Changing cities, changing perspectives: MUI students speak about their City of Mississauga internships, Mississauga’s Shared Micro-Mobility Program, and how our means of mobility are shifting for the better

Tuesday, July 23, 2024 - 10:48

Mashiyat Ahmed

Urban mobility is a key part of everyday life for billions of people around the world. The rapid expansion of cities worldwide has fundamentally shifted the way we work, live, travel, and build relationships. For the City of Mississauga, transportation improvements have been a leading priority over the past years. Newer cycle tracks, more bike lanes and trails, and improving walkability have shaped the transportation landscape. While more work needs to be done to achieve a truly connected and comfortable transportation system that works for Mississauga’s diverse population, “there is a lot of potential today for shifting travel behaviour from cars to more sustainable modes.” says Matthew Sweet, Manager of Active Transportation for the City of Mississauga. The city’s Shared Micro-Mobility Program is a promising step in this direction.

UTM’s Mobility Network is an institutional strategic initiative by the University of Toronto and comprises a robust group of scholars from various fields—as well as supporting industry partners, government officials, and community members—dedicated to using diverse streams of knowledge, expertise, and practice to help cities, and the people in them, flourish. Emilia M. Bruck is a postdoctoral fellow with the Mobility Network whose research explores the urban effects of new mobility services, and how urban policy and planning can harness their societal benefits. According to Bruck, the Mobility Network’s mission of garnering innovative, sustainable, and equitable solutions to transportation issues “can only be achieved through interdisciplinary research and collaborative approaches”. The Mobility Network is therefore keen to support student perspectives and contributions to mobility innovation through funding and facilitating valuable industry connections.

Eric Zhao is a graduate from IMI’s Masters of Urban Innovation (MUI) program. Passionate and knowledgeable about transportation and sustainable growth, Eric is perfectly poised to use his interdisciplinary education to tackle challenges in urban mobility. In the summer of 2023, Eric received a Mobility Network Internship Award to support his internship with the City of Mississauga. Eric’s recent work centered around developing the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Mississauga’s shared micro-mobility system.

As part of Eric’s internship for the City of Mississauga, he dove into micro-mobility and its potential for Mississauga. A city offers multiple means of transportation its residents can use; traditionally, personal and public transportation are dominant ways everyday individuals get around. But more and more people are seen using e-scooters, bikes, e-bikes, and other non-traditional mobilities to get from point A to point B. The design and efficacy of a cities' transportation options reflects trends in technical areas of planning and urbanism, but also the social, economic, and climate equity of such cities.

According to Matthew Sweet, “at a minimum, [a shared micro-mobility system] improves the experience for people who are already using transit by offering a quick first-last mile solution. The electrification of micro-mobility in the form of electrified kick-scooters and pedal-assist e-bikes, is proving to be a goal-changer in other cities around the world, with e-bikes in particular showing signs of being able to replace a second car in a household.”

Micro-mobility allows cities to take a step closer to flexible, sustainable, and accessible transportation solutions, but challenges are always around corner. Eric remarks that as micro-mobility grows in popularity, “we have seen both successful and unsuccessful examples of [its execution]. From my perspective, effective and efficient governance of the shared system has been a critical factor in determining success.”

Through his internship, Eric was privy to the extensive education, evaluation, communication, and consultation that it takes to bring an initiative like this to life, which is why he has so much faith in its success. Eric is confident that the City of Mississauga’s initiative “represents a milestone for the City and its residents, offering a new way to travel and reduce car dependency on short to medium trips.” Sweet seems to agree “Pressing ahead with fully electrified shared micro-mobility programs will put Mississauga right in the mix with other leading cities.”

student in suit — Yueyao Liu, MUI Class of 2025

Yueyao Liu is another Master of Urban Innovation student and Mobility Network Internship Award recipient, who started her summer internship in May 2024 with the City of Mississauga as a Shared Micro-Mobility assistant. After exploring urban planning during her undergrad years, Yueyao felt that MUI’s close partnership with Mississauga, its comprehensive and career-focused curriculum, and experiential learning opportunities fit her perfectly as someone with a background in city studies and human geography.

Regarding her internship this summer, Yueyao says “I am most looking forward to the day the City of Mississauga’s Shared Micro-Mobility Program is officially up and running. Not only because I will be actively working towards this goal, but the program itself will have a significant impact on the lives of all residents.”

Yueyao recognizes that diverse and shared mobility options are key to improving everything from the physical health of our communities to traffic congestion and more. “I’ve always believed that transportation is the most special kind of infrastructure because it ensures that residents have access to other social resources and activities,” but urban development in the GTA often fails to prioritize walkability, micro-mobility, and other means of movement that do not involve cars, resulting in a host of secondary issues that micro-mobility investments aim to address and solve.

Yueyao is enthusiastic about leveraging alternative transportation technologies to shape cities and lives: “for me, micro-mobility is an effective attempt to [reshape cities for the better, as it] enriches people’s commuting mode choices, improves the efficiency of the public transportation system, and encourages people to interact with their communities in a way that private automobiles can’t.”

A productive, livable city means diverse modes of transportation. As the population grows and the city of Mississauga changes, transportation networks must change too. “By offering infrastructure and programs that make non-car options just as convenient, the city can accommodate [a growing transportation] demand more effectively,” says Sweet.

Both Eric and Yueyao’s passion for their work is clear in their efforts to understand and advise how transportation can impact communities and entire cities. Though it is unclear if micro-mobility technology will dominate the future landscape of transport, it is abundantly clear that they represent an innovative answer to more efficient and equitable cities. Hubs like the Mobility Network and institutes like IMI encourage student perspectives to shape the conversation around urban challenges, and are key steppingstones into the future of better, more livable cities for all. Sweet sums it up perfectly, saying that “we need to be serious about providing other mobility options. Besides, walking, cycling, and other non-car mobility forms are good for your health, good for your finances, good for the planet, and are therefore good for a growing city.”

As of June 2024, the City officially launched its network of 300 e-bikes and 900 e-scooters spread across 600 convenient locations around Mississauga. To learn more about renting services, click here.