Cities

Reimagining the curb: U of T alum helps cities design smarter streets

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 15:26:17 +0000

Reimagining the curb: U of T alum helps cities design smarter streets

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:26

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Marian Mendoza, who earned an honours bachelor of arts in geography and international relations at U of T, is among a new generation of city-builders using data and emerging technologies to build more inclusive and sustainable cities (supplied image)

David Goldberg

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Victoria College

Subheadline

Marian Mendoza is a product operations specialist at CurbIQ, a Toronto company that's helping cities wield data to better manage curbsides

For Marian Mendoza, curbsides aren’t simply where road and sidewalk happen to meet – they’re dynamic urban spaces with the potential to boost sustainability, inclusion and mobility.

An alum of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Mendoza is a product operations specialist at CurbIQ, a Toronto-based company that offers a digital platform to help urban centres gather information about curbsides and optimize their use.

“Cities are finally starting to see the value of this real estate and taking steps to make the most of it,” says Mendoza, who earned her honours bachelor of arts in geography and international relations in 2019 as a Victoria College member.

Curbside management has become increasingly important as curb use expands beyond vehicle parking to include bike lanes, patios and designated pickup areas for rideshares. Toronto, for example, has about 5,600 kilometres of curbside – a distance roughly equal to that between U of T’s St. George campus and Whitehorse, Yukon.

By providing cities with the tools to analyze real-time and historical data, CurbIQ helps municipalities and large urban institutions that manage roadways – such as universities and airports – make strategic, data-informed decisions to better optimize curbside space.

“A city can use CurbIQ to see that certain on-street parking spaces are underutilized,” says Mendoza. “And this could help decision-makers to consider converting those spaces into alternative curbside uses, such as a dedicated lane for transit or active transportation – improving accessibility and mobility in general for the city.”

CurbIQ digitizes curb regulations, integrates usage data from multiple sources and centralizes the information into a single platform (Image courtesy of Arcadis)

Since its founding in 2019, CurbIQ has had an impact in cities across Canada and around the world.

In Toronto, the platform facilitated the expansion of bike lane infrastructure on Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue, and helped identify potential patio sites for the city’s CaféTO program, which created curb lane patios for restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Edmonton, Alta. and Arlington County, Va., CurbIQ was used to optimize management of parking spaces.

And in Dublin, Ireland, CurbIQ mapped more than 30 kilometres of curbside, helping city staff and third-party vendors, such as delivery services, better understand curb usage patterns – reducing congestion, lowering carbon emissions and improving traffic flow.

“I’ve already noticed a shift in support from the public and private sectors for building our cities smarter, in ways that use technology to improve urban planning processes,” says Mendoza, noting digital tools like CurbIQ are essential to helping manage rising demand for housing, transit and curb space as cities and populations grow.

“But I’m a firm believer that technology doesn't replace human expertise; it just gives us the data and confidence to make better decisions.”

CurbIQ's platform has been used in cities across Canada and around the world (image courtesy of Arcadis)

Mendoza says the skills she developed at U of T have stood her in good stead as she establishes herself among a new generation of city-builders using data and advanced technology.

“U of T taught me to be curious, ask questions and develop strong research skills,” says Mendoza. “You’re free to ask any questions you want, and you have guidance from professors to explore and nurture your research interests.”

Mendoza’s work at U of T included an independent research project on multimodal transportation in Portland, Oregon, conducted under the mentorship of Michael Widener, chair and professor in the department of geography and planning. “As a student, Marian had a special talent for thinking through complex urban problems, their connections to both social and technical systems, and then charting a way forward,” says Widener.

“She always brought to class a wonderful mix of intellectual curiosity and positivity,” adds Don Boyes, a professor, teaching stream and associate dean, teaching and learning, who taught Mendoza in several courses. “It’s great to see her doing so well in her chosen field.”

In addition to the support of professors and peers, Mendoza is grateful for the numerous scholarships she received at U of T, which included the William G. Dean Scholarship in Geography Field Research.

“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities I had,” says Mendoza. “Scholarships gave me the freedom to explore a career path that wasn’t a straight line.”

U of T experts use machine learning to analyze where bike lanes should be located for maximum benefit

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:07:11 +0000

U of T experts use machine learning to analyze where bike lanes should be located for maximum benefit

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 10/23/2024 - 10:07

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Researchers from U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering used novel computing approaches to compare utilitarian and equity-driven approaches toward expansion of protected bike lanes (photo by Michelle Mengsu Chang/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Breaking Research

department of mechanical and industrial engineering

Artificial Intelligence

Cities

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Sustainability

Subheadline

“If you optimize for equity, you get a map that is more spread out and less concentrated in the downtown areas"

A team of researchers from the department of civil and mineral engineering in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering are wielding machine learning to understand where cycling infrastructure should be located in order to benefit the most people.

In a paper published in the Journal of Transport Geography, researchers used novel computing approaches to compare two strategies for expansion of protected bike lanes – using Toronto as a model.

“Right now, some people have really good access to protected biking infrastructure: they can bike to work, to the grocery store or to entertainment venues,” says post-doctoral fellow and lead author Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, who previously researched interactions between bacteria and viruses before applying her data analysis skills to active transportation. “More lanes could increase the number of destinations they can reach, and previous work shows that will increase the number of cycle trips taken.

“However, many people have little or no access to protected cycling infrastructure at all, limiting their ability to get around. This raises a question: is it better to maximize the number of connected destinations and potential trips overall, or is it more important to focus on maximizing the number of people who can benefit from access to the network?”

To delve into the question, Bonsma-Fisher and co-authors used machine learning and optimization, a challenge that required them to explore new computational approaches.

“This kind of optimization problem is what’s called an ‘NP-hard’ problem, which means that the computing power needed to solve it scales very quickly along with the size of the network,” says Shoshanna Saxe¸ associate professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering and one of Bonsma-Fisher’s two co-supervisors alongside Professor Timothy Chan of the department of mechanical and industrial engineering. “If you used a traditional optimization algorithm on a city the size of Toronto, everything would just crash.”

To get around the problem, PhD student Bo Lin invented a machine learning model capable of considering millions of combinations of over a thousand different infrastructure projects in order to test where the most impactful places are to build new cycling infrastructure.

Using Toronto as a stand-in for any large, automobile-oriented North American city, the team generated maps of future bike lane networks along major streets, optimized according to two broad types of strategies.

The first strategy, dubbed the utilitarian approach, focused on maximizing the number of trips that could be taken using only routes with protected bike lanes in under 30 minutes – without regard for who those trips were taken by.

The second, an equity-based strategy, sought to maximize the number of people who had at least some connection to the network.

“If you optimize for equity, you get a map that is more spread out and less concentrated in the downtown areas,” says Bonsma-Fisher. “You do get more parts of the city that have a minimum of accessibility by bike, but you also get a somewhat smaller overall gain in average accessibility.”

This results in a trade-off, says Saxe. “This trade-off is temporary, assuming we will eventually have a full cycling network across the city, but it is meaningful for how we do things in the meantime and could last a long time given ongoing challenges to building cycling infrastructure.”

Another key finding was that certain routes appeared to be essential no matter what strategy was pursued – for example, protected bike lanes along Bloor Street West.

“Those bike lanes benefit even people who don’t live near them and are a critical trunk to maximizing both the equity and utility of the bike network. Their impact is so consistent across models that it challenges the idea that bike lanes are a local issue, affecting only the people close by,” Saxe says. “Optimized infrastructure repeatedly turns out in our model to serve neighbourhoods quite a distance away.”

The team is already sharing their data with Toronto’s city planners to help inform ongoing decisions about infrastructure investments. Going forward, the researchers hope to apply their analysis to other cities as well.

“No matter what your local issues or what choices you end up making, it’s really important to have a clear understanding of what goals you are aiming for and check if you are meeting them,” says Bonsma-Fisher.

“This kind of analysis can provide an evidence-based, data-driven approach to answering these tough questions.”

Research project explores how urban agriculture can reduce emissions and increase access to food

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 18:37:29 +0000

Research project explores how urban agriculture can reduce emissions and increase access to food

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 09/19/2024 - 14:37

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Urban agriculture, including growing food on roof tops, may hold the key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing access to food in cities (photo by Don Campbell)

Topic

Subheadline

The $3.9-million TOsustain project brings together 15 researchers, including 11 from U of T, and partner organizations involved in food production, food distribution and land management

From raised garden beds under hydro corridors to apartment building roofs, researchers at the University of Toronto say urban agriculture may hold the keys to improving access to different types of food in large cities while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Urban areas have so much food-growing potential, but our knowledge about how, where and what kind of crops can be grown in and around cities is limited,” says Marney Isaac, a professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences and the department of global development studies at U of T Scarborough.

Marney Isaac takes measurements of soil carbon levels at the Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute (BCI) urban farm (submitted photo)

“We know even less about how well urban agriculture can capture and store carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is a major contributor to climate change.”

To help answer these and other questions, Isaac will lead a multifaceted project with a team of researchers and partners from the private and public sector called TOsustain (Toward Sustainable Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture for Net-zero Food Systems). It is being supported by a $3.9-million grant from the NSERC- and SSHRC-funded Sustainable Agriculture Research Initiative.

The first task is to create an inventory of current and potential land for agriculture in urban and peri-urban (the land immediately surrounding urban areas) spaces across Greater Toronto. This includes smaller farms and large-scale growing operations, public lands, hydro corridors, community gardens, green roofs and unused green spaces.

The project will also look at measuring the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions urban agricultural land can potentially trap and store and identifying farm management practices that can reduce GHG emissions. It will also include research that looks at regulations and policies that either constrain or promote urban agriculture, and develop a model to estimate GHG emissions from urban agriculture.

Isaac says there may be other benefits, too.

She points to the added security of having to rely less on food imports – not to mention the additional emissions created by the need to ship it around the world.

“The majority of our food is imported, so there’s a huge security element,” says Isaac, who is an expert on making agriculture more sustainable.

Postdoctoral researcher Lutchmee Sujeeun at the Black Creek Community Farm (submitted photo)

“This really came to light during the pandemic. If we can do more to localize food production and enhance crop diversity, it can help make our food system more resilient.”

The researchers also want to explore how sustainable agricultural practices – those that require less intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation – in urban areas can help reduce GHG emissions compared to conventional agricultural systems. Isaac adds that greater urban food production might also help reduce the pressure on converting forests to farmland in rural areas, a major environmental concern and contributor to climate change.

The project brings together an interdisciplinary team of 15 researchers, including 11 from U of T, with expertise in soil biogeochemistry, crop biology, microbial ecology and urban food systems, among others. It also includes eight partner organizations from the private and public sectors that are involved in food production, food distribution and land management.

Adam Martin, an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough’s department of physical and environmental sciences and project co-lead, says urban farming isn’t about replacing large-scale agricultural systems that supply wheat, for example. Rather, he says it can produce relatively large quantities of fruits and vegetables that can bring economic benefits to urban households.

Martin adds that improving access to food in urban areas has a host of positive downstream effects.

“Local food banks rely heavily on local small-scale farms and community gardens for fresh produce, and food bank use is on the rise,” he says, noting that many urban communities are located in so-called “food deserts,” where the cost of accessing certain food, particularly fresh produce, is much higher than in other communities.

“By increasing people’s access to nutritious and affordable food, it can go a long way in addressing these social and economic challenges.”

Hip-Hop and the City: Shad and Kofi Hope bridge hip-hop and urban studies in U of T course

mattimar — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 17:11:38 +0000

Hip-Hop and the City: Shad and Kofi Hope bridge hip-hop and urban studies in U of T course

mattimar Thu, 09/19/2024 - 13:11

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Kofi Hope, left, and Shadrach Kabango, better known as Shad, are teaching Hip-Hop and the City at U of T this fall (photo by Polina Teif)

Topic

Subheadline

The graduate course uses hip-hop music and culture as a lens to explore urban issues

Shadrach Kabango and Kofi Hope grew up immersed in hip-hop culture in the late 1990s, making music in basements, freestyling and participating in cyphers.

Today, Shad, as he is best known, is a Juno-award winning artist and rapper, while Hope is an academic and community advocate working with Black youth – and they’ve teamed up to share their knowledge via a new course at the University of Toronto called Hip-Hop and the City.

The graduate-level course is being offered by U of T’s School of Cities – a multidisciplinary hub at U of T for urban research, education and engagement – in collaboration with the Faculty of Music.

The course uses hip-hop music and culture as a lens to explore historical urban issues. It also examines how these issues shape cultural expression and how culture, in turn, shapes cities – all while providing a platform for students to develop innovative solutions to today’s urban challenges.

“We’re focused on giving folks the foundation,” says Hope about the course.

“So, what’s the origin of the culture? Where did it come from? How did it start to disseminate across the U.S.? And touching on how it went global. But there’s many parts of that story.”

Shad and Hope encourage students to bring their full selves to the class.

“The class will be a mix of music students and students from other disciplines – so this opportunity for mutual learning,” says Shad, who hosted Netflix's Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. “If people participate fully, I think it’s going to be really rich and special.”

Hope says there’s always something new to learn about the global phenomenon that is hip-hop.

“I’m hoping to learn about sub-communities and sub-genres of the culture that I'm not familiar with,” says Hope, an urbanist-in-residence at the School of Cities. “We can really help to build a greater understanding of this thing that now is beyond just being South Bronx culture.”

3D-printed soil? U of T startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 15:07:18 +0000

3D-printed soil? U of T startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/11/2024 - 11:07

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Leo Hua and Adnan Sharif show off fresh basil that was grown with Lyrata’s sustainable farming system at Toronto’s Casa Loma (photo by Liz Intac)

Topic

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Startups

Sustainability

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

With new installations at Casa Loma and U of T Scarborough, Lyrata is supplying freshly grown produce to local caterers and restaurants

A startup co-founded by a University of Toronto graduate student has its roots in an experience that is all too common for many of us.

He kept forgetting to water his plants.

“I was working in a plant immunity biology lab, so if I didn’t water them, I’d have no plants to do experiments with,” says Adnan Sharif, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

He says his solution was inspired by his father.

“My dad is a mechanical engineering professor at a university in Japan, and he knows a lot about manufacturing materials with porous, three-dimensional structures,” he says. “That’s how I got the idea to make my own 3D-printed soil construct, which could retain water for a week or more.

“That way, I wouldn’t have to go into the lab and water the plants so often.”

The innovation – which Sharif came up as an undergraduate working in the lab of Keiko Yoshioka, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science – is one of several that now underpins Lyrata, a startup that grows fresh produce for caterers and high-end restaurants across the Greater Toronto Area.

The company, which got its start in a greenhouse on U of T’s St. George campus, has recently expanded with operations at U of T Scarborough and Casa Loma, a museum, event space and historic site in midtown Toronto.

Growing plants without soil, known as hydroponics, is a technique commonly used in greenhouses worldwide. But Sharif and his team see an opportunity to make the industry more sustainable, starting with the soil replacement that the plants grow in.

“The product that almost everyone uses today is basically the same as house insulation,” Sharif says. “It’s made from rocks that are mined in remote places and shipped hundreds of kilometres to a production facility, where they are heated to thousands of degrees in a giant furnace to make a porous, chemically inert material. This material then needs to be shipped again to where it’s needed, and when you’re finished, you throw it in the garbage.”

By contrast, Lyrata’s SmartSoil is 3D-printed using biopolymers such as polylactic acid, which is derived from corn. These materials can be locally sourced and require much lower temperatures to melt and form into porous structures.

When the growing cycle is complete, the product goes through a low-heat proprietary cleaning process and can be used again. Sharif says that SmartSoil has a total lifespan of about two years, after which it can be composted along with crop residue. Together, these changes greatly lower the carbon footprint of indoor farming.

In 2020, Sharif and his co-founders brought his idea to The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, U of T Engineering’s startup incubator and one of several entrepreneurship hubs across U of T’s three campuses. Through the Hatchery’s Nest process, they were connected with business mentors, including alumnus Xavier Tang, a consultant and venture capitalist who still advises the company today.

Over the next few years, the team evolved, with some original members leaving and others joining. They include Leo Hua, who has been pivotal to speeding the development of 3D printable soil. The concept evolved, too, as the team realized that producing food was a better business for Lyrata than rather than selling their growth medium to other farmers.

The Hatchery team – in particular, Executive Director Joseph Orozco, Go-To-Market Lead Erika J. Murray and a team of work-study students, mentors and legal externs – helped Lyrata develop their technology and business. In 2022, the Hatchery provided $155,000 in seed funding, enabling the founders to be employed by their company and further supporting business development. The funding also enabled the company to rent greenhouse space on campus, where they began growing lettuce to provide to Spaces and Experiences at U of T.

Lyrata also developed something new: a modular unit that works exclusively with their SmartSoil and contains everything required to produce a variety of indoor crops – from lights and growth medium to irrigation systems.

“None of these technological and business developments would have taken place without the generous support of the over 50 Hatchery mentors, work-study students, and legal externs who contributed to our success,” says Sharif.

“Our current concept is what we call farming-as-a-service,” Hua adds. “The SmartGrow unit we developed is small enough to fit into a standard parking spot. Our clients sign a contract with us to place a unit on their site and we take care of everything from planting to harvesting.

“For a flat fee, they get a self-contained farm that provides a reliable quantity of their desired crop over a set period of time.”

In addition to providing a locally sourced, sustainable product, Sharif says the approach can also help mitigate fluctuations in the price of wholesale produce.

“In Canada, most of our lettuce comes from California, which has been dealing with drought and many other issues,” says Sharif. “Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 were also a big challenge for restaurants, which have very thin margins to begin with. At one point, the price of lettuce increased by a factor of six, so you can imagine the effect that would have.”

So far, Lyrata has produced more than 15 different types of crops, including basil, parsley and mizuna, also known as Japanese mustard greens.

Support from the U of T Engineering community has been key to Lyrata’s success.

For example, it was a U of T Engineering alumni connection that recently led to Lyrata launching an installation at the historic Casa Loma museum and landmark in Toronto.

“Lyrata’s competitive edge is that they provide an on-site, full service and they do not take up very much space,” says Nikol Watlikiewicz, Casa Loma’s horticulture and grounds manager. “In a small corner of our potting shed, we were able to build two grow units that provide a good yield weekly, without having to train our staff on the complicated system.

“Growing indoors gives us the stability and control that traditional agriculture does not. It’s an excellent example of how engineers can help solve the global food crisis with innovative thinking.”

In August, Lyrata launched another growing unit at U of T Scarborough, located within the Harmony Commons Dining Hall.

The priority for the next few years is growing Lyrata’s crop offerings and client base with ongoing support from The Hatchery. The incubator has facilitated graduate student placements through Mitacs, with matching funds. It also backed a recent $167,500 project with the Ontario and Canadian governments through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership program to further advance the yield and efficiency of the SmartSoil system.

“The fact we’ve been able to come this far in such a short time is in large part due to the help we’ve had from U of T Engineering, and especially the Entrepreneurship Hatchery,” says Sharif.

“Whether it was getting seed funding, finding mentors, hiring work-study students or making important connections through their alumni network, we wouldn’t be here without their support.”

More with less: Researchers map a more sustainable path to home construction in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:16:30 +0000

More with less: Researchers map a more sustainable path to home construction in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 07/31/2024 - 14:16

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(photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Breaking Research

Cities

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Graduate Students

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

Subheadline

From more multi-unit projects to fewer basements, a computer simulation shows that multiple building strategies will be necessary to address the country's housing affordability while meeting climate targets

Adopting the right mix of sustainable construction practices could allow Canada to meet its housing goals – as many as 5.8 million new homes by 2030 – without blowing past its climate commitments.

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Sustainable Built Environment (CSBE) developed a computer simulation that forecasts the emissions associated with new housing and infrastructure construction.

The work builds on previous CSBE research that showed that, in order for Canada to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets, homes built in 2030 will need to produce 83 per cent fewer greenhouse gases during construction than those built in 2018.

“There is an obvious tension between our commitment to reducing our emissions and the need to restore housing affordability,” says Shoshanna Saxe, an associate professor of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is the CSBE’s director.

“But that tension only exists because of our status quo approaches to housing. As our research shows, we can build 5.8 million homes and cut GHG emissions from construction – it’s just that we must build them differently than we have in the past.”

In their latest paper, the CSBE team built what they call the future infrastructure growth (FIG) model, which enabled the team to evaluate the effect of implementing various strategies that aim to lower these emissions.

“We built our model using open data from the roughly 50,000 neighbourhoods we currently have in Canada,” says Keagan Rankin, a PhD student who is first author of the new paper published in Environmental Science & Technology.

“We looked at aspects such as how many units there are per neighbourhood, what type of housing stock comprises them, what length of road services them, etc. We then used what we know about current construction methods to model what the embodied emissions would be if you built a given number of new homes in the future, using the same distribution of neighbourhood types.

“Once we had that, we were able to ask the question: how much could we reduce those emissions by adopting sustainable construction strategies, such as denser neighbourhoods or better building design?”

The team looked at five strategies that could be implemented to reduce emissions associated with housing construction:

Urban form: Analysis of existing neighbourhoods showed that emissions per unit are lower for those that contain more multi-unit buildings (either high-rise or low-rise) than they are for those that consist mostly of suburban, single-family homes. This strategy would involve a shift toward more of these multi-unit neighbourhood forms.
Higher infill rate: This refers to placing new housing in existing neighbourhoods – areas that are already built up. Because it reuses existing infrastructure, such as roads and water pipes, this new housing can be built with lower emissions than greenfield developments.
Circularity: This strategy involves re-using existing buildings or infrastructure in the construction of new ones. For example, renovating a single-family home to become a multi-unit dwelling would require fewer materials than razing it and starting from scratch.
Material technology improvements: Innovations in the way that materials such as concrete or steel are manufactured can reduce their carbon footprint. This strategy assumed that by 2030, our main construction materials will be produced with 20 to 25 per cent fewer emissions than today.
Best-in-class design: The team found that some housing designs were associated with lower emissions per unit, such as making the home smaller overall through better layouts. Another example involves the proportion of residential building that is underground. Since basements are typically made of carbon-intensive concrete, the same sized dwelling with a smaller basement would have lower emissions.

Multiple strategies will be required

Using the FIG model, the researchers showed that building housing at the rate required to restore affordability without any changes to construction practices would cause Canada to overshoot its climate commitments by 437 per cent.

However, if the above strategies are implemented, the FIG model suggests that they would in fact be able to reduce emissions to below the target level.

The model also showed that while all five strategies are needed to reach the target, some of them had a stronger effect than others. For example, changing urban forms and using best-in-class design together accounted for roughly two-thirds of the improvements needed. By contrast, the strategies of infill, circularity and improvements in manufacturing each accounted for roughly one-tenth of the changes needed.

The researchers found that for the next one to two decades, the most important elements of sustainable building will be designing better buildings and building denser neighbourhoods.

“The numbers are very close, and of course there’s a certain amount of uncertainty associated with all of these estimates, but it was good to see that we came in below the line, because it means the situation is not completely hopeless,” says Rankin.

“There’s no question that building 5.8 million homes by 2030 is an aggressive target. We may not get there, and if not, it would of course make it a bit easier to stay within our carbon budget.

“But we’ve done ambitious things as a country before, such as building a railroad from coast to coast in just five years. This analysis shows that the strategies we already know about are sound, and that all of them will be needed if we are going to prevent the worst impacts of climate change while also restoring housing affordability.”

U of T researcher’s data-driven platform aims to predict when emergencies will happen

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:02:23 +0000

U of T researcher’s data-driven platform aims to predict when emergencies will happen

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 03/22/2024 - 11:02

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(photo by Matthew Tierney)

Matthew Tierney

Topic

Our Community

Cities

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

Alberto Leon-Garcia is collaborating with Edmonton Fire Rescue Services and TELUS to support first responders in Alberta's second largest city

A University of Toronto researcher is working with Edmonton Fire Rescue Services and TELUS, through its Data for Good program, to predict when emergencies are likely to occur in Alberta’s second largest city.

The tool being developed by Alberto Leon-Garcia, a professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and the two partners leverages data to more efficiently allocate municipal emergency resources and help first-responders.

Leon-Garcia says many emergency events can be predicted because people’s behaviours tend to follow certain patterns.

“The pulse of the city is driven by people and their activity,” he says, “and their activity exhibits seasonality.”

Leon-Garcia’s platform uses data from 11 years of emergency calls, which provide the time and approximate location of each event as well as the type of emergency – house fire, medical emergency, traffic accident and so forth – in addition to other relevant data points.

“For the city of Edmonton, we look at the neighbourhood level, at demographics, land use, transportation capabilities, population density,” says Leon-Garcia. “We consider the timing of the events, how they vary by season, month, day of the week, hour.

“This can allow you to predict the rate of events in the vicinity of each fire station in the next week or month, for example. Right there, that’s a valuable input to resource allocation – how many trucks, how many people you assign and where.”

Creating the model required collecting the necessary data and then refining it so it was free from errors and standardized, possibly transformed or aggregated. Next, researchers needed to determine the most useful way to analyze it.

“Deep neural networks were not appropriate in this instance,” says Leon-Garcia, referring to the machine learning techniques behind such tools as ChatGPT. “You can try – and we did – but we did not have the volume of data to train a neural network.”

Instead, he turned to “well-established advanced analytics.”

The data analysis will generate various graphs, heat maps and other tables that display the type and mixture of emergency events that the model considers normal in and around Edmonton for a given time and place while taking into account variables such as weather.

By following events in real time and comparing them to what is anticipated, researchers can detect anomalies and potential vulnerabilities in the model.

“For example, one time we noticed that the fire event numbers in a neighbourhood didn’t correspond to the models,” says Leon-Garcia.

“It was later confirmed that an arsonist was active during that period.”

Over the years, Leon-Garcia has applied his predictive models to various road transportation systems, including in Toronto and the San Francisco Bay Area. He has also applied his anomaly detection systems to detect faults in computer networks and cyberattacks.

Given that each partner in such a project typically has its own goals and unique data collection processes, Leon-Garcia says it’s critical to take a collaborative approach.

“You can’t come in and say, ‘I have this neat platform, you have to change the way you do things,’” he says. “It doesn’t work that way. You have to pull together, factor in their long-term goals, their privacy concerns, their flexibility. They generally see the usefulness of the approach and [then] it’s more a question of how you get from here to there.”

Professor Deepa Kundur, chair of the electrical and computer engineering department, says Leon-Garcia has consistently demonstrated how data streams hold the key to creating smarter, safer cities.

“His partnership with Edmonton FRS and TELUS has the potential to greatly enhance life-saving initiatives and will, no doubt, serve as a catalyst for future collaborations.”

Academic collaboration rethinks urban freight logistics

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:38:58 +0000

Academic collaboration rethinks urban freight logistics

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/13/2024 - 13:38

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The City Logistics for the Urban Economy, or CLUE, research group seeks to address congestion, emissions and safety concerns surrounding urban freight logistics – all while ensuring an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens (photo by Rene Johnston/Toronto Star/Getty Images)

Selah Katona

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Our Community

Cities

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Sustainability

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The City Logistics for the Urban Economy (CLUE) research group - which involves three universities, government and private sector partners - aims to reshape the urban goods transportation landscape

An academic collaboration between 10 faculty researchers and more than 50 graduate students at the University of Toronto, McMaster University and York University is rethinking urban freight logistics.

The rise of e-commerce and home delivery, although convenient for consumers, has exacerbated challenges in urban freight logistics as the transportation and delivery industry continues to expand and freight emissions outpace those of passenger vehicles.

Led by Matthew Roorda, a professor in U of T’s department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, the City Logistics for the Urban Economy (CLUE) research group is focused on reshaping the landscape of urban goods transportation by addressing four main areas: congestion, emissions, safety concerns and the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens.

That includes examining the equity and environmental justice implications of the rise of e-commerce and home delivery.

“Questions around winners and losers in the transition from brick-and-mortar to delivery, as well as the distribution of emissions from delivery vehicles, are being explored,” Roorda says.

Since launching in 2020, CLUE's faculty researchers – along with 12 research sponsors, including federal, regional, non-governmental organization and industry partners – have worked on more than 24 projects.

Through their various research projects, CLUE aims to quantify the influence on the communities most impacted by freight logistics – particularly those living near highways and loading facilities.

Image outlining the impact of commercial vehicles in comparison to passenger vehicles across the Greater Toronto Area (image courtesy of Marianne Hatzopoulou)

Data collection and science also play a crucial role in CLUE’s research. The group is currently developing the Freight Data Warehouse, a repository for large data sets such as GPS traces of commercial vehicles, with the aim of enabling further research using this valuable data.

“The goal is to build visualization dashboards to provide insights into greenhouse gas emissions, traffic patterns and travel speeds, empowering policymakers and the public to make informed decisions,” says Roorda.

Various pilot projects have been successful outcomes of CLUE’s research, such as Purolator’s bike delivery initiative and an off-peak delivery project, which is providing data to guide the creation of a permanent Ontario program that relaxes noise bylaws for deliveries between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.

“We have seen impact of our off-peak delivery pilot project on government policy changes, such as allowing night-time deliveries across Ontario,” says Roorda.

To collect evidence of the impact of that change in policy, CLUE conducted community surveys after night-time deliveries were permitted to help assess the noise impact on residents and developed a freight transportation model to assess the greenhouse gas emissions impact.

CLUE also introduced a new truck driving simulator, where novice truck drivers can be trained to navigate extremely challenging urban areas safely while considering pedestrians and cyclists. The goal of this initiative is to enhance safety standards within the freight and logistics industry, another key research theme for the group.

“Everyone makes mistakes while driving, but when you’re driving a huge truck in the city, you need to drive perfectly or else you put people at risk,” says Roorda. “It’s a very challenging job.”

By proposing innovative solutions like new delivery models, curbside loading zone technology and lifting restrictions on late-night goods deliveries, CLUE seeks to make the goods movement network more efficient and less impactful on urban environments.

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 17:09:40 +0000

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/05/2024 - 12:09

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As part of a two-year research project, Ahmed Ilmi interviewed a group of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood (photo by Don Campbell)

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"I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity"

Ahmed Ilmi has witnessed firsthand the lack of inclusion and support for Black Muslim youth in the classroom – a topic he’s now exploring as a scholar at the University of Toronto.

An assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of global development studies at U of T Scarborough, Ilmi’s work looks at the ways early educational experiences can be linked to social exclusion and identity formation among Black Canadian youth in Greater Toronto.

For two years he conducted interviews with Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in the Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale, which is home to a large and vibrant Somali diaspora community. Ilmi says the interviews he conducted highlight the anti-Black racism and Islamophobia experienced in the community – and reveals how this group has built their own unique identity that differs from previous generations.

He adds that the neighbourhood’s youth have coined the unique term Say-Walahi, a fusion of English and Somali that loosely translates to “swear to God” – a term that hints at multiple identities as Canadian and Muslim of Somali descent.

Writer Jasmine Mahoro spoke to Ilmi about the project and what educators can do to better support Black youth.

What inspired you to take on this project?

My goal is to study how colonial education manifests itself within the classroom, in community settings and across society. I look at marginalized Black students and the influences on Black boys, especially, in the classroom. For my current work, there is a known concentration of Black Muslim youth of Somali descent in Rexdale and the community has had low education outcomes due to systemic challenges with white, Eurocentric education.

I was also thinking about who I am – in terms of belonging, exile, diaspora and identity. I came across this unique cultural location that is very fluid and dynamic, referred to as Say-Walahi. I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity.

What did you learn about the experiences of this community?

These youth are not sitting idly and waiting for their lives to pass them by. They are incredibly brilliant. They are resisting both racism and Islamophobia by building community and proudly expressing their identity. For example, it’s common to see them use Say-Walahi memes on social media, so they are proudly owning this.

My generation and previous generations didn’t share a similar experience. It's something very profound. This is where I argue this youth group is very creative. Not only did they navigate the multiple identities that they have in the world, but they were able to connect the dots to create a new way of speaking, articulating and being that is uniquely theirs.

What were your early experiences with education like in Canada?

We don’t push Black students to achieve their full potential through education. For me, I was lucky enough to have some educators and professors that would eventually inspire me. Early on, so many told me “No” – that it wasn’t going to happen. All it took was that one “Yes” for me to move forward and keep going. Unfortunately, being the only Somali-Canadian in the classroom is something that I had to live with for most of my academic career.

How can educators and the school system better understand and address the complex challenges faced by Black Muslim youth?

Although the youth I interviewed were all born here in Ontario, their identities are seen as foreign. It's not even a question of where you were born or where are you from, it's that their identities are not seen as Canadian.

At the moment, the school system we have is molded around a particular kind of identity that is white and European. When you don't fit into that mold, it's as if your identity is an afterthought. That doesn't give you much inspiration to become productive members of society. There are also low expectations of Black students. If the beginning of the conversation comes from a place of Black brilliance, then we can think about creating and constructing classroom spaces that foster Black excellence.

What impact do you hope your current research will have?

I hope this will inspire people to think about their own identity. I want educators to think about how they can reach and inspire these youth and believe in their potential.

There are also policy implications, such as creating more inclusive classrooms built around a multiplicity of identities. It also goes beyond how we fit in the overall Black Muslim African experience that is expressed only during specific times such as Black History Month. It includes looking at ways to validate and uplift these voices consistently and how we can work with that knowledge to transform society.

U of T prof makes disability and accessibility research his life's work

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 20:45:34 +0000

U of T prof makes disability and accessibility research his life's work

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/09/2024 - 15:45

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Ron Buliung, a professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of geography, geomatics and environment, says his research aims to “just make things work” for people with disabilities and their families (photo by Romi Levine)

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Ron Buliung dedicated his professional life to studying disability – and the experiences of people with disabilities – after his daughter was born with a genetic neuromuscular disease

When Ron Buliung’s youngest daughter was born, it changed his life both as a parent and as a researcher.

She was born with spinal muscular atrophy type 2, a genetic neuromuscular disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and requires her to use a wheelchair.

Since then, Buliung, a professor of geography, geomatics and environment at the University of Toronto Mississauga, has made disability and accessibility research his life’s work.

“It took me a while to process what was happening in my family,” he says. “I then decided I wanted to dedicate my professional life to disability study and the experiences of disabled persons in cities. Since I made that commitment, I haven’t really looked back.”

Over the years, Buliung has delved into disability and accessibility issues. One of his projects focused on food insecurity for people living with disabilities. He found that people with disabilities face both physical and economic barriers to accessing food – putting them at greater risk of food insecurity.

“That research was very timely, given the pandemic and subsequent rise in food prices,” says Buliung, who also teaches at the St. George campus. “The problems we identified in that work have been exacerbated by current conditions.”

Much of his research is motivated by his experiences as a father, as outlined in a recent article for the academic journal Disability and Society. For example, when his daughter started school, he felt frustrated as he watched her face physical barriers to school transportation – an experience shared by many other parents and caregivers of children with disabilities.

In a research project, he and graduate students found that young learners with disabilities face excess travel time to school, and early departure times at the end of the day, which can result in unacceptable levels of missed classroom time and peer interaction. 

“We questioned the ways in which transportation can be both an enabler and barrier to access to education,” Buliung explains.

He also dug into disability and pedestrian injury research, finding that people with disabilities have a significantly higher risk of pedestrian collisions, injuries and fatalities. He wanted to study this issue after walking in Toronto’s The Junction neighbourhood with his daughter and noticing the hazards she faced as a pedestrian.

“I noticed her position and height, relative to parked cars, and the pedestrian countdown signal buttons,” he says. “Her visibility is an issue when she’s sitting in her power wheelchair and she was the height of a four- or five-year-old. If she was hit, all of her vital systems were in the path of a vehicle.”

Looking ahead, Buliung says he’s interested in studying the effects of climate change on people living with disabilities – for example, the barriers they face when they must evacuate due to extreme events like wildfires.

“If you look at the casualty figures of extreme weather events, you’ll find a disproportionate representation of elderly and disabled persons. It’s terrible, and unnecessary,” he says. “If you think about the pace of the recent fire in Maui ... the fire swept through so quickly – imagine trying to remove yourself if you have a mobility challenge.”

Buliung was recently named a Distinguished Professor in Geographies of Disability and Ableism for a five-year term. He joins two other U of T Mississauga faculty members – Kent Moore of the department of chemical and physical sciences and Robert Gerlai of the department of psychology – in the latest cohort of the program.

Buliung describes the designation as a “very big deal” for his research focus.

“This designation is honouring the subject matter of the work, and bringing maybe a bit more attention to disabilities in cities and the academy,” he says.

Over the next five years, he hopes to study the experience of siblings (with disabilities and/or without) of children with disabilities – a topic that is personally meaningful and aligns with his multidisciplinary approach to work.

As the father of three, he thinks about the experiences of all his children. 

“There is more work to be done looking at how siblings, parents, other family members and outside care workers relate to one another and disability within a family or household,” he says. “There can be some challenges around the disproportionate amount of time that can be associated with engaging in care work for one child.”

Buliung ultimately hopes his research will draw attention to important issues and ultimately create changes that will make people’s lives easier.

“The idea behind my research is: let’s just make things work. Let’s try to shape things in such a way that people who are disabled and their families have to do less work to basically access the same kinds of things that many other people do.”