Abstract Manager

Embedding accessibility, equity, and inclusion in transportation policies and transit planning requires types of data that are often not collected in traditional transportation surveys or available to practitioners. Traditional transportation surveys measure when and how people travel, for example to work, school and other important destinations. However, these surveys rarely measure the day-to-day transportation challenges that residents face, or the barriers that prevent people from traveling where they want to go. Traditional travel surveys also fail to measure the trips people want to make but cannot, whether due to a lack of time, money, or other constraints. These omissions mean that planners are making decisions about the future of our cities without accounting for the full set of impacts that transportation has on our lives. This presents a major gap in our ability to ensure an equitable and inclusive urban future.  

In this presentation, we introduce findings from a national survey of over 27,000 Canadians aimed at overcoming this data gap to demonstrate the ways transportation practitioners could use these data to embed accessibility, equity, and inclusion in transportation policies and transit planning. The survey was conducted by Mobilizing Justice, a multi-sector research partnership based at University of Toronto Scarborough and encompassing Canadian universities, government agencies, transportation companies, and non-profit organizations. Data were collected from 41 CMAs as well as non-CMAs within each province. This allowed documenting the barriers and constraints that Canadians face in their daily travel and their preferences and aspirations for transportation options in their communities. The survey also gathered rich demographic data often excluded in traditional travel surveys, allowing to understand the mobility challenges people from different walks of life face.  

The presentation will discuss the logic of the survey and the key survey modules, as well as the core findings and the ways these can be used for incorporating equity in transportation planning. The main portion of the presentation will be dedicated to discussing how to access publicly available segments of the data and the types of outcomes that can be generated by the survey. Specifically, the presentation will demonstrate the types of insights that practitioners can develop around accessibility, transport poverty, and travel barriers. The survey data provide practitioners with valuable tools for generating necessary evidence for supporting equity considerations in future transportation planning and investments.