Mobility in Mississauga - Improving performance metrics

NRU
Nov. 19, 2014
By Edward LaRusic

If Mississauga wants to improve planning and mobility in the city, it has to bring in socio-economic and demographic data into the equation, say a group of UofT planning students.

Five second-year graduate students from University of Toronto’s planning program are creating indicators that can help gauge the success and failures of city-led interventions for improving mobility and accessibility in Mississauga. Their client, the City of Mississauga transportation and works department, has engaged the students as part of a UofT planning workshop.

Transportation and works department strategic advisor Hamish Campbell said there is a trend across the public sector for better performance metrics, to ensure a city like Mississauga is achieving the outcomes it sets out to achieve.

“We heard anecdotally that other cities were doing very tactile kinds of performance measurement research. I thought it would be an interesting project for a group of students to do an environmental scan, look at what’s out there and what the best practices are in other municipalities.”

Desi Simova, who spoke to NRU on behalf of the student group, said that they found that the city tracks a lot of singular variables, such as the length of cycling routes. However, more multi-dimensional composite measures are required given the complexity of cities.

“Rather than just looking at length of cycling routes, we should look at the proportion of low-income or vulnerable groups that are within a certain distance of these routes,” Simova said. “The city also looks at density around transit station areas, but it doesn’t break apart that density in terms of socio-economic or demographic variables.”

Simova added that the city’s reliance on singular variables can result in misleading conclusions. She gave the example of how the relationship between residential units and a mall can change based on whether there’s a barrier in the way, despite being physically close.

“The proximity between different land uses and transit stations is oft en tracked, but the quality of that proximity, such as whether there is a huge barrier in the way isn’t something that is general considered.”

The group is currently working with 10 to 15 indicators that measure mobility and accessibility, although the list has not yet been finalized.

Examples of the group’s proposed indicators include the proportion of low-income residents, children, seniors and visible minorities within 400 and 800 metre buffers of transit infrastructure, the proportion of households without a motor vehicle, the proportion of female cyclists, and before and after metrics of new developments to measure the impact of interventions such as higher order transit.

The students are also delivering research and data collection strategies to help the city improve its monitoring methods. One of the more surprising findings for Simova and her group is that there isn’t regular monitoring in place which municipalities in Mississauga could rely on.

“A lot of monitoring, especially in GTHA municipalities, is very ad hoc, done for very specific studies and master plans, but it isn’t done on a regular basis... It’s surprising as a planner, you think these things would be more institutionalized.”

While this project was specific to Mississauga, Simova believes the indicators they will ultimately deliver will be applicable to other cities across the Greater Toronto Area.

Along with Simova, the Measuring Mobility: Transportation performance metrics in Mississauga group includes Daniel Arancibia, John Kemp, Jason Rust and Steven Torkos.

This project and five others will be presented November 24 at Metro Hall in Toronto from 4 to 8 p.m. in room 314. The others encompass a broad spectrum from Planning and the Politics of Land Budgeting, to InteRACtive Spaces: Exploring tower renewal through RAC zoning, Not Zoned for Dancing: A Comprehensive review of entertainment uses in Toronto, Social Cohesion in Contested Space: A neighbourhood integration framework for Regent Park and Beyond Mobility: An Eco-Neighbourhood vision for Mount Dennis.