The Equity Implications of Highway Development and Expansion: Four Indicators

ABSTRACT: Highway development and expansion target peak period travel where congestion is more important. We show that investments in roadways made to reduce traffic congestion lead to inequitable benefits. This is because fewer low-income workers and low-income travelers travel by car and at peak times due to their job scheduling and activities. Also, travelled distances of low-income workers are generally shorter so that benefits of flow improvements are more modest. As such, congestion mitigation disproportionally advantages higher-income groups in terms of travel speed and time. While urban planning and environmental protection are important reasons to avoid roadway expansion, resulting inequities are rarely documented and considered

Accessibility, equity, and the journey to work

Inequality in transport provision is an area of growing concern among transport professionals, as it results in low-income individuals travelling at lower speeds while covering smaller distances. Accessibility, the ease of reaching destinations, may hold the key in correcting these inequalities through providing a means to evaluate land use and transport interventions. This article examines the relationship between accessibility and commuting duration for low-income individuals, compared to the general population, in three major Canadian metropolitan regions, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver using multilevel mixed effects statistical models for car and public transport commuters separately. Accessibility measures are generated for jobs and workers both at the origin (home) and the destination (place of work) to account for the impact of competing labor and firms. Our models show that the impacts of accessibility on commuting duration are present and stronger for low-income individuals than for the general population, and the differences in impact are more visible for public transport commuters. The results suggest that low-income individuals have more to gain (in terms of reduced commute time) from increased accessibility to low-income jobs at the origin and to workers at the destination. Similarly, they also have more to lose from increased accessibility to low-income workers at the origin and to low- income jobs at the destination, which are proxies for increased competition. Policies targeting improvements in accessibility to jobs, especially low-income ones, by car and public transport while managing the presence of competition can serve to bridge the inequality gap that exists in commuting behavior.The work was partially funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The authors would like to thank Gillaume Barreau for the car travel time and distance information provided for each city and Robbin Deboosere for the transit travel time and distance information as well as developing the accessibility measures by car to jobs

Will you ride the train? A combined home-work spatial segmentation approach

ABSTRACT: While the influence of land use and transport networks on travel behavior is known, few studies have jointly examined the effects of home and work location characteristics when modelling travel behavior. In this study, a two-step approach is proposed to investigate the combined effect of home and work location characteristics on the intent to use a new public transport service. Using data from the 2019 Montreal Mobility Survey (n=1698), this study examines the intent to use the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM), a light rail under construction in Montreal, for commuting. A segmentation analysis is first conducted to characterize commuters based on their home and work location characteristics, resulting in six distinct home-work clusters. The clusters are then included in an ordered logistic regression modelling the intent to use the REM, along with socio-economic and attitudinal characteristics. Results from a dominance analysis reveal that the clusters are the third most important determinants of the intent to use the REM, even when controlling for individual characteristics. The addition of the clusters leads to a significant improvement of the model (likelihood of -2388.9 improved from -2400.7, p-value < 0,05). All other clusters have a significantly lower probability (between 32 and 51% less likely) of intent to use the REM than the typical commuters (who commute from the suburbs to downtown, often by transit), at a 95% confidence interval. These findings underscore the implications of pursuing radial public-transport networks, illustrating the ability of the proposed approach to identify which groups are likely to benefit from a public-transport project and to propose recommendations anchored in joint home and work location patterns

Réalisation d'un portrait des besoins et des habitudes de déplacements des personnes vivant en situation de précarité dans la région de Montréal

Dans le cadre de la révision de documents de planification, la Ville de Montréal et l'Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) se sont mobilisées afin de mieux comprendre les questions d’inégalités sociales et d’équité en matière de mobilité quotidienne. C’est dans ce cadre d’évolution des politiques et stratégies d’aménagement et de planification que ces deux entités ont voulu produire un portrait détaillé des liens entre défavorisation, lieux de résidence et d’emplois et mobilité quotidienne. Ces démarches doivent être mises en oeuvre dans un contexte de planification coordonnée du développement du territoire et des réseaux de transport. Ce rapport vise donc à faire avancer ces dossiers de manière à : 1. documenter le portrait, les besoins ainsi que les habitudes de déplacements des personnes vivant en situation de précarité dans la région de Montréal; 2. identifier les obstacles et les leviers relatifs à l’utilisation des transports collectifs et actifs; et 3. évaluer comment le développement de l’offre de mobilité peut répondre aux besoins de cette population et permettre d’améliorer les conditions de déplacements des citoyens, particulièrement en utilisant des modes collectifs et actifs. Les principales sources de données mises à profit pour atteindre ces objectifs sont les données de l’Enquête Origine-Destination de 2013 et les données du recensement de 2016

Testing a new mobile application to study public spaces

ABSTRACT: There is growing interest in the study of the use of streets and adjacent public spaces. This paper highlights a case study conducted at a public square in Montreal. The objective is to evaluate a mobile data collection tool developed for the study of public spaces and its performance, while characterizing the use of the space. To do so, five observers made over 1200 unique observations. The analysis shows the variability between observers differs according to the observed variable and nearly 4 % of the clicks were made to correct an erroneous input

I only get some satisfaction: Introducing satisfaction into measures of accessibility

Improving accessibility is a goal pursued by many metropolitan regions to address a variety of objectives. Accessibility, or the ease of reaching destinations, is traditionally measured using observed travel time and has of yet not accounted for user satisfaction with these travel times. As trip satisfaction is a major component of the underlying psychology of travel, we introduce satisfaction into accessibility measures and demonstrate its viability for future use. To do so, we generate a new satisfaction-based measure of accessibility where the impedance functions are determined from the travel time data of satisfying trips gathered from the 2017/2018 McGill Transport Survey. This satisfaction-based measure is used to calculate accessibility to jobs by four modes (public transport, car, walking, and cycling) in the Montreal metropolitan region, with the results then compared to a standard gravity-based measure of accessibility. We then offer a dissatisfaction index where we combine the ratio between satisfaction-based and gravity-based accessibility measures with mode share data. This index highlights areas with potentially high proportions of dissatisfied commuters and where interventions for each mode could have the highest impacts on the quality of life of a given mode commuter. Such analysis is then combined with a vulnerability index to show the value of this measure in setting priorities for vulnerable groups. The study demonstrates the importance of including satisfaction in accessibility measures and allows for a more nuanced interpretation of the ease of access by researchers, planners, and policy-makers.This research was funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We would like to thank the McGill Campus Planning and Sustainability Office for their support with the 2017/2018 McGill Transport Survey. Daniel Schwartz provided technical support, for which the authors are very grateful. We would also like to thank the McGill community for their participation in the survey, Guillaume Bareau for provision of the Google API, and Robbin Deboosere for generating public transport travel times

Walking Accessibility to Parks: Considering Number of Parks, Surface Area and Type of Activities

RÉSUMÉ: Parks and green spaces are desirable destinations for diverse reasons including exercising, playing, relaxing, and socializing. In this paper, we demonstrate that simultaneously considering number of parks, surface area and type of activity provides an improved understanding of walking accessibility to parks in urban areas. Using open datasets and a configurable tool, we find that in Montreal, 95% of the population have access to three or more parks, 83% can access 3 or more playgrounds, and 10% can access 3 or more open air activities within a 1 km walk. The accessible surface area varies considerably across the region. The tool reveals distinct patterns that better reflect the diversity of needs and uncovering specific inequalities, and can therefore contribute to improved decision-making

Understanding and responding to the transit needs of women in Canada

The historical practices of transportation planning are known to be gender-neutral and as a result have marginalized the experiences of a large sub-section of the population, namely women. Identifying the motives behind women’s travel behaviours works to inform equitable data collection methods, transportation planning, and public transit policy. Correspondingly, understanding how public transit services and policies (curated with gender-neutral data and transportation planning principles) impact women’s travel can reveal barriers to public transit usage. An inductive literature review of Global North grey and academic documents regarding women’s travel behaviour (mode choice, travel route, time of travel and distance) and needs was conducted. The synthesis reveals that gender roles which lead to disparities in caregiving, income, employment, and security result in women being more likely (as compared to men) to complete trip chains, mid-day or off-peak trips, and shorter distance trips. A systematic policy review of 18 public transit systems from Canada’s eight largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and a webinar discussing public transit policy with female industry leaders reveals that the majority of public transit systems assessed do not explicitly account for gender differences when drafting actionable policy, service standards and data collection methodology. The identification of opportunities for gender inclusivity informs future research and policies regarding women’s travel. Applying a gender lens to the creation of service standards, the introduction of new public transit technologies, the collection of real-time data, the creation of customer satisfaction surveys, and the evaluation of business cases and planning processes can result in the equitable consideration of women’s travel needs in public transit service and delivery

Urban access across the globe: an international comparison of different transport modes

ABSTRACT: Access (the ease of reaching valued destinations) is underpinned by land use and transport infrastructure. The importance of access in transport, sustainability, and urban economics is increasingly recognized. In particular, access provides a universal unit of measurement to examine cities for the efficiency of transport and land-use systems. This paper examines the relationship between population-weighted access and metropolitan population in global metropolitan areas (cities) using 30-min cumulative access to jobs for 4 different modes of transport; 117 cities from 16 countries and 6 continents are included. Sprawling development with the intensive road network in American cities produces modest automobile access relative to their sizes, but American cities lag behind globally in transit and walking access; Australian and Canadian cities have lower automobile access, but better transit access than American cities; combining compact development with an intensive network produces the highest access in Chinese and European cities for their sizes. Hence density and mobility co-produce better access. This paper finds access to jobs increases with populations sublinearly, so doubling the metropolitan population results in less than double access to jobs. The relationship between population and access characterizes regions, countries, and cities, and significant similarities exist between cities from the same country