Map the System
A study on the true problem with Toronto's Transportation Crisis.
Overview
The Map the System challenge is a Canada wide competition that tasks students with exploring social and environmental issues. Students must perform extensive research on their selected topic and present their findings in a clear and informative report.
Roles and Responsibilities
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Research
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User Interviews
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Ideating
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Information evaluation
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Creating Report
Research
Problem Landscape
Among a variety of sentiments held by Torontonians in regard to the city’s transportation infrastructure, traveling through the downtown core has been described as adjacent to “treading through molasses”. It is well-known, by local residents and beyond, that commuting into and throughout the city is brimming with barriers.
By the year 2050, the global urban population is expected to reach 6.4 billion. The presence of such a large urban population forces cities to adapt and expand, leading to complexity, in order to meet the demands of the public’s need for transportation.
User Research
Our primary and secondary research of this topic consisted of:
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6 in-depth interviews with Toronto residents, commuters, and industry professionals.
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An online survey with 85 respondents affected by Toronto traffic, including commuters and residents.
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Publications, academic journals, and related news articles.
Research Goals
With our topic selected, we created a list of goals that we want to achieve with our report:​
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Highlight the major problem areas in Torontos transportation.
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Highlight the current solutions available.
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Go over the gaps and levers of change.
User Journey
Problem and Solution Landscape
A main issue we found in our research was Torontonians wanting to be able to cycle around the city but they feel the city does not have a solid cycling infrastructure.
The graphic below connects items from the problem space with items from the current solution space.
Gaps and Levers of Change
In this section we outline some of the main gaps that currently exist in Toronto's transportation infrastructure and what are some levers of change to those gaps.
Insights
Lessons Learned
Toronto residents and commuters are very passionate about traffic and transportation issues. A large majority of the city’s population deeply desire to create positive changes in the city to reduce traffic and car use.
Yet, even though they are passionate,
they feel powerless.
Politics as an underlying driver in the transportation crisis and the lack of collaboration amongst stakeholders makes it increasingly difficult to create a cogent plan that will surely last and benefit the greatest number of people.