Affiliations and biosAhmed El-Geneidy is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at McGill University. His research interests include land use and transportation planning, transit operations and planning, travel behavior analysis and measurements of accessibility and mobility in urban contexts. Michael Grimsrud has a Master's in Urban Planning from McGill University. His research interests are in land use and transport interaction, trend modeling, behavior change, and sustainability policy. Rania Wasfi is a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, McGill University. She has a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University. Her research interests are in travel behavior, and planning for active transportation and its relation to obesity and health. Paul Tétreault has a Master's of Urban Planning from McGill University. He currently works for GENIVAR as a transportation planner and engineer. His research interests are in the fields of active transport, public transit, traffic, parking, geospatial analysis, traffic calming and traveldemand management. Julien Surprenant-Legault has a Master's of Urban Planning , McGill University and a baccalaureate in Economics from the Université de Montréal. He works in public transit planning and transportation modelling in Montréal. His research interests include land use and transport planning, urban economics, public transit planning and operations, travel behaviour, and public policy.ABSTRACT The percentage of the population being served by a transit system in a metropolitan region is a key system performance measure but depends heavily on the definition of service area. Observing existing service areas can help identify transit system gaps and redundancies. In the public transit industry, buffers at 400 meters (0.25 miles) around bus stops and 800 meters (0.5 miles) around rail stations are commonly used to identify the area from which most transit users will access the system by foot. This study uses detailed origin-destination survey information to generate service areas that define walking catchment areas around transit services in Montreal, Canada. The 85 th percentile walking distance to bus transit service is around 524 meters from home-based trip origins, 1,259 meters for commuter rail. Yet these values are found to vary based on our analysis using two statistical models. Walking distances vary based on route and trip qualities (such as type of transit service, transfers and wait time), as well as personal, household, and neighbourhood characteristics. Accordingly, service areas around transit stations should vary based on the service offered and attributes of the people and places served. The generated service areas derived from the generalized statistical model are then used to identify gaps and redundancies at the system and route level using Montreal region as an example. This study can be of benefit to transport engineers and planners trying to maximize transit service coverage in a region while avoiding oversupply of service.

This paper estimates the amount of daily walking associated with using public transportation in a large metropolitan area and examines individual and contextual characteristics associated with walking distances. Total walking distance to and from transit was calculated from a travel diary survey for 6913 individuals. Multilevel regression modelling was used to examine the underlying factors associated with walking to public transportation. The physical activity benefits of public transportation varied along gender and socio-economic lines. Recommended minutes of daily physical activity can be achieved for public transportation users, especially train users living in affluent suburbs.

Our study of a large sample of urban Canadians followed for 12 years confirms that neighborhood walkability influences BMI trajectories for men, and may be influential in curtailing male age-related weight gain.

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Significant advances in environmental or neighborhood effects have been made in the last decades. Specifically, conceptual and methodological developments have improved our consideration of spatial processes, shifting from a residential-based view of context to a more dynamic activity space and daily mobility paradigm. Yet, such advances have led to overlooking other potentially important aspects related to social networks and decision-making processes. With an increasing capacity to collect high-precision data on daily mobility and behavior, new possibilities in understanding how environments relate to behavior and health inequalities arise. Two overlooked aspects need to be addressed: the questions of "with or for whom", and "why". While the former calls for a better consideration of social networks and social interactions, the latter calls for refining our understanding of place preference and decision-making leading to daily mobility and multiple exposures.

BackgroundGiven the challenges of aging populations, calls have been issued for more sustainable urban re-development and implementation of local solutions to address global environmental and healthy aging issues. However, few studies have considered older adults’ daily mobility to better understand how local built and social environments may contribute to healthy aging. Meanwhile, wearable sensors and interactive map-based applications offer novel means for gathering information on people’s mobility, levels of physical activity, or social network structure. Combining such data with classical questionnaires on well-being, physical activity, perceived environments and qualitative assessment of experience of places opens new opportunities to assess the complex interplay between individuals and environments. In line with current gaps and novel analytical capabilities, this research proposes an international research agenda to collect and analyse detailed data on daily mobility, social networks and health outcomes among older adults using interactive web-based questionnaires and wearable sensors.Methods/DesignOur study resorts to a battery of innovative data collection methods including use of a novel multisensor device for collection of location and physical activity, interactive map-based questionnaires on regular destinations and social networks, and qualitative assessment of experience of places. This rich data will allow advanced quantitative and qualitative analyses in the aim to disentangle the complex people-environment interactions linking urban local contexts to healthy aging, with a focus on active living, social networks and participation, and well-being.DiscussionThis project will generate evidence about what characteristics of urban environments relate to active mobility, social participation, and well-being, three important dimensions of healthy aging. It also sets the basis for an international research agenda on built environment and healthy aging based on a shared and comprehensive data collection protocol.

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BackgroundCollective efficacy has been associated with many health benefits at the neighborhood level. Therefore, understanding why some communities have greater collective efficacy than others is important from a public health perspective. This study examined the relationship between gentrification and collective efficacy, in Montreal Canada.MethodsA gentrification index was created using tract level median household income, proportion of the population with a bachelor’s degree, average rent, proportion of the population with low income, and proportion of the population aged 30–44. Multilevel linear regression analyses were conducted to measure the association between gentrification and individual level collective efficacy.ResultsGentrification was positively associated with collective efficacy. Gentrifiers (individuals moving into gentrifying neighborhoods) had higher collective efficacy than individuals that lived in a neighborhood that did not gentrify. Perceptions of collective efficacy of the original residents of gentrifying neighborhoods were not significantly different from the perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy of gentrifiers.ConclusionsOur results indicate that gentrification was positively associated with perceived collective efficacy. This implies that gentrification could have beneficial health effects for individuals living in gentrifying neighborhoods.