Report: Canadian Community Initiatives Addressing Transport Poverty

News 16 December 2021
by Mobilizing Justice

In the summer of 2021, The Centre for Active Transportation graduate assistant Sabat Ismail conducted a scan of community initiatives addressing transport poverty and increasing modal choices across Canada. This scan included detailed web searches deploying multiple combinations of keywords and phrases covering modes, places and sections (i.e. “Hamilton LRT advocates”), as well as a news media search.  Working with MJ co-leads Nancy Smith Lea of TCAT and Dr. Meghan Winters of SFU, Sabat compiled every identified initiative into a database that documents each initiative’s location, host organizations, collaborators, focuses, programing, projects, and website.   The team also developed a final report documenting their findings.

Key Findings

The team identified 245 community initiatives across the country. These initiatives were concentrated most heavily in Ontario (38%) and Quebec (20%), though the author also found substantial activity in the Prairies (16%), Atlantic Canada (9%), and British Columbia (14%).  Most initiatives also focused on cycling or active travel generally (see Below). 

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Hp0YJqSW36akfAwLFFuRNUZZthcb7c1hoVaBk_lsc6J_6Kv4MxeKbMXhCu3AQbpMbKpkkbmEq_eciyTdBAxxzOvTwWWbp0gSvLBMj6XTdw-KoSDvpjEV-0PoBGPvJ1PWn9kFhoqQ

Figure 1: From Ismail, Smith Lea & Winters, 2021

The final also report highlights six organizations that demonstrate how grassroots initiatives are addressing transportation poverty in different locations and for different modes, they are:

Click to access the Report (EN/FR) and Database

Suggested Citation

Ismail, Sabat. (2021). Canadian Community Initiatives Addressing Transport Poverty: Report and Catalogue. The Centre for Active Transportation and Mobilizing Justice. 

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