Students, faculty, alumni, planners, and friends near and far are all welcome! 

SCARP speaker series showcases innovative insights and perspectives in planning and any number of other fields, with insights from UBC, Vancouver, and beyond, to talk about challenges we face today and how our fields intersect to tackle them. 

SCARP’s 2023-2024 Healthy Cities and Communities speaker series have brought together leading researchers and practitioners from UBC, Vancouver, and beyond to explore challenges and opportunities for building healthy cities and communities through an interdisciplinary lens.   

Next up, Dr. Meghan Winters, SFU Faculty of Health Sciences and Dr. Victoria Barr, Principal, LevelUp Planning Collaborative presents: Moving transportation equity forward: promising practices from Canadian case studies

Details:
Over one million Canadians are living in transport poverty, where their ability to access vital opportunities is limited by inadequate, unsafe, or unaffordable transportation options. Injustices in our transportation systems— built over time by inequitable planning and practice—stand in the way of people’s access to jobs, education, healthcare, and social activities, ultimately impacting their health, well-being, and quality of life. City builders are recognizing that the way transportation has been planned, designed, and delivered is unfair and needs to change. At the same time, governments are ramping up investments in sustainable transportation infrastructure and putting equity on their policy agendas. Cities have an opportunity to build transportation systems that work for everyone, but how can equity be actioned on the ground? 

Join us to hear about promising practices for realizing transportation equity in Canadian cities and the pivotal role of city builders in moving equity from rhetoric to reality. 

This talk will explore findings from INTERACT’s new report, “Practices and Inspiration for Sustainable Transportation Equity: Case Studies from Canadian Cities”. Developed in collaboration with LevelUp Planning and transportation and equity professionals from across Canada, the report assembles practical guidance on ways cities can embed equity in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of transportation interventions. Join us as we delve deeper into key insights from the report, including what transportation equity really means, takeaways for municipal policymaking, and lessons learned from the transportation equity journeys of New Westminster, Edmonton, and Ottawa.

About Meghan Winters, PhD
Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
CIHR/PHAC Applied Public Health Research Chair

Meghan Winters is a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on how city design impacts mobility, safety, and health, and on equity considerations within cities’ policies and plans. She and her team work with decision-makers and community groups at the intersection of health, urban planning, and transportation to generate actionable evidence and tools to shape livable, sustainable, and equitable cities. 

About Victoria Barr, PhD
Principal, LevelUp Planning Collaborative

Dr. Victoria Barr brings 30 years of expertise and passion as a planner and community well-being practitioner, specializing in the connections between equity and community planning. She holds a master's degree in public health and a PhD in planning right here at SCARP. She brings out the best of both fields in her practice.