Mapping accessibility to transform the city

Unequal access to transport, green spaces, local services and urban safety often reflects and aggravates socio-economic disparities. The CAMMM Project Atlas (Mapping Accessibility, Mobility and Multimodality) addresses these questions by offering a digital platform dedicated to the analysis and promotion of more equitable urbanization.

Designed and implemented by Carmela Cucuzzella, professor and dean of the Faculty of Planning at the University of Montreal, this project was born with the collaboration of Anne Cormier, professor at UdeM, and Pierre Gauthier, professor at Concordia University. The initial goal was to understand the accessibility of public transportation in cities and their neighborhoods.

The project now focuses on broader accessibility issues in cities. Doctoral student in architecture at the University of Montreal Firdous Nizar and doctoral student in urban planning at Concordia University Omar Ortiz Meraz have participated in the project since the beginning and continue to ensure the development of the research and visualization system. This tool also benefits from the support of the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority.

Designed to be intuitive, the Atlas allows various users – researchers, urban planners, residents – to answer complex questions about their urban environment. An urban planner can, for example, quickly identify areas poorly served by transportation, while a resident can explore housing offers based on proximity to essential services.

Visualizing disparities and inequities in cities

The CAMMM Project Atlas is a digital platform designed to analyze and visualize complex city data in a simple way. The data currently available concerns the cities of Montreal, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke and Gatineau.

The Atlas organizes information into three levels of analysis:

1. Neighborhoods: in these geographic units it is possible to assess general living conditions, such as access to transport, green spaces and essential services.
2. Mobility hubs: these strategic centers connect different means of transport and play a key role in urban connectivity.
3. Access points: these precise locations, such as metro stations or bus stops, are analyzed for their contribution to spatial equity.

The Atlas takes into account several dimensions to estimate and compare spatial equity between territories. It analyzes multimodal accessibility by examining public transport provision, cycling networks and pedestrian facilities. Thus, the Dollard-Des Ormeaux–Roxboro district, which does not have a metro station or train station, is rated 2 out of 10 for its multimodality, which suggests strong potential for expansion.

The Atlas also incorporates proximity to services by measuring how far residents are from essential services such as grocery stores, clinics and schools. The size of green spaces is also examined, including their availability, accessibility and vegetation cover in neighborhoods. Finally, the Atlas estimates universal accessibility by ensuring the compliance of facilities intended for people with reduced mobility in order to guarantee inclusive environments.

Measuring urban accessibility

The analysis of accessibility, whether it concerns transport, services or simply the movement of pedestrians, reveals marked disparities between urban neighborhoods. “If we consider accessibility in its broadest definition – access to grocery stores, green spaces, security or diversified mobility – sectors like Le Plateau-Mont-Royal or Mile End stand out as their high accessibility,” underlines Carmela Cucuzzella. These neighborhoods benefit from proximity to essential services and a varied range of means of transportation.

On the other hand, areas like Westmount, despite their numerous parks and green spaces, present particular challenges. “Westmount is built on a mountain. Access to pedestrian facilities and public transport such as the metro is more difficult,” declares the professor. These contrasts show the interest of the Atlas, a tool capable of comparing urban qualities at various scales: district, city, even region.

Each query submitted to the Atlas provides results that allow the characteristics of a territory to be analyzed in detail. “The strength of this tool is that it offers a detailed understanding of the differences between neighborhoods. By combining the data from the queries, we will eventually be able to develop a global spatial equity index,” she continues. This approach opens up perspectives for better understanding and mitigating urban inequalities in terms of access to essential services.

Public data serving the community

The CAMMM project uses open data to build its analyses. Information comes from sources such as GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) files, which provide detailed descriptions of transit schedules and routes, maps from OpenStreetMap – an open-access collaborative database – and data municipal and provincial authorities on infrastructure, urban density and neighborhood characteristics.

For the future, the team plans to integrate other indicators, such as the average cost of housing. “This would make it possible to understand how economic and social dynamics influence spatial equity,” explains Carmela Cucuzzella.

Promising prospects for equitable cities

The CAMMM project aims to influence planning practices and urban policies by highlighting the least well-served areas. By targeting these sectors, it aims to reduce spatial inequalities and encourage a more equitable distribution of services. In addition, the platform could promote collaboration between public decision-makers and developers to design inclusive development projects while raising public awareness of the characteristics and possibilities offered by their urban environment.

In a later phase, such an evaluation and visualization tool should make it possible to constitute a spatial equity index, a sort of composite indicator capable of summarizing the performance of a city or neighborhood in terms of access. to the services and quality of the offer. “While we’re not there yet, the idea of ​​a global index is a goal we’re seriously considering. This would be a powerful way to inform various stakeholders about issues of equity and accessibility in our cities,” concludes Professor Cucuzzella.