Urban Planning 2024

URBP 001: Measuring the impacts of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) on travel behaviour and health; (El-Geneidy)

Professor Ahmed El-Geneidy

ahmed.elgeneidy [at] mcgill.ca
514-661-3995
https://tram.mcgill.ca/About/news3.html#gsc.tab=0

Research Area

Transportation

Description

In 2016, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) announced plans to build the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), a state-of-the-art, fully automated 67-kilometer light-rail network that will fundamentally reshape transport in areas on and off the island of Montreal. When complete, the $6.3 billion project will link numerous suburbs and Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport to downtown with frequent, high-speed rail service, that is universally accessible, altering travel and land-use patterns throughout the region for various groups of population. These changes are likely to have impacts on the health, social, economic, physical, and psychological well-being of all Montreal residents for the coming decades. The first branch, connecting Montreal's South Shore, is expected to open in 2022, with additional segments coming online in 2023 and a final opening in 2024 for the full system. As one of the most ambitious and costly public transport projects in Canada in decades, the REM provides a unique opportunity to gauge the impacts of the types of major public endeavours that will become increasingly common and necessary as governments seek to decarbonize the transport sector. The REM's rapid advancement will allow us to pursue a comprehensive "before, during, and after intervention research design to rapidly distill key lessons for future projects in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada. As part of research, we are collecting multiple waves of built environment data at the street level in a 1000-meter area around all future REM stations to understand the current level of accessibility and walkability around the network. Data will be used to monitor changes in the built environment over time around the stations as well as to provide policy recommendations for the REM and other transportation projects of various scale across Canada on beneficial practices in the implementation of accessible and walkable public transit stations. These insights will prove immediately valuable for cities where small and large transport infrastructures are currently being studied or proposed. Interested students should send a cover letter, a resume, and unofficial transcript.

Tasks per student

-Data analysis in R
-Data collection
-Report writing
-Work on academic papers
-Meet with knowledge users

 

Deliverables per student

Report
Policy Briefs
Academic papers

Number of positions

3

Academic Level

Year 2

Location of project

in-person

URBP 002: Spaces of Night Care; (Kramer)

Professor Anna Kramer

anna.kramer [at] mcgill.ca
514-829-4537

https://www.mcgill.ca/night-time-design/

Research Area

Architecture/Urban Design

Description

Night studies and the exploration of the urban night is an emerging field of interdisciplinary study. Night can be conceived as not only a time, but also a space that has its own set of residents, visitors, and workers. Night studies can also expand the scope of social justice in the city from spatial concerns to temporal ones. Who has the right to the city at night? The goal of this project is to examine different spaces of night care by building a repertoire of case studies to be published on a website. This research investigates what kinds of amenities, spaces, and services are available to meet the needs of people at night and explores innovative approaches for including different communities with different needs. The inventory of case studies will feed into the themes of each of the projects years including public sleep and the concept of sleep equity; the animated night and spaces of LGBTQ+ nightlife and care; and night movements which examines spaces of activism and protest.

Tasks per student

1. Identify cases through literature review and web-based search 2. Write up summaries of cases 3. Conduct interviews with service providers, designers, and architects 4. Record and edit audio and video of interviews 5. Transcribe interviews 6. Visualize information provided through interviews 7. Update research website with findings.

 

Deliverables per student

Each student will compile, write up, and visualize international case studies and update the research website with findings.

Number of positions

2

Academic Level

No preference

Location of project

in-person

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