Mapping accessibility to transform cities

Socio-economic disparities are often reflected in, and exacerbated by, inequities in access to transportation, green spaces, local services and general community safety. To address these issues, the CoLLaboratoire for Activating Multi-modal Mobility (CAMMM) research project developed Atlas, a digital platform used to analyze accessibility in urban settings and promote more equitable urban development.

The idea for the digital platform came from Carmela Cucuzzella, a professor and dean of the Faculty of Urban Planning at Université de Montréal. Developed with UdeM architecture professor Anne Cormier and Concordia University urban-planning professor Pierre Gauthier, the platform was initially meant to provide a better understanding of accessibility to public transit in different cities and neighbourhoods.

Today the project focuses on broader accessibility issues in urban centres. Development of the search-and-visualization tool is ongoing, thanks to Firdous Nizar, a PhD student in architecture at UdeM and Omar Ortiz Meraz, a PhD student in urban planning at Concordia University, both of whom have been involved in the project from the outset. The initiative has also received support from the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM).

Atlas was designed to be intuitive so that it could be used by a wide range of users, including researchers, urban planners and members of the public seeking answers to complex questions about their urban environment. For instance, the platform allows urban planners to quickly identify areas with poor transportation connections, while it can help prospective homebuyers determine which homes are located near essential services.

Analyzing the accessibility of transportation, services or even something as simple as pedestrian infrastructure reveals stark disparities between neighbourhoods. "If we consider accessibility in its broadest sense—access to grocery stores, green spaces, safe streets, or diverse transportation options—areas like the Plateau Mont-Royal or Mile End are clear frontrunners," said Cucuzzella. These neighborhoods offer easy access to essential services and a wide range of transportation options.

Then there are areas like Westmount, which despite their many parks and green spaces, have some unique challenges. "Westmount is built on a mountain. This definitely hinders walkability and makes it harder to access public transportation, such as the metro," explained Cucuzzella. These contrasts show how Atlas can be helpful for comparing urban characteristics at different levels: by neighborhood, city or region.

Each query generated by the platform delivers specific results, which allow for a detailed analysis of an area’s characteristics. "What's great about Atlas is that it paints a detailed picture of the differences between neighborhoods,” said Cucuzzella. “By combining the data from different queries, we'll eventually be able to build an overall spatial equity index.” This could lead to a better understanding of inequities in access to essential services, which could in turn inform measures to mitigate those inequities.

The CAMMM project makes use of open-data sources for its analyses. These include GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) files, which provide detailed descriptions of transit schedules and routes; maps from OpenStreetMap, an open-access collaborative database; and municipal and provincial data on infrastructure, urban density and neighbourhood characteristics. 

In the future, Cucuzzella’s team plans to add other indicators, such as average housing costs. "This type of information would provide insights on how economic and social dynamics affect spatial equity," she said.

The CAMMM project aims to influence urban-planning practices and policies by identifying which areas are the most under-served. This is an essential first step to reducing spatial inequalities and encouraging more equitable service distribution, the researchers believe.

Beyond that, their goals include getting government decision-makers and real-estate developers to work together to make urban infrastructure more inclusive, and raising public awareness of what their urban environment has to offer and how it could improve.

In a later phase, the rating and visualization tool may be able to generate a spatial equity index, a kind of composite indicator that captures service accessibility and quality within a city or neighbourhood.

"Although we're not there yet, the idea of a composite index is something we're seriously considering,” said Cucuzzella. “It would be a powerful way to raise awareness and provide information about the issues of equity and accessibility in our cities.”