Governments are investing in safer cycling infrastructure to provide transportation options that support health, mobility, and environmental outcomes; these can be considered population health interventions. We aimed to measure change from 2022 to 2024 in cycling infrastructure in Canada to understand what and where changes happened, and who was impacted. We extracted data from OpenStreetMap.org (OSM) in 2022 and 2024 and coded them according to the Canadian Bikeway Comfort and Safety (Can-BICS) classification system (high, medium, or low comfort and safety). We measured differences (2022–2024) in length and type of cycling infrastructure within census subdivisions. We related differences in cycling infrastructure metrics with population composition within dissemination areas, nationally, by city size, and for particular cities, examining specific population groups (children, older adults, recent immigrants, racialized people, and low-income populations). Total Can-BICS-OSM cycling infrastructure in 2024 increased to 27,098 km (15.3%) from 23,502 km in 2022. Most new infrastructure was multi-use paths (2725 km). High-comfort bike-only paths increased by nearly 50% (49 km). Nationally, access increased for recent immigrants, racialized people, and people with low incomes. Overall, areas with more children and older adults saw less increase in access to infrastructure, but within small and medium cities there were often increases. Using a national dataset, we detected an increase in cycling infrastructure in Canadian communities, with mobility and health implications for many equity-deserving population groups. The greatest increases, proportionally, in cycling infrastructure were seen in small- and medium-sized cities.

Public transportation is a key social determinant of health, and its absence can reduce mobility and erode social connections—placing a disproportionate burden on the mental wellbeing of equity-deserving populations. While the link between transportation and health is recognized, the specific mental health impacts of transportation access remain underexplored. This study addresses that gap by examining the mental health impacts of the first universally free rural intercity transportation initiative in Saskatchewan, Canada. Methods: We employed a qualitative case study design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 43 participants (37 bus riders, 6 operational staff) and six conversation circles involving 18 participants in northern Saskatchewan. Informed by theories of structural violence and Indigenous self-determination, we used NVivo 14 software to conduct a hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis to generate themes and subthemes. Results: We identified two sets of themes revealing how the free bus service promoted riders' mental health. The first set of themes reflected mental wellbeing improvements while the service was operational, including enhanced psychological wellbeing, increased autonomy, reduced stress, and strengthened social ties—anchored in a sense of safety and dignity. The second set captured the consequences of the service's abrupt closure: heightened anxiety, increased social isolation, and feelings of abandonment and government neglect steeped in racism. Conclusion: Affordable, accessible transportation is vital to mental wellbeing. Free, reliable public transportation reduces isolation and fosters wellbeing, while its absence—particularly in rural and marginalized communities can exacerbate social exclusion and psychological distress.

This work provides a synthesis of how transportation fairness, justice and equity academic literature has defined and operationalized standards. We first clarify the key concepts of fairness, equity, justice and standards, and introduce a flexible “Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How” (5WH) framework for examining fairness questions. We then systematically reviewed academic literature published across three decades (1992 to 2022), ultimately identifying 165 relevant articles that operationalize transportation fairness standards. We use the 5WH framework to collate the review, supplementing the work with additional recent contributions. From our review, we find that most articles on this topic were published within the last five years and focus on urban contexts, with 40% examining Global South cases. Income groups, followed by specific age groups (i.e., older adults) and people with disabilities, are the most common “subjects of justice”. Transit and pedestrian modes are the most frequently studied “mobility tools"; with many analyses being multimodal and comparative in nature. The benefits and burdens--the “What” of mobility-- focuses on movement (i.e., quality of trips taken) or the potential for movement (i.e., accessibility). Conceptualizations of fairness are varied (e.g., Vertical Equity, Wellbeing, Rights-Based) but are most often operationalized through supporting opportunity thresholds (i.e., number of parks within a 30-min travel time) or population thresholds(i.e., bottom income quartile), with Infrastructure (i.e., level of service) and Environmental + (i.e., air pollution) thresholds also appearing. We conclude with five calls to action for advancing transportation research and practice: (1) ground tailored standards in explicit conceptualizations of justice; (2) co-create and refine methods that embed systems-thinking approaches to fairness; (3) treat data as a matter of justice, ensuring diverse destinations beyond conventional datasets are represented; (4) create clearer links between standards and lived experiences; and (5) evaluate interventions and policies against explicit fairness criteria.

Accessibility measures are widely used to assess transport equity and identify groups at risk of transport-related social exclusion (TRSE). Yet little guidance exists on how to select measures that are both theoretically robust and practically usable, and many researchers and practitioners remain unaware of the implications, biases, and consequences of their methodological choices. This paper proposes an analytical framework that consolidates dispersed arguments in the literature into a single, structured reference for evaluating accessibility measures. Developed through a comprehensive review and validated by an international expert survey, the framework comprises thirteen criteria—ten theoretical and three practical. It clarifies the ideal conditions for assessing TRSE, the trade-offs between theoretical rigor and practical feasibility, and the biases that arise from different methodological decisions. Rather than prescribing a single ideal measure, the framework makes explicit the assumptions, strengths, and limitations underlying different approaches, supporting more transparent and context-sensitive TRSE evaluations.

Most research interested in understanding the causal impacts of transit investments on property prices approach the topic through the lens of proximity. However, recent research highlights the networked nature of accessibility impacts. This presents challenges in causal research, particularly in mapping accessibility impacts, defining treatment and control groups, and estimating property price effects. Using the Evergreen Extension in Metro Vancouver, this research examines how proximity to new stations and changes in accessibility over time are capitalized into property prices, disentangling their distinct and combined effects. As commonly applied in the literature, the proximity-based measures identify treated properties based on their distance to the nearest station. For the accessibility-based approach, we measure changes in gravity-based scores over time to capture regional accessibility effects and treatment intensities along an ordered continuum, identifying areas experiencing accessibility gains, losses or stability. Results show that the spatial distribution of accessibility-based effects extend beyond conventionally-defined proximity catchments, suggesting an accessibility-based approach can better capture potential treatment effects associated with network spillovers. Next, fixed-effects models, using repeat sales, are then estimated to causally identify price premiums associated with both the proximity-based and accessibility-based measures. First, we find that, in line with urban economic theory, 1) proximity to new stations is positively valued, 2) increases in network access and regional connectivity to employment yield larger positive price effects, and 3) there is a combined premium placed on both proximity-based and accessibility-based benefits. Second, while proximity effects align with expectations, where treatment properties closer to the new stations command higher price premiums than those farther away, accessibility-based price effects do not. Specifically, higher treatment levels in the accessibility-based models do not consistently yield the highest premiums. This prompts an important perceptual question on whether homebuyers view proximity as a more intuitive signal of accessibility than broader regional network connectivity, which may be more intangible. We contribute knowledge through a dynamic approach that captures accessibility impacts for causal estimations, moving beyond the limitations of proximity-based measures in transit impact research.

Compared to urban settings, rural areas are characterised by high rates of car ownership and few alternative transport options. This can lead to transport poverty, especially among older adults without car access. Community transport, not-for-profit and primarily volunteer-run local transport schemes, helps to address this rural transport poverty in the UK. This paper focuses on the emergence and evolution of these schemes, presenting a critical analysis that traces the researchers’ discomfort that arose during a study on community transport in Oxfordshire. Unpacking this discomfort draws attention to two societal processes that have shaped the emergence and evolution of community transport: neoliberalism and automobility. Results indicate how community transport can be rolled out in response to the neoliberal roll-back of the state, in this case cuts to bus subsidies and the National Health Service (NHS). However, community transport is often itself rolled-back by the state as part of further rounds of financial cuts, prompting providers to improvise ways to continue what they understand to be an essential service. Further, community transport emerges as a car-based solution in increasingly car-dependent contexts and, as such, re-enforces and further normalizes automobility. Although community transport schemes address rural transport poverty, they do not at present tackle the source of this challenge: the interconnected processes of neoliberalism and automobility. The paper concludes with a discussion of the current role of the community sector as a sticking plaster solution to rural transport poverty, as well as its potential role in contributing to the dismantling of neoliberalism and automobility.

Older adults’ living environments are instrumental in making walking part of their daily lives, as we strive to promote healthy aging. Objective measures, such as WalkScore®, and subjective measures of walkability provide means to grasp the factors that enable or hinder frequent and enjoyable walking. However, there is limited consensus on what factors contribute to mismatch between perceptions of walkability and objective built environment measures, particularly among older adults. We interviewed fifty-eight older adults (65 +) from six Canadian cities to uncover the relationship between their perceived neighbourhood walkability and objective built environment measures. We segmented our interviewee sample into four categories based on their residential WalkScore® and perceptions of neighbourhood walkability. Our thematic analysis provides insight into strategies older adults use to respond to barriers to walking in their environment and walking facilitators they experience in their neighbourhoods. The findings can be of interest to practitioners and decision-makers as they seek to improve walking environments for aging populations, ultimately contributing to older adults’ long-term health and well-being.

This paper describes {ActiveCA}, an open data product with Canadian time use data. {ActiveCA} is an R data package that contains analysis-ready data related to active travel spanning almost 40 years, extracted from Cycles 2 (1986), 7 (1992), 12 (1998), 19 (2005), 24 (2010), 29 (2015), and 34 (2022) of the Time Use Survey (TUS) from the General Social Survey (GSS). Active travel episodes are characterized by mode, with walking being part of every cycle and bicycling starting in 1992. The attributes of active trips are the types of locations of origins and destinations, the duration of trips, and episode weights for expanding the trips to population-wide estimates. Based on the year of the survey, a variety of locations are coded. In earlier cycles, these include home, work or school, and other’s home, whereas in later cycles these are augmented with locations such as grocery stores, restaurants, outdoor destinations, and others. The geographical resolution includes the province and whether the episode was in an urban or rural setting.

This paper presents a survey of homeowners and renters who moved within or into the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada, since January 2016. This timeline covers pre- and during-COVID movers. The survey investigates households’ residential preferences and the potential dissonance between their preferred and actual residential location choices. The respondents are asked to answer questions about their previous and current residences, their housing search, and hypothetical residential location choices given the option of telecommuting. Empirical analysis of the actual and hypothetical residential location choices is conducted through a joint revealed preference and stated preference (RP-SP) error component mixed logit model. The model estimations identify discrepancies between RP and SP choices, indicating the presence of residential dissonance. The positive effect of transit accessibility variables shows that people are more likely to choose residential locations with better accessibility. However, dissonance in transit accessibility is found in both models, suggesting homeowners and renters may settle for lower accessibility in real life. Moreover, the model results show that homeowners and renters are more likely to relocate when working remotely, indicating the significant influence of telecommuting on residential dissonance.