Grant: Team Grant: Environments and Health: Intersectoral Prevention Research

How our cities are designed, including roads, houses, and neighourhoods influences how much physical activity people get. The design of our cities can also influence how much people participate in social activities and how good they feel about the where they live. As a society we spend very large amounts of money on building infrastructure for cities. For example, our federal government recently pledged $12 billion toward public transportation and sustainable development projects in Canadian cities in the next 2 years. The goals of our research project are to measure how designing healthy cities can influence physical activity and how much people participate in social activities. Another goal is to use and design tools, like mobile phone based apps, to measure how and where people move in their cities. Our team will evaluate four new infrastructure designs in four different Canadian cities. First, the Arbutus Greenway, a 9 km rail corridor that will become a continuous walking and cycling path in Vancouver, BC. Second, #Biketoria, a bicycle network plan in Victoria, BC, that will build a 5.4 km grid of protected cycle tracks downtown and a 24 km network across the city. Third, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a 22 km transit system along three major roadways in Saskatoon, SK. Last, the Montreal Community 2016-2020 sustainability plan, which includes urban form interventions, including traffic calming measures, transportation infrastructure and greening. Our team will also develop and refine smartphone apps to measure how people move through cities. These tools will include apps to measure physical activity and apps for interactive mapping of where people move in a city. Our team includes researchers who are experts in public health, geography, and urban planning. Our team also has the urban planners who are implementing the new infrastructure designs in each city.