Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint. Smile was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone, please save me trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. Just a quick note that all our transportation interviews were conducted over the phone. So the audio quality isn't at a studio level. Hopefully your ear can get accustomed to it and you'll still enjoy the great conversations. My guess today is Dr. Eric Miller. Professor Miller is the director of the university of Toronto transportation research Institute, where his research focuses on the areas of transportation modeling and sustainable urban design. Dr. Miller is also the research director of the data management group, as well as the founding research director of the travel modeling group. He's a recipient of the 2009. It Wilber S Smith, distinguished educator award inaugural winner of the university of British Columbia Margolese national design for living award and the 2018 international association of travel behavior research lifetime achievement award. Welcome to and over my head professor Miller.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you for having me Michael.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So with the majority of Canadians living in urban centers, I wanted to talk to you about how we get around our cities and how sustainable deportation fits into that equation. Your research involves modeling the behavior of individual actors within the urban system, as well as the overall system behavior. So to start, tell me a bit about people's travel behaviors in the city of Toronto.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well travel in the city of Toronto, the Toronto region, probably the primary characteristic in is that it's very dependent upon the automobile. And this is characteristic of certainly all cities in north America and, you know, to a fair extent, cities everywhere in particular, we've built our cities, particularly since world war II around the automobile. The whole post world war II, suburban sprawl is predicated on the availability of the automobile. So we're very dependent on the auto. The city of Toronto likes to think of itself as a transit city. We do have a very extensive transit network, both with the travel transit commission and the go rail system and so forth in the regions around Toronto. We have other local transit agency and for travel into and out of the, the Toronto downtown transits is an extremely important vast majority of trips, not just for work and not just during the peak period into and out of the downtown by transit.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So transit's very important to us, but as soon as you move away from the downtown, the dependency on transit drops dramatically within the city, and it drops even further. Once we get outside the city, you know, and then there's also walking and bicycle trips and so forth and walking certainly plays a major role within the, the Toronto downtown itself. It's very walkable, but again, as soon as we get out of very walkable neighborhoods, walking and biking are much less important given the current urban form. So if we wanna start talking about sustainability, we really have to talk about the automobile, you know, and the automobile currently still is fossil fuel dependent. It burns usually gasoline, sometimes diesel. So if by sustainability, we're really talking about greenhouse gases and climate change. It fundamentally has to do with the rule of the automobile and how we can perhaps decarbonize it, the system. But sustainability, I think is broader than just greenhouse gases, as important as that is. It also has to do with consumption of land. It has to do with social sustainability of people being able to get around if they can't have access to a car. So the car is really fundamental to almost everything we wanna talk about in terms of travel behavior and how whatever our sustainability goals are. They kind of go through the automobile.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
All right. So let's maybe talk a little bit more about the other ways that people get around in within cities.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Okay. Yes. So transit obviously is an extremely important mode of travel, big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, New York, London, Singapore can't really exist without a transit system. The sorts of densities particularly have in downtown areas are just not supportable. We build enough roads to carry the people. So public transit has much higher capacity, much better capability of carrying people. And because it's much easier to electrify, for example, from a environmental sustainability point of view, it's, it's usually much better. The challenge of public transit is that we really have to have constructed the city in terms of the urban forum, in terms of population and employment, distributions, and densities and other activities, you know, stores and whatever in a way that supports public transit. By what I mean by that is we have to have organized things at high enough density that we can generate enough demand for transit that can justify the very significant investments required to provide transit, you know, subways streetcar lines, even buses are, are very expensive to provide the operating costs are high.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So while it's a means of mass transportation, in order to get those efficiencies, we have to be operating at a significant scale on that cost money. And we also have to be providing the service that is to, to the user. So that means high frequencies of service. You don't wanna be waiting an hour for the bus to show up. It also means connectivity in terms of the network that we're connecting places, where people are to where they want to go homes, to workplaces, to stores and so forth. And that's a real challenge because conventional transit runs typically on fixed routes along the subway line or on a bus route, and people have to get to, and from that network. So, you know, the automobile provides essentially door to door travel. Whereas in transit, people have to walk to the bus stop and walk from the subway station.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And so to be able to really provide coverage building that network is as I an expensive proposition, and we really have to be designing our urban form around transit stations, around transit corridors to create, as I say, so that density of travel demand that makes a transit cost effective. Otherwise we can spend a lot of money on transit and still provide a lousy service. And, you know, in most suburban areas, we see that these days, you know, there's a bus running around. It's not very frequent. It's not a very good service. The only people taking it are ones who really have no choice. And the problem is it's this, this problem between demand and supply, we can't get the mix we want. So one of the big challenges in both transportation and design is how do we get into a win-win where we, we have a land use, that's a support of transit, you know, and transit.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And then we can build trends that will attract other people and other development into that area. So we want to create that positive feedback. The other significant way we get around is by walking and biking, you know, in a similar comments, hold there. In order for people to walk for a trip, the neighborhood has to be walkable. You have to have sidewalks. It has to be safe. It should be attractive and interesting. There should be destinations. So again, if there's no place to walk too, even if it's a safe sidewalk, you're not gonna go there because there's no place to go. So again, you need this conscious urban design, common nation, an integrated approach to transportation and what we call land, use how we build the city in order to really promote these activities. So again, we see a lot of walking going on downtown Toronto, you know, out in suburban areas. We don't see much walking cuz first of all, it's not very attractive to do and there's no place to walk too.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah. And that, and that makes sense with your work with behavior and just that if it's easy to do, then people are more likely to do it. And with, with your example of the car, there's also perhaps the status symbol and owning a car. And like you said, the flexibility of being able to go where you want to, when you want to. And then, yeah, I think that a lot of the reason that people don't take public transportation is because it's perhaps less convenient or like you said, it goes to the places they don't want to go or the times they, that aren't co it for them. So that's really interesting. And, and so overall, how is the city of Toronto doing in that regard as far as public transportation?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Not well enough, I would say, I mean, it's kind of a mixed bag. If we compare Toronto to many other cities, particular us cities we've historically done fairly well. I mean, we love to complain about the TT, but it, it actually does provide a pretty good service. We have a pretty good commuter rail service to get in out of the downtown, but given the size of the city and the rate at which we've been growing and the travel needs of people, we have seriously underinvested in transit, particularly a good, higher order transit where it makes sense that would up impact over the years. Any residents in the Toronto regions knows what a political football transit has become over the decade. And we've really had paralysis, I think in terms of good transit planning, but particularly even have good plans, translating them into actual implementation.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
One of the reasons we see a lot of auto congestion and a lot of complaints about, you know, the congestion on the roadways is that we simply haven't built enough transit. And so the alternative's not there. If you put good quality transit service in a place where it makes sense, I E it connects people it actually resonates with their travel patterns. You know, people will use transit compared to European cities compared to Asian cities, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, you know, we're not where we need to be. Even if you look at many of the big south American cities, crack uswe areas, Santiago many, many of the, the big south American cities have done a much better job of building significant transit infrastructure to help move people around.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And, and do you think that comes from a place of necessity? Are they doing that intentionally again, we're talking about the environment or is it more about just it's more cost effective? What do you think that the, what, what are these cities doing?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah, I think in, in, in most cases it is a, in a sense of necessity. If you take a south American city, for example, the income distribution is somewhat different than here. The car ownership level isn't nearly as high and yet they're big cities. They have to move people around. So again, mass transit public transit is really the only way that the city can function economically and socially. And also they've, they've recognized the importance of public transit as fundamental to, you know, what they're trying to accomplish in the city. And I wouldn't say it's not a political question, cuz I think transportation is always political. There seems to be a more rational, shall we say approach to this, we need to do this, let's do it. And and, and they, they invest in it in a serious way here. We've turned transit into this sort of ideological political football of, you know, left wing versus right wing one party versus another party mayor comes in and reverses the previous mayor's plans.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We really haven't been very rational or logical in terms of how we're trying to build something for the common good. I think possibly we also suffer in Canada because cities are, as I say, creatures of the province, constitutionally, the federal government has almost no role, historically, at least in urban transportation, particularly transit. So you don't have the possibility of sort of more neutral federal intervention and, and federal funding for these things. We, we occasionally get money from the feds, but even that's kind of a, you know, a political handout. Whereas I, I think there's in many countries, there's a tighter connection between the municipality and the federal state or the national state and the recognition that the cities are very important to the, to the state and, and that there needs to be support for these things, you know? And we see, we see this, for example, in many European cities, our Germany, for example, the, the German cities have fantastic transit systems compared to Canadian systems. And that represents, you know, very significant states and federal interventions to fund these systems.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah. And that makes sense because the cost would be so large and you can't necessarily do it alone as a, a city depending on the size of your city. So yeah. Tell me more about Germany. So do you think that they would be comparable to us? I know they're, they're a, I mean they're a larger European country, but as far as the way that things are designed.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Well. Yeah. Well, I mean, I do think that German cities are, are very interesting. They're similar in some respects different in others. Obviously we take Berlin versus Toronto or Munich versus Toronto. Toronto's a little bit larger than both of those. They, but they're, you know, they're both kind of cosmopolitan world cities and they, they do exist. You know, Germany has a federal governance system, you know, they have states within the federal government, but for one reason, other they've they've taken transit much, much, much more seriously. I don't know that being devastated by a world war is, is necessarily a good thing, but you know, all the German cities have essentially been rebuilt since world war II and maybe that gave them a chance to, to reboot a bit. But I think again, there's just been a consensus there that public transit is a very significant investment and you have to take it seriously.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I mean, I think the hallmark of German and I would say European cities in general is a very hierarchical transit network where you have at the very high end, the Espons, the commuter rail, what you know of GO Rail then you have the Uban�s, which are the, you know, the metros, the subways, and then you have trams and street cars and then buses and, and these are all, you know, all these different levels of technology of capacity and speed and so forth are designed as an integrated network. So, so, you know, I talked about you know, needing sort of door to door solution where you almost have that in a place like Berlin Munich, you can and walk out and catch the local bus that maybe takes you to the tram that takes you to the Ubon or the Esbon.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
And then at the other end, you do it the other way around, you have an integrated fair system, an integrated schedule. So you have a much more seamless solution that's matching technology and demand at, at, at all levels in the hierarchy. You know, we have vestiges that here, you know, we have the local bus, we have the street car, we have the TT - subway, we have the commuter rail, but they're not nearly as well integrated, particularly at the regional level, as we see in Europe. I mean, the TTC does a pretty good job of integrating its own service between the buses and the subway and the street cars. But there's, there's, you know, more we could be doing there.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, and that, I mean, to me, that sounds really exciting in, in the, the way that a city could be designed to, to get around efficiently. And, and from what I'm hearing, probably also environmentally more sustainably here in Canada, we just rely so much on the car because of, of the way our cities are designed. And, and I appreciate you commenting on, on why that is. I do wanna touch more on, on the environmental. So you're part of your work involves analyzing the environmental sustainability of urban transportation systems. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, well, that's kind of, I would, I would say these days, that's more implicit in my own personal work. My focus tends to be on building the simulation models to, to predict the travel behavior in the first instance, and then how that translates into performance on the roadway, speeds, congestion levels, et cetera. That's sort of the precursors to then looking at thing, modeling things like pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and one of my colleagues and actually a former student of mine, professor Marianne Hatzopoulou is our primary air pollution and greenhouse gas modelers. So, so we sort of are a bit of a tag team. I, I model the travel behavior system performance, and then we kind of hand off you know, the outputs from that model into of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions models that, which, which she's an expert in. So I think the work I do is certainly motivated by needing the analytical tools to look at options for improving sustainability, but then, you know, we have this larger team that's actually looking at quantification of some of those impacts.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Hmm. Okay. Maybe I should be talking to her then.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Well, yeah, I mean, I think she's incredibly articulate about this, so I think you would enjoy a conversation with her and I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you. We, I mean, I would say a bit of a plug for the university of Toronto. She's part of a, a very large environmental team. I mean, in addition to modeling, she also does field measurements. She has students on bicycles, you know, going, going around, gathering air pollution data in the streets and putting out stationary monitors to get information about the actual pollution levels on the street. She has a colleague in chemical engineering here, professor Greg Evans, who similarly does that. He's, he's got a van that goes around taking pollution measurements and that, you know, the basis for, for modeling, he's particularly interested it in aerosols and, you know, particulate matter, you know, carbon and this sort of thing, all these people work together to measure pollution model it so that we can ask what if questions, what if we change something the public health side they're very interested in linking the pollution particularly to you know, to health impacts and trying to actually establish those causal linking.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Okay, well, yeah, no, there's obviously a big team involved. So we've talked a bit about some of the challenges to designing a city. So when you have the plans and implementations, and also just funding in your city's as complex systems, course, you cover the challenges to sustainable design. So tell me about some of the challenges that we haven't discussed.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
That course is all about trying to teach the students to think in systems terms to try to step back from events and look at well, what is the system, how does the system work? What are its components? What are its ostensible goals? Yeah, every system's built for a purpose. What is the system actually doing? Cuz many particularly complicated or complex systems or maybe built to do one thing, but there may be all sorts of unintended consequences. Like we don't build the transportation system to generate greenhouse gases, but you know, a, a big result is greenhouse gases and accidents and pollution, you know, and, and so forth. So I think part of systems thinking is first of all, to understand the system so that you can start diagnosing what we sometimes call system traps, where are we getting trapped in our behavior through, through various parts of the system to generate these maybe unwanted outcomes.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And then you have to ask the question, okay. If we think we understand this, what are the leverage points? Where can we actually intervene in the system? So they will have impact, it will actually change things because again, in a complicated system, you may intervene with a policy, but if you don't understand how the system actually works your policy may not be effective. It may even be counterproductive. It may, it may make things worse rather than better. And I think the big thing in a system and why these is complicated and complex and, and it's often difficult to intervene is because the key characteristic of any system and certainly a city or a transportation system, is that it's a massive set of feedback. Loops information is flowing through the system. And one action generates another act, actually that generates another action, but also information is flowing through the system about what's going on.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And, and that's actually how we control a system is by monitoring it and intervening. So we really have to understand the feedback loops that exist and the interconnections between components in the system, you know, and I've talked a bit already about the transportation land use interaction, and there's no use just building transit if the land use isn't appropriate. And so that's an example of a very key interaction and with feedback. But, you know, if you, you build the transportation system, one way the land use will respond. You build land use one way, you know, transportation will respond over time, travel behavior will respond. So we really have to understand the dynamics of system. So I think in the case of cities, part of the barrier to sustainability is just the sheer complexity of the system. There are so many moving parts. There are so many actors, each one of which has vested interests to try to align interests or understand how a policy may resonate with different stakeholders, perhaps in different ways, but we'll get their support is very important.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
So I think some of the barriers are, again, given the importance of the transportation land use interaction, it really means to get to a fundamentally sustainable city. And I would say a more equitable city as well. We really have to be changing that urban form that we talked about earlier. You know, that auto oriented urban form in the suburb needs to evolve to something that that can be more sustainable. But the inertia there are very large. I mean, we've built a huge amount of urban and suburban space. It's not going to change overnight. You know, and people's tastes and preferences are not gonna change overnight. It's easy to say, well, everybody should be walking and biking and nobody should be driving well. But the realities of where most people, if they have no choice, you know, the city of Toronto has come out with their climate change plan transform to, you know, they're calling for by 2050 that 75% of all trips, five kilometers or less made in the city should be made by walking and biking.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Now that sounds laudable, but is that accomplishable? I mean, is that something that will ever happen if we don't change the urban form? So, you know, I think there are inertia and rigidities, I've also talked a bit about of transportation here. Politics are very important and we have to think about the way we've organized political systems, but even our more technical systems, the transportation department, the TTC, the planning department, how we've organized things, that organizational structure has a huge impact on even what questions are asked, what actions are possible to take and so forth. Very often we use zoning as a way of trolling land use, and that can be very proactive. It can actually impede doing things in places. So we have to be much more thoughtful about the institutional political barriers that are facing us. I think the real constraints are largely not technological. I mean, we always have technological challenges, but we're always improving technology. And I think we, to a large extent understand what a or sustainable city would look like. So it's not in some sense, a technical problem or not in the first order, it really is cultural and political. And just the fact that we've been living this way for a long time, we're used to it changing our habits is very challenging.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah. And that's where the title of the show comes in. I feel in over my head when we're trying to, we're trying to say the planet there's so much involved. Yeah. And that, that makes a lot of sense because those, those cultural and political ideas yeah. They don't change overnight and they don't change just because you have a, a Tesla that you can buy. So this show is about empowering citizens to, to take action on climate change. From your perspective, is there anything that individuals can do to ensure that cities are more environmentally friendly when it comes to transportation, given all the things we've talked about?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Well, yes, I think there is, first of all, I mean, it's maybe try to say, I think they can try to learn more about these issues and educate themselves. We all live in the city. Well, those of us who live in cities, we live in the city, we experience a by day. And so to a certain extent, we think we understand transportation cuz we're traveling within it. But you know, I don't wanna sound patronizing, but many people really don't kind of know how the transit system works and why it is the way it is. And these connections between greenhouse gases and our daily travel behaviors. So how the better educated the public is, that's a starting point. And I think people like myself, academics and so forth, have a real role to play here, to help with raising the, kind of the sustainability literacy, I guess of people.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
In some sense, I think second of all, part of empowerment is looking around at your daily life and saying, well, yes, I can't change everything and there's lots of constraints, but what are things I could be doing? Maybe I walk to the corner store instead of driving. Maybe I should think about taking transit to work. Give it a try. You know, as you say over in over your head, I mean, I think part of the, the climate change sustainability problems, it, it just seems to be so hopeless from a personal point of view, what can I do well, but I, I think it is incremental steps asking yourself, well, what could I do? I mean, I can recycle better. I can think about, you know, it's not just transportation and we see people doing this, but I think that more people could be doing this.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
The third thing is pressing our politicians at all levels, but the local and provincial to be better stewards of our system is the old adage. We get the politicians we deserve. And I don't think we man nearly enough of our politicians we're far too willing to let them play the game of division. They can get away with just slick slogans and super Phish show promises. We don't force them to come to grips with real understanding the problems and real solutions. We're we're too willing to say, oh, don't raise taxes, don't do this. So as long as we're electing politicians who will Dodge the problem and not do anything and kind of patronize us with political slogans rather than solutions, we're not gonna get for very far. So I think there's much more we can be doing to pushing people. But at the same time, I think the public has to be willing to accept the possibility of change as human beings.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
We tend to be pretty conservative and risk averse by and large. So we always, I think generally not everybody, but generally we tend to underestimate the risk of at quo that we're comfortable is what we're doing. And we don't see how that's destroying the planet of our current actions, that our current actions are not sustainable. And at the same time, we're very wary of change and overestimate the risk of change, you know, in talking about sustainability the status quo, the business as usual is not sustain, but are we willing to act on it? I think people have to be one way or the other coming to grips with the notion, well, you probably do need a different future, but maybe it'll be different, but maybe it'll be better. And I think, you know, everybody has to be involved in that again, politicians should be helping with that conversation, academics, bloggers, or podcasters, podcasters, everybody, every anybody has a role here.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah. I think also sort of associated with that and it's maybe not exactly the public, but I think they have a role citizens groups or community groups and so forth. Look around your community and say, not just what can I individually do? You know, I'll recycle more or whatever, but as a community, what can we be doing? Even if the government isn't pushing it, because I think the way the land use for bullet change and travel behaviors associate will change and be able to have a better bus service is going to be piece by piece, look for the low hanging fruit. This neighborhood could really change if we wanted to make a change. Now some of that has to, I think a lot of that has to be coming from government, from the planning agencies and so forth. And so the suburbs, you know, are not gonna change overnight.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Some of them never gonna change at all, how do we look for opportunities for change? And I think that's one way of breaking down this big, horrible problem. I mean, everything is connected to everything, but if we can take out a little piece and make a difference in that little piece and then somebody else takes another little piece and then there's another little piece. And before you know, it, all of a sudden things are starting to look different kind of in, in larger areas. And you're gradually evolving. I mean the city changes all the time. It changes slowly but changes all the time. And, but it changes bit by bit, right. You know, a building goes up up here, this streak gets changed the city as a whole grows in bits and pieces. So can we be more intentional and thoughtful and impactful in terms of how we add new pieces and how we modify, change existing pieces, breaking down problem into more bite size pieces that are more within our control, either as individuals or community or as a city will be the way we we make progress. I think.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
No, that that's very helpful for sure. And, and I, I really like your point about seeking out academics, much like the show is doing, but seeking out academics and learning because I, the more that I'm learning from my guests and from the reading that I'm doing, is that being as well informed about the change are making is gonna make the most effective change. I believe, so.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Incremental change, I think is a better way of thinking about things, you know, so it has to be, as I say, we have to understand, oh, this will make a difference, a small difference, but I talked about feedback loops if neighborhood a becomes a little more mixed use, so you can walk to the corner store and there's a pub on the corner, a bit more employment. So there's more things you can do by walking a bike against more supportive of even just local transit services. It's changing the quality of life there. It's not just a little more sustainable perhaps, but maybe it's a little better quality of life and that neighborhood does it. And then maybe another neighborhood sees that says, Hey, you know, we can do something similar. And so you start to get these things where it works building up over time, you're getting broader change going on. And each change makes it easier for the next change for the next neighborhood to do something. And at some point you get enough of this. So maybe you can seriously think about really upgrading the transit now because you now have more density and traffic that's gonna be generated within these communities. So new, so solutions sort of higher level solutions to start become more possible because you've built up from the ground up on this. I think it's a strategy we're thinking about.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh, absolutely. And I do agree with you for sure. Obviously that's, again, the point of the show is to empower citizens because together we can do more than, than you could on your own. So I think that's very helpful. So thank you so much for your time for this has been very educational.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, thank you. And, and thank you Michael, for asking me it's, it's been fun. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Well, that was my talk with professor Miller. I really enjoyed how he broke down the way that cities are designed and that a lot of people don't even think about that. So I found that really interesting and how we can all get involved. Those incremental changes - education and talking to politicians and making our cities gradually more sustainable. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our head when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again soon. In over my head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, please email info at in over my head podcast.com. Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I'm trying to save the planet will someone, please save me.