iCity2 Project Launch

iCity2 will address Ontario's needs for improved sustainable, equitable mobility and affordable housing for residents of the GGH by focussing on crucial challenges facing cities today. Co-located at the University of Toronto and OCAD University, iCity2 draws on faculty expertise in transportation engineering, computer science, visual analytics, geographic information science, urban planning, economics, sociology, architecture, and design. It builds on the research products of decades of development of urban transportation simulation models, unprecedented access to data, computer-aided design, and knowledge of the GGH, our urban laboratory. iCity 2 is complemented by partnerships among academic researchers, mobility start-ups, technology firms, engineering, data and analytics firms, property developers, not-for-profits, and municipal and regional governments, creating an urban innovation ecosystem that ensures iCity 2.0 will achieve research impact with solutions that will be applied to improving mobility, sustainability, equity and affordability, regionally and globally.

Agenda

8:30 a.m. Registration and light breakfast available.

9:00 Welcome

Professor Eric Miller, Director, Mobility Network

9:10 Project Overview

Professor Eric Miller, Director, Mobility Network

• Overview, team and partners
• ORF funding requirements
• Project management approach
• Year 2 Work Plan and Goals

9:30 Emerging Mobility Technology and Services

Professor Steven Farber

• Current and emerging services
• Modelling services
• Field tests

10:10 Break

10:30 Building Complete Communities

Dr. Sara Diamond, President Emerita, OCAD University

Professor Eric Miller, Director, Mobility Network

• Scorecards
• Generative design
• Case studies
• Affordability analysis and modelling

11:30 Break

11:50 Integrated mobility networks

Professor Amer Shalaby, Director, Transit Analytics Lab

• Modelling travel markets and needs
• Generative design
• Tactical improvement strategies

12:30 p.m. Lunch

1:00 End of meeting

Invitation-only.

If any specific accommodations are needed, please contact mobilitynetwork@utoronto.ca. Requests should be made as early as possible.

On behalf of the University of Toronto’s Mobility Network, Urban Climate Action Project, and the Climate Positive Energy initiative, the SDGs@UofT Initiative, as well as the City of Toronto, I am pleased to invite you to attend a workshop focused on pathways to the adoption and implementation of low-carbon mobility. Titled Low-Carbon Mobility Workshop, this event is the first in a three-part workshop series designed to facilitate the exchange and mobilization of both practitioner and research knowledge in advancing the City's TransformTO Net Zero Strategy.

This workshop will focus on the challenges of and opportunities for meeting the TransformTO goal of having 75% of trips in Toronto under 5 km walked, biked, or taken by transit by 2030.

About the Workshop

Conversations at this event will explore: (i) potential policy frameworks that would serve as enablers towards sustainable low-carbon mobility; (ii) financing mechanisms to support strategic, technical and modelling studies, as well as implementation of their recommendations; (iii) successful initiatives and best practices towards decarbonisation of mobility from other jurisdictions from which to draw lessons and identify gaps and potential areas of future intervention; (iv) transportation and mobility planning for advancing the decarbonisation agenda, with an emphasis on urban land use, public-transport, urban to suburban connectivity, and active transportation considerations; and (v) opportunities to achieve community priorities and co-benefits (e.g., health, wellbeing, clean air, calm streets etc.) through sustainable low-carbon mobility solutions.

About the Series

In addition to convening and engaging diverse academic and non-academic actors in solutions-focused conversations, this workshop series will provide students involved with valuable skills and experience in interdisciplinary, community-based, equity-focused research and opportunities for professional development and networking in their field.

Accessibility Statement

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. To be respectful of those with allergies and environmental sensitivities, we ask that you please refrain from wearing strong fragrances. To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility for this event, please contact Emily Smit, emily.smit@utoronto.ca.

This event is invitation only. If you would like to attend this event, please contact Kim Slater, kim.slater@utoronto.ca.

The Suburban Mobilities Cluster at the University of Toronto Scarborough is a multi-disciplinary research program that draws on expertise across nine disciplines to tackle four suburban mobility challenges: rising suburban inequalities, improving transportation design and technology, increasing transportation impacts on climate change, emerging stakes on resilience to shocks.

Suburban Mobilities is part of the Mobility Network, a network of partners, in the community, in industry, and in government, who will collaborate to find mobility solutions that serve people’s well-being, the planet’s future, and the potential of our growing cities to flourish equitably, sustainably and productively.

As a pillar of the GTA-RISE institute, the cluster will develop an integrated UTSC approach to collaborative research, while leveraging faculty resources and university institutions across the tri-campus, such as the Mobility Network, The School of Cities, and the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute.

Agenda

9:30 a.m.      Welcome and Land Acknowledgement

• Steven Farber, Associate Professor, Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough. Director of Suburban Mobilities Cluster

9:40               Introduction: The cluster and the Scarborough Survey

• Ignacio Tiznado-Aitken, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough, Research Coordinator of Suburban Mobilities Cluster

10:05             Predictors of Transportation-Related Barriers to Healthcare Access

• Nicholas Spence, Assistant Professor, Department of Health & Society, University of Toronto Scarborough

10:30             Active travel among older adults in suburban contexts: A mixed-methods approach

• Alec Khachatryan, PhD student, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

10:55             Coffee Break

11:10             15-minute city in Scarborough

• Anton Yu, Master student, Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough

11:35             Relationships between accessibility and quality of life outcomes

• Joao Parga, PhD student, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

12:00 p.m.   The way forward: Future research with the Scarborough Survey

• Shaila Jamal, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough, Research Coordinator of Suburban Mobilities Cluster

12:25             Lunch and closing remarks

Download the Suburban Mobilities Cluster Day agenda.

Registration

Register on Eventbrite for this event.

Free. All are welcome.

If any specific accommodations are needed, please contact mobilitynetwork@utoronto.ca. Requests should be made as early as possible.

Explore the many ways mobility affects our lives at The Way Forward, a panel discussion series. Join the conversation!

All sessions take place online on Tuesdays from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and are free. Registration is required.

An introductory overview will be followed by short presentations, a moderated panel discussion, and audience Q & A. This event will be recorded and shared.

Interested in more The Way Forward sessions?

See the complete Spring 2023 schedule for The Way Forward.

Positive Zero Transport Futures and Mobility Network will host the Emerging Mobility Scholars Conference June 22-23, 2023 at the University of Toronto.

We invite graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across Canadian institutions to join us in person at the University of Toronto to exchange ideas and showcase your research relative to mobility and climate change.

The conference theme is:

Cause or Solution? Urban mobility in an era of climate emergency

Due to socioeconomic shifts and the need to achieve deep cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Canada will experience an unprecedented transformation in urban infrastructures, policy responses, and new technologies.

Nowhere is this truer than in the transportation sector, which is one of Canada’s largest GHG emitters and has historically been relatively impervious to change due to its extreme dependency on fossil fuels.

This transformation in our mobility systems needs not only to mitigate climate change but also enable community benefits in an equitable manner. It is crucial that efforts to decarbonize our urban areas be informed by the co-benefits of GHG reduction.

Conference topics

• Co-benefits of decarbonization
• Land use and transportation planning
• Technological response to climate change
• Equity and environmental justice
• Transportation and health
• Urban resilience planning
• Planning and politics of climate change
• Air pollution in a changing climate
• Climate extremes: Data and modelling

Call for Abstracts

• Abstracts to be 300 words or less.
• All abstracts must be submitted by March 10, 2023.
• Submit your abstract through the submission web portal or this QR code:

Visit our event post for more details.

Applications are now closed

Mobility Network is proud to host its 2023 summer school on the theme “Measure what matters: Urban mobility in an era of climate emergency.”

The summer school will take place June 20 and 21, 2023, at the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

About the summer school

The purpose of Mobility Network Summer School 2023 is to develop a roadmap for evaluating government investment in transportation infrastructure.

Working in teams, students will design a performance measurement framework to quantify the economic, climate, and societal impacts of transportation infrastructure investments and methods to quantify the measures they choose to include in their framework. Then, they will apply their measurement framework to a case study of a previous or planned transportation investment, for which funding may or may not be confirmed, to determine if the investment should proceed. Teams will draft policy briefs (200-300 words) that articulate in lay terms why their assigned project is a good or bad investment.

A set of short lectures will present methods to measure travel demand, economic impact, GHG emissions, and social impacts, among others.

A reading list of background materials will be provided in advance of summer school.

Instructors

• Professor Marianne Hatzopoulou, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
• Professor Daniel Posen, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
• Professor Laura Minet, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria
• Dr. Junshi Xu, Research Associate, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto

Syllabus and reading list

Download the Mobility Network Summer School 2023 syllabus.

Requirements

There is no cost to attend, but space is limited. Applicants must:

• be graduate students or postdoctoral fellows at a Canadian university;
• commit to attend the summer school from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on June 20, 2023, and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on June 21, 2023;
• submit an application;
• if accepted, bring their own laptops.

Schedule

Day 1: Tuesday, June 20, 2023

12:00 p.m.       Lunch and registration
12:45                Introduction: Prof. Marianne Hatzopoulou
1:15                  Brief presentations on case studies : Dr. Junshi Xu
2:00                  Guest speakers (30 min. each): Prof. Marianne Hatzopoulou, Prof. Daniel Posen, Prof. Laura Minet
3:30                  Breakout groups around each case study. Groups go over case studies together; Identify roles and prepare a plan for the development of the performance measures and quantification approaches.
5:00                  Groups report on chosen case study and proposed plan
5:30                  End of Day 1 program
6:00                  Welcome reception (optional) to 8:00 p.m.

Day 2: Wednesday, June 21, 2023

8:30 a.m.         Breakfast available
9:00                  Break-out groups identify a list of indicators that they believe are important, that can be measured, and which are relevant to their case study
10:45                Break-out groups develop methods for quantifying each indicator and identifying data needs
12:30 p.m.       Lunch
1:30                  Break-out groups estimate/guess the potential outcomes of the case study in terms of their indicator framework
3:00                  Break-out groups prepare a 200-word policy brief (a short summary of how their work can enhance the evaluation of the case study) and final presentations
3:30                  Groups report on work
4:30                  Completion of Summer School feedback survey
4:45                  End of Day 2

Applications are now closed

Mobility Network 2023 Summer School is fully subscribed, and applications are closed. We regret that capacity is limited.

Notification of results

Notifications confirming acceptance were be emailed to applicants on a rolling basis.

Emerging Mobility Scholars Conference 2023

We recommend that summer school participants also register to attend the Emerging Mobility Scholars Conference which directly follows Summer School on June 22-23 at the University of Toronto. Get the details and register (free). Abstract submissions close March 10.

Co-sponsor

Mobility Network Summer School 2023 is co-sponsored by Positive Zero Transport Futures, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto.

Questions?

Email us at mobilitynetwork@utoronto.ca.

Build more, pollute less: New academic-industry partnership to balance infrastructure needs with environmental integrity

U of T Engineering’s newest research centre will develop innovative ways to meet the urgent and growing need for infrastructure — without further exacerbating the climate crisis.

The Centre for the Sustainable Built Environment brings together seven researchers from across U of T, as well as a dozen companies in construction and related industries. The goal is to identify strategies that will lower the environmental footprint of new infrastructure across the board by reimagining how they are designed, where they are built and even what materials they are made of.

“In Canada, and around the world, we have a huge housing deficit, a huge infrastructure deficit — there’s a big social need to build much more than we have right now,” says Professor Shoshanna Saxe (CivMin), who holds the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Infrastructure.

“At the same time, construction resource use accounts for up to a third of total global greenhouse gas emissions each year, a problem that is getting worse. It’s been estimated that if we continue current ways of construction, by 2050 the emissions due to new housing alone will cause us to blow past two degrees of global warming.

“If we want to avoid that, let alone reach net zero by 2050, we need to find ways to do more with less.”

Saxe and her collaborators plan to approach this complex challenge from several different angles. Some efficiencies can be found by looking at where new housing is built, as well as what it looks like.

“The average person living in a city consumes fewer resources than the average person living in a suburb, because in a city you have more people per kilometre of sewer, road or electrical infrastructure. There are big rewards for well-designed cities,” says Saxe.

“The shape and types of buildings we build is also important. For example, Toronto has a lot of long skinny apartments, where a lot of the space is in the hallway. If we design differently, we can better use that space to provide more housing, or avoid it all together and save materials, emissions and cost.”

Saxe and her team have also shown that large concrete basements account for a high proportion of the emissions due to construction; building more of the structure above ground could improve the environmental bottom line. Other potential solutions involve alternative building materials, for example, new types of concrete that are less carbon intensive than those in common use today.

In addition to Saxe, the new Centre includes six other professors from across U of T with a wide range of expertise, from carrying out life-cycle analysis of construction projects to defining national carbon budgets. They are:

• Professor Evan Bentz (CivMin)
• Professor Chris Essert (Law)
• Professor Elias Khalil (MIE)
• Professor Heather MacLean (CivMin)
• Professor Daman Panesar (CivMin)
• Professor Daniel Posen (CivMin)

The multidisciplinary team will address issues well beyond the traditional bounds of engineering. For example, the team plans to explore the legal frameworks that translate established housing rights into practical built spaces.

“It’s absurd to say that the right to housing means that everyone has to live in a space the size of a closet,” says Saxe. “But it’s also absurd to expect everyone to have their own 3,500-square-foot house. Can we find a middle ground where everyone can live in dignity, without consuming in a way that threatens the planet?”

In addition to these professors, the partnership includes 12 external companies in the construction sector: Colliers; the Cement Association of Canada; Chandos Construction; Mattamy Homes; Northcrest; Pomerleau; Purpose Building, Inc.; ZGF Architects; Arup; SvN Architects + Planners; Entuitive; and KPMB Architects.

By working closely with this core group, Saxe and her collaborators aim to speed up knowledge translation, ensuring that the insights gained through their research can be applied in industry.

“The conversations we have with our partners can inform their design and construction, as well as the conversations they then have with their clients, raising everyone’s level of knowledge and awareness,” she says.

“We hope that by giving people — policymakers, designers and builders — the tools they need to address these challenges of building more with less emissions, we can improve outcomes across the built environment and create a more sustainable future for everyone.”

---

This story by Tyler Irving originally published January 16, 2023 at U of T Engineering News.

Professor Paul Hess of the Department of Geography & Planning was awarded the "2023 Equity Topics in Bicycle Transportation Paper Award" by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Bicycle Transportation Committee ACH20 for "Pandemic-time Bike Lanes in Three Large Canadian Urban Centres - Exploring Difference in Usage and Support among Socio-demographic Groups and Built Environment Types."

The award-winning paper was co-authored with Professor Raktim Mitra (Toronto Metropolitan University), Remington Latanville (PhD student, Toronto Metropolitan University), Professor Kevin Manaugh (McGill University), and Professor Meghan Winters (Simon Fraser University).

Professor Mitra announced the award in a tweet during TRB's 2023 Annual Meeting:

Look what I'm bringing back home from #TRBAM2023 ! Thank you Bicycle Transp committee (#ACH20 ) and Equity subcommittee for supporting our work! This means a lot to our team. @KManaugh @ChatrLab @TMUTransForm pic.twitter.com/Hmvm09gp92

— Raktim Mitra (@RaktimMitra) January 9, 2023

The paper is currently in process for publication. The authors have kindly shared the abstract below.

Pandemic-time Bike Lanes in Three Large Canadian Urban Centres- Exploring Differences in Usage and Support of New Facilities by Socio-demographic Groups and  Built Environment Types

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a window of opportunity leading to robust and fast implementation of bike lanes, and at the same time, an opportunity to study the effects of new cycling infrastructure. While an emerging literature has focused on the use of cycling infrastructure that resulted from pandemic-time street reallocation initiatives, not much is known about the differences in the use and support toward these bike lanes across various socio-demographic groups and between different urban environments. We explored this topic using data from an online survey of 2,078 Canadians residing in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver regions in Canada, collected in the summer of 2021. Results revealed that 45% respondents had used a bike lane at least once during the first year of the pandemic. In addition, 42% supported maintenance and enhancement of these facilities post-pandemic. Results from multinomial logistic regression show that women, and individuals with lower household income (<$ 100,000), and those with multiple cars, had lower odds of using the new bike lanes, indicating the benefits of bike lanes may not have been equitable across the society. Nuanced patterns in support toward bike lanes were also identified. Moreover, those who lived within 5 km of a bike lane, and those who perceived improved accessibility as a result of these facilities, had higher odds of both using them. All else being equal, there were significant regional variations in both use and support. The findings offer novel insights into where and among whom these facilities are less popular, which may inform future targeted policy efforts and advocacy.

We welcome Dr. Gaurav Mittal as a UTM Mobility Network Postdoctoral Fellow supervised by Professor Shauna Brail.

Gaurav comes from an interdisciplinary background. He completed his PhD in human geography at the National University of Singapore in 2021 with a prestigious President’s Graduate Fellowship. He also holds a master’s degree in urban policy and a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

He received the Prestige Prize for his PhD research from the World Conference on Transport Research Society in 2019.

Gaurav’s academic interests lie at the intersections of urban transport, policy mobilities, and governance. He brings these categories together to critically examine the role of the state in ordering urban societies.

He has more than six years of full-time research and professional experience and seven years of part-time teaching experience in India and Singapore.

Gaurav says that after working in the Global South context for quite some time, he is looking forward to working with University of Toronto researchers and “the opportunity to widen my horizons and learn more about how platform mobilities are functioning in the Global North context.”

My work engages with the study of biopolitics by explicitly investigating the governmentalities that shape material urban mobilities. It gets to the heart of ongoing urban planning and governance discussions and debates over social inequality and sustainable urban futures.

In some sense, we kind of think that the mobilities in North are different than South, but I think that there are many common things which can be explored between these “imaginary” boundaries – boundaries which have been created in the discourse of North and South.

I believe this opportunity will help me develop a comprehensive understanding of global urban transport governance and contribute to a more engaged North-South dialogue in mobilities research.

Dr. Gaurav Mittal

Positive Zero Transport Futures and Mobility Network will host the Emerging Mobility Scholars Conference June 22-23, 2023 at the University of Toronto.

We invite graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across Canadian institutions to join us in person at the University of Toronto to exchange ideas and showcase your research relative to mobility and climate change.

The conference theme is:

Cause or Solution? Urban mobility in an era of climate emergency

Due to socioeconomic shifts and the need to achieve deep cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Canada will experience an unprecedented transformation in urban infrastructures, policy responses, and new technologies.

Nowhere is this truer than in the transportation sector, which is one of Canada’s largest GHG emitters and has historically been relatively impervious to change due to its extreme dependency on fossil fuels.

This transformation in our mobility systems needs not only to mitigate climate change but also enable community benefits in an equitable manner. It is crucial that efforts to decarbonize our urban areas be informed by the co-benefits of GHG reduction.

Conference topics

• Co-benefits of decarbonization
• Land use and transportation planning
• Technological response to climate change
• Equity and environmental justice
• Transportation and health
• Urban resilience planning
• Planning and politics of climate change
• Air pollution in a changing climate
• Climate extremes: Data and modelling

Call for Abstracts

• Abstracts to be 300 words or less.
• All abstracts must be submitted by March 10, 2023.
• Submit your abstract through the submission web portal or this QR code:

Important dates

• February 9, 2023: Registration opens.
• March 10, 2023: Abstract submission deadline.
• April 10, 2023: Decisions on abstracts.
• June 20-21, 2023: Mobility Network Summer School 2023 "Measure what matters: Urban mobility in an era of climate emergency"
• June 22-23, 2023: Conference.

Register

Registration is now closed.

Sponsorship

Interested in sponsoring this conference? Please see sponsorship details on the Positive Zero website.

Conference Organizers

Co-Chairs

• Marianne Hatzopoulou, Director, Positive Zero Transport Futures, University of Toronto
• Eric Miller, Director, Mobility Network, University of Toronto

Organizing Committee

• Shayamila Gamage, Program Director, Positive Zero Transport Futures Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
• Junshi Xu, Program Director, Positive Zero Transport Futures Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
• Judy Farvolden, Managing Director, Mobility Network, University of Toronto
• Pat Doherty, Events & Communications Coordinator, Mobility Network, University of Toronto
• Khadija Butt, Educational Specialist, Mobility Network, University of Toronto
• Marc Saleh, PhD student, University of Toronto
• Shoma Yamanouchi, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
• Miranda Doris, PhD student, University of Toronto
• Jiaoyang Li, PhD student, University of Toronto
• Cynthia Dion, Research Administrator, McGill University
• Saba Sabet, PhD student, Toronto Metropolitan University
• Kimia Kamal, PhD student, Toronto Metropolitan University
• Elahe Sherafat, PhD student, Toronto Metropolitan University
• Megha Bisht, PhD student, University of Montreal
• Julien Vachon, PhD student, University of Montreal

Faculty Advisory Committee

• Scott Weichenthal, McGill University
• Greg Evans, University of Toronto
• Meghan Winters, Simon Fraser University
• Jeffrey Brook, University of Toronto
• Bilal Farooq, Toronto Metropolitan University
• Shoshanna Saxe, University of Toronto
• Audrey Smargiassi, University of Montreal
• Amir Hakami, Carleton University
• Patrick Hayes, University of Montreal
• Laura Minet, University of Victoria
• Daniel Posen, University of Toronto

Questions?

Please see the full conference details as available on Positive Zero's website, or contact positivezero.civmin@utoronto.ca with any questions.