute trip from any neighbourhood in the city, is one example of a minimum threshold that will be explored by researchers.

Farber says the most important thing to get right is understanding what amenities, resources and investments people want in their own neighbourhoods. He says figuring out how to integrate community-led planning with traditional top-down transportation planning practices is one of the major intellectual challenges of the project – and one the partners are eager to tackle.

“Our research will inform how planners can set actionable equity targets in collaboration with communities at risk of transport poverty,” says Farber, who is an expert on the social and economic outcomes of transportation in urban areas.

He says that vague equity goals are increasingly common in transportation plans, but adds that such plans need to be backed up by evidence, standards, legislation, monitoring and enforcement to ensure sufficient funding. No such legislation or equity-related standards exist in Canada at the moment, he says.

The project comes at a critical juncture for transportation planning in Canada. Farber says COVID-19 has magnified inequities for immigrants as well as low-income, racialized and Indigenous residents. Meanwhile, technological changes such as ride-sharing, on-demand transit and micromobility (e-scooters, for example) present the possibility of either making existing inequalities worse or, if properly managed, offer an opportunity to improve transportation outcomes.

To that end, Farber says the project will experiment with innovative transportation policies and mobility technologies specifically designed to help people living in transport poverty to travel more freely.

The hope, he says, is for a future where a combination of conventional planning, such as the expansion of transit and safe cycling networks, is married with innovative technologies and policies such as e-bike subsidies or e-bike sharing systems.

“This might provide all Canadians with the opportunity to fully participate in the activities of daily life – something that so many of us take for granted,” Farber says.

He adds that the team will also improve understanding of transportation equity and identify the structural changes necessary to reach a more equitable transportation future for all Canadians.

Toronto’s COVID-19 bike lane expansion boosted access to jobs, retail: U of T study

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 20:49:46 +0000

Toronto’s COVID-19 bike lane expansion boosted access to jobs, retail: U of T study

geoff.vendeville Fri, 02/19/2021 - 15:49

Cutline

A study by U of T Engineering researchers found Toronto's temporary cycling infrastructure increased low-stress road access to jobs and food stores by between 10 and 20 per cent, and access to parks by 6.3 per cent (photo by Dylan Passmore)

Topic

Breaking Research

Cities

Graduate Students

With COVID-19 making it vital for people to keep their distance from one another, the city of Toronto undertook the largest one-year expansion of its cycling network in 2020, adding about 25 kilometres of temporary bikeways.

Yet, the benefits of helping people get around on two wheels go far beyond facilitating physical distancing, according to a recent study by three ��Ƶ researchers that was published in the journal Transport Findings.

Bo Lin, Shoshanna Saxe, and Timothy Chan, all of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, used census, city and survey data to map Toronto’s entire cycling network – including the new routes – and found that additional bike infrastructure increased low-stress road access to jobs and food stores by between 10 and 20 per cent, while boosting access to parks by an average of 6.3 per cent.

“What surprised me the most was how big an impact we found from what was just built last summer,” says Saxe, an assistant professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering.

“We found sometimes increases in access to 100,000 jobs or a 20 per cent increase. That’s massive.”

The impact of bikeways added during COVID-19 were greatest in areas of the city where the new lanes were grafted onto an existing cycling network near a large concentration of stores and jobs, such as the downtown core. Although there were new routes installed to the north and east of the city, “these areas remain early on the S-Curve of accessibility given the limited links with pre-existing cycling infrastructure,” the study says.

In these areas, the new infrastructure can be the beginning of a future network as each new lane multiplies the impact of ones already built, Saxe says.

As for the study’s findings about increasing access to jobs, Saxe says they are not only a measure of access to employment but also a proxy for places you would want to travel to: restaurants, movie theatres, music venues and so on.

A map of Toronto's bikeway network with colours representing the route's level of stress (image courtesy of Bo Lin)

The researchers used information from Open Data Toronto and the Transportation Tomorrow 2016 survey, among other sources. Where there were discrepancies, Lin, a PhD student and the study’s lead author, gathered the data himself by navigating the city’s streets (as a bonus, it helped him get to know Toronto after moving here from Waterloo, Ont.).

“There were some days I did nothing but go around the city using Google Maps,” he says.

For Lin, the research has opened up new avenues of investigation into cycling networks, including how bottlenecks can have a ripple effect through the system.

The study, like some of Saxe’s past work on cycling routes, makes a distinction between low- and high-stress bikeways to get a more accurate reading of how they affect access to opportunities. At the lowest end of the scale are roads where a child could cycle safely; on the other end are busy thoroughfares for “strong and fearless cyclists” – Avenue Road north of Bloor Street, for example.

“It’s legal to cycle on most roads, but too many roads feel very uncomfortable to bike on,” Saxe says.

For Saxe, the impact of the new cycling routes shows how a little bike infrastructure can go a long way.

“Think about how long it would have taken us to build 20 kilometres of a metro project – and we need to do these big, long projects – but we also have to do short-term, fast, effective things.”

Chan, a professor of industrial engineering in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, says the tools they used to measure the impact of the new bikeways in Toronto will be useful in evaluating future expansions of the network, as well as those found in other cities.

“You hear lots of debates about bike lanes that are based on anecdotal evidence,” he says. “But here we have a quantitative framework that we can use to rigorously evaluate and compare different cycling infrastructure projects.

“What gets me excited is that, using these tools, we can generate insights that can influence decision-making.”

The U of T team’s research, which was supported by funding from the City of Toronto, may come in handy sooner rather than later. Toronto’s city council is slated to review the COVID-19 cycling infrastructure this year.

What does transportation equity mean? U of T researcher on why it’s too important to ignore

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 13:31:53 +0000

What does transportation equity mean? U of T researcher on why it’s too important to ignore

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 11/08/2019 - 08:31

Cutline

"What we’re trying to do is start the planning process with a clear idea of what inequalities exist in the [transportation] system." says U of T's Steven Farber (photo by Ken Jones)

Topic

Transit

U of T Scarborough

Canada is on the cusp of some major disruptions to its transportation systems.

Ride-sharing apps, on-demand transit and micromobility (scooters, for example) are already available in some cities. Self-driving vehicles are in development. And as urban centres continue to grow, it is necessary to invest in traditional public transit that will best serve riders in the future.

But social benefits are often an afterthought in transit planning. When new technologies come into use, who gets left behind?

Steven Farber is an assistant professor in the department of human geography at the ��Ƶ Scarborough. Much of his research looks at the social and economic outcomes of transportation use in urban areas. Farber is helping to host a two-day workshop this week called Mobilizing Justice that is bringing together industry, government, community stakeholders and academics to understand the role equity plays in planning transportation systems.

Farber recently sat down to talk about the role technology plays in creating and addressing inequities in transit systems, and why transit planning is a social justice issue.

What does transportation equity mean?

There’s no agreement yet on what it means exactly, but the general concept is looking at how to design transportation systems that are fair. This can be thought of as how transportation ‘goods’ and transportation ‘bads’ are distributed among different populations.

Transportation goods are things like ease of access to downtown via the subway, how frequent and affordable is the service, and to consider who has access to these good things – is it only the rich? Is it mostly white people? People of colour? In terms of transportation bads, it’s understanding who’s suffering from pollution, lack of access, safety issues or congestion.

Consider someone who is riding the bus because maybe they can’t afford a car. That person may be sitting in traffic caused by all these people driving around in single occupancy vehicles. How is that fair? So it’s also looking at how we can change the balance to improve the experiences of people who are making economic, environmentally and socially responsible decisions about transportation.

When we talk about transportation planning, it’s rarely thought of in terms of social justice. Why is that?

It’s a good question. Take the proposed Ontario Line [subway expansion] for example. The province conducted a full business case analysis based on ridership, costs, mode switching and congestion relief on the Yonge line, which are all good reasons, but the socio-economic impact was done very much after the fact. What we’re trying to do is start the planning process with a clear idea of what inequalities exist in the system. Do we have equity and fairness issues right now and, if so, what are the best transportation plans to remedy it?

A recent study you co-authored found that nearly one million Canadians live in transport poverty. What does that mean?

It’s pretty easy to define. It’s when being economically disadvantaged intersects with what’s called transport disadvantage. Generally speaking, this means a lack of reliable and frequent transit service, services that are too expensive or a lack of accessible transit, so it excludes people.

Some people may have transport disadvantages, but if they’re wealthy, they can overcome these barriers and it doesn’t affect their ability to get to work, to grocery shop or go about their daily lives. So there’s all sorts of reasons to be transport disadvantaged, but when it combines with socio-economic disadvantage, that’s transport poverty.

Some feel that technology has the power to level inequities, and that extends to transportation. What role do you think technology can play in addressing inequity in transportation systems?

At the moment it’s a mixed bag, and there seems to be two visions for the future. One is quite dystopian, with zombie autonomous cars driving across the city, more people taking cars because they can sit back and relax. More cars and more sprawl, causing more congestion. On the other hand, there’s these great things like apps that create better access to carpooling or give opportunities to people who live in poorly serviced transit neighbourhoods access to different forms of transit

There’s massive disruption taking place in the transit space due to technological changes. Things like ride hailing, autonomous vehicles, car-sharing apps, dockless micromobility such as scooters, bikes, and even on-demand transit systems. It’s important to look at the potential impacts of these disruptions and to have conversations about what are the opportunities to use technology for social good.

If certain technologies are only going to create greater inequity in transit systems, it could be equally important to look at how we can regulate them.

How do you move? Post-secondary students asked to participate in regional transportation survey

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:00:08 +0000

How do you move? Post-secondary students asked to participate in regional transportation survey

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/17/2019 - 09:00

Cutline

StudentMoveTO, a partnership between 10 post-secondary institutions, is launching the second phase of a study aimed at improving the transportation experiences of regional college and university students (photo by Jed Dela Cruz via Unsplash)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Graduate Students

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

For Karina Maynard, a master’s of planning student in the ��Ƶ’s department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, the commute she makes to and from the St. George campus each day is short and relatively easy: she opts to ride her bike.

But commutes vary widely by mode, distance and travel time for the 600,000 university and college students who live in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), with many commutes posing significantly more challenges – and higher stress levels – than Maynard’s daily ride.

That’s why StudentMoveTO, a partnership between 10 regional post-secondary institutions, including U of T, is launching the second phase of a study aimed at generating insights, debates, and actions to improve the transportation experiences of GTHA post-secondary students.

“Data on how students travel isn’t readily available,” says Maynard (left), who is a research assistant for the partnership.

“This data is incredibly important because students move in a very different way than any other subset of the population. They often travel off-peak, maybe coming to campus at noon and leaving at 8 p.m. Each day can be different.”

In 2015, over 15,000 students participated in the first StudentMoveTO study, organized by Toronto’s four universities, into post-secondary students’ daily transportation needs and expectations.

The second, expanded phase of the study, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, launched on Oct. 1 and includes six new partner institutions, including Ontario Tech University, McMaster University, Mohawk College, Sheridan College, Centennial College and Durham College.

The study is led by principal investigator Raktim Mitra of Ryerson University, multiple faculty collaborators and student contributors and U of T co-applicants, including Khandker Nurul Habib, an associate professor of civil and mineral engineering, and School of Cities Interim Director Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor of geography and planning. Partners include community groups, Metrolinx, the provincial transportation planning agency and the City of Toronto.

“Understanding the student travel experience and improving the system for students will improve commuting for all users,” says Siemiatycki.

Maynard adds that evidence-based planning is the best planning.

“By participating in the survey, U of T students can help contribute to a broader conversation about improving the transportation experience,” she says.

Students who have received an email to participate in the survey have until Nov. 15 to respond. Participants also have a chance to win one of fifty $50 campus bookstore gift certificates at their university or college.

With files from StudentMoveTO

Why don't more Torontonians bike to work? U of T study points to disconnected cycling infrastructure

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 18:34:11 +0000

Why don't more Torontonians bike to work? U of T study points to disconnected cycling infrastructure

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/11/2019 - 14:34

Cutline

Researchers in U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering classified nearly every section of road and intersection in Toronto based on factors like traffic and available cycling infrastructure (photo by Randy Risling/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Tyler Irving

Topic

City & Culture

Cities

Sustainability

Cycling to work is sustainable and good for our health – but in Toronto, less than 3 per cent of us actually do it.

Now, a new study led by post-doctoral researcher Ahmadreza Imani, Assistant Professor Shoshanna Saxe and Professor Eric Miller of the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering suggests disconnected cycling infrastructure may play a role.

“It’s perfectly legal to cycle on any city street, but depending on how the street is designed and the speed and number of cars, many people find it uncomfortable and scary,” says Saxe, who, along with Miller, is affiliated with the department of civil and mineral engineering.

“We wanted to actually quantify that, and see how it impacts the choices people make.”

Saxe, Miller and Imani drew on the work of researchers at Northeastern University, who, in 2016, proposed a method to rank any street segment or intersection on a scale of one to four by its “level of traffic stress,” or LTS. An LTS of one would be considered safe enough for a child to cycle on, while an LTS of four would only be attempted by the bravest and most experienced cyclist.

A map of downtown Toronto that depicts the network level of traffic stress calculated for individual street segments (image via Journal of Transport Geography)

Based on factors such as average traffic speed, number and width of lanes, and availability of cycling infrastructure, the team was able to classify nearly every section of road and intersection in Toronto – more than 10,000 in all – into one of these four categories.

Their results are published in the October issue of the Journal of Transport Geography.

Once the map was completed, the team looked for contiguous blocks of low-stress roads that connected places where lots of people work. Unfortunately, most of these cyclist-friendly zones proved to be relatively small and disconnected from one another.

“You can’t get very far, or access many jobs, on roads that we would consider to be low-stress,” says Saxe. “There may be many nearby opportunities within cycling distance, but the high-stress routes between them create a barrier that puts people off.”

For example, a cyclist limited to an LTS of no more than two would be able to access fewer than 5,000 jobs across most of the city. It’s only when the acceptable LTS is raised to three that job accessibility surpasses 15,000 for large parts of the city.

The team also looked at the amount of time cyclists could ride continuously without hitting a section with an LTS of more than two.

“We considered a budget of 30 minutes as the average amount of time people would be willing to cycle for during their commute,” says Saxe. “But for most of the city, you can’t get that far. You get stopped by a high-stress section within about eight minutes.”

Finally, the team cross-referenced their data with the results of the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, which gathers detailed data on the travel habits of thousands of households across the Greater Toronto Area. This enabled them to see whether people who commute along the routes designated as low-stress were any more likely to cycle to work.

“It turns out that there is a correlation,” says Saxe. “Every time the number of accessible jobs within a 30-minute cycling commute goes up by 100, the likelihood of someone choosing to cycle goes up by about 40 per cent.”

Taken together, the results of the study suggest that prioritizing connections between existing cycling routes may be a good strategy to get the most out of investments in new cycling infrastructure.

More broadly, the team hopes that its results will be helpful to government, city planners and anyone interested in understanding the relationships between transportation infrastructure and the choices commuters make.

“This gives us a way to calculate accessibility for cycling that is meaningful, which enhances our toolkit for comparing it to other modes of transport,” says Saxe.

“Having numbers makes it easier to understand problems, and easier to do something about it.”

U of T and partners to improve flow of goods, traffic with new Smart Freight Centre

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:07:30 +0000

U of T and partners to improve flow of goods, traffic with new Smart Freight Centre

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/18/2019 - 11:07

Cutline

Researchers from U of T, York and McMaster will work together to improve how goods are delivered in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area as freight demand rises alongside concerns about traffic congestion (photo by Danielle Scott via Flickr)

Topic

Infrastructure

Traffic