Mobility Network Executive Director Dr. Judy Farvolden deputed to the City of Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee on item IE30.12 in support of a “pilot project of up to eighteen (18) months to provide on-street curb-side access to a logistics mini-hub to operate in a parking layby on the west side of St. George Street in the vicinity of 60 St. George Street” at their meeting May 25, 2022.
“The St. George Mini-hub Pilot study project is one of 24 projects in CLUE: City Logistics for the Urban Economy, a five-year project funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. CLUE is led by Professor Matt Roordaand involves ten researchers from U of T, McMaster University and York University.
“Transportation Services is participating in several CLUE projects that align with the Freight and Goods Movement Strategy and the City of Toronto’s Vision Zero, emissions reductions, and congestion management goals.
“The item before the committee “On-Street Logistics Mini-hub Pilot on St. George Street” is one of those projects. It supports those goals and represents progress towards two of the seven recommendations in the Freight and Goods Movement Strategy.
Prof. Matt Roorda
“The St. George Mini-hub Pilot study will 1) test the value of allowing motor assisted bicycles to have heavier, throttle operated electric motors and 2) explore business arrangements with courier companies to pilot the use of pick-up and drop-off locations in repurposed parking spaces, in this case, on St. George Street.
“In this pilot study, Purolator Courier will replace delivery trucks in the study area with e-cargo tricycles operating from the ‘microhub’ on St George Street.
“The study area is Bathurst on the west to Bay Street on the east, Bloor Street on the North to College Street on the south.
“U of T is facilitating access to power for the hub and leading the collaborative research project.
“Over the course of the 18-month study, CLUE researchers will collect data on package deliveries, electricity charging, routes used, and parking tickets received, monitor the pilot project for performance, costs, safety and sustainability and interview Purolator truck and e-cargo tricycle drivers, micro-hub staff and other key stakeholders.
“St. George Mini-hub Pilot study is an excellent example of university-industry-government collaborative pilot studies to explore novel practices in a planned and controlled way that results in evidence that can inform future decision making.
“Purolator’s intention is to deliver more efficiently and sustainably, with reduced pedestrian conflicts and truck parking and traffic impacts. The project is expected to demonstrate the potential for e-cargo tricycle deliveries from similar hubs across downtown Toronto, and potentially other locations in Canada. This pilot is therefore an opportunity for the City of Toronto to showcase its leadership in addressing congestion, climate and safety issues.
“And so, the St George Street mini-logistics hub also furthers “adaptability,” the seventh of the seven goals of the Freight and Goods Movement Strategy. “Adaptability” is the ability to identify, anticipate and adapt to emerging trends, innovations and risks affecting the freight and goods movement industry. It is an excellent example of collaborative work being undertaken to identify, anticipate and adapt to emerging trends, innovations and risks affecting the freight and goods movement industry.
“We look forward to this project, to reporting the results in 18 months, and to future opportunities to support the City in achieving its goals for equitable, sustainable and prosperous mobility.” – Dr. Judy Farvolden
Adam Hasham is a Masters of Engineering in Cities Engineering and Management (MEngCEM) candidate, needing just one more course to finish his degree. During the pandemic he has worked on the city’s cycling infrastructure, ActiveTO, and more. Now he’s taken on a new role as an election campaign manager for a provincial candidate, hoping to make further impact on policy and our infrastructure design.
Adam Hasham (MEngCEM candidate)
Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I’m Adam Hasham and am finishing up my MEngCEM at U of T this year.
I originally started an MASc in Civil Engineering, as I was interested in whether Uber had an effect on public transit use, and then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, that research was no longer viable. I switched into the MEngCEM, which I was pretty happy to do, because it’s a great program.
And I’m now the campaign manager for Chi Nguyen’s campaign. She’s the Ontario Liberal candidate in Spadina-Fort York.
Part of the reason I was excited about this CEM program is because there is a big public policy focus, certainly a pretty big data focus, but also a big policy and economics focus that I was really looking forward to putting into practice. It’s great to be running a campaign in downtown Toronto where all of those city building problems are front and centre with a candidate who really is steeped in the same kind of city building expertise that so many of my classmates are.
You have a history of advocating for cycling infrastructure in the city, and other multimodal transit, and accessibility. Yes, I led some of the ActiveTO evaluations during the pandemic for the City of Toronto, working with Park People and the Centre for Active Transportation. I wrote the major lane closures evaluation – those are the Lake Shore Boulevard lane closures, as well as some others around the city. I led the Yonge Street evaluation of the new bike lanes and some others over the past couple of years too.
I’ve been working on urban issues for a long time. I used to be a director at a company called Mass LBP that ran citizens assemblies on issues like infrastructure funding for Metrolinx, about where we should put supervised injection sites and how to manage those types of public infrastructure, whether they’re transportation or health care related.
I’ve been working in this community for a long time on these sorts of urban issues.
Increasingly, engineers have, as you mentioned, become more involved with recommendations for policy. They have the data and know what is working, what’s not working, and how things can be improved. Now you have a chance to directly shape the policy through a political office. Actually, the candidate who I’m working for, Chi, helped write the housing and the transportation pieces of the Ontario Liberal platform. I got to advise her and the party as they met with stakeholders. The thinking was how can we turn some of those learnings, and some of that data, into policies that affect people’s lives.
You might have seen the $40 metropass and $1.00 transit rides as a really big price signal to get people back on transit after the pandemic.
There isn’t enough space for us all to be in private vehicles anymore, and there never was. There are engineers at the [Ontario Liberal] Party who are leading the thought change – actually one of the main policy guys I talk to every day is a mechanical engineer. It’s sort of the engineering approach to breaking down problems – whether they’re technical problems or policy problems – has been really valuable.
Sometimes engineers get flack for not being able to communicate what’s necessary, but I think engineers can play a really strong role there, especially at the provincial level, where so many decisions government makes are about infrastructure. As long as we can translate this work into the explaining the effect it’ll have on people’s daily lives, which so much of transportation and civil engineering is, I think there’s a stronger role for engineers in policymaking going forward.
You mentioned you haven’t yet completed your MEngCEM. Has the pandemic has made things a little bit tougher to schedule and complete? Yes. I’m supposed to be working with Dr. Eric Miller on some research around accessibility to finish up my last course. The election is delaying that a little bit, but I really have just one more course to finish up.
U of T has been great. For example, through one of my cycling courses, we’ve been working on
an autoethnography of cycling experiences in Toronto for newcomers and children of immigrants. Learning to cycle and navigate this city is very different for people who have different cultural contexts.
Have you been able to directly apply what you’ve been learning through your MEngCEM formal education directly into the real world? Perhaps in real time due to the swift changes during the pandemic? Yes, most definitely. The COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for everybody to get involved in small ways. And there were a lot of engineers who realized the way we get around our cities is really vital to how we move forward, how we tackle the climate crisis.
When it comes to the election and politics, people think [political] parties are these nebulous entities. They’re not. If you go to a riding association meeting, you’ll realize it’s maybe 20 or 30 people who just care about their community. They can have a really outsized impact on policy development.
I got involved with Chi’s campaign last summer when she was running for the nomination. We used to work at the same company many years ago. I found it very easy to fall into the role and everybody was looking for a breadth of expertise, whether engineering or health care. There’s always a way for people to get involved and people, engineers in particular, have so much to bring. They shouldn’t be nervous about getting involved in politics.
Did you, while at U of T, have any favorite places you liked to visit or hang out? It was great to be back on campus after spending a year on online. I have always been partial to Engineering Alley because it’s the place where you find your community during the day, and some of those outdoor plazas or spaces between the buildings are where we spent a lot of time working on our assignments, but also just getting to know each other and getting to know each other’s interests.
I did love walking to Kensington Market after class. And there’s a great cafe called Cafe Pamenar, where I spent a lot of my time before the pandemic. During school it was great to be able to hang out on their patio a little bit as things started to open up.
But the nice thing was that U of T is such a diverse place that I found all sorts of other corners of the city that I wouldn’t otherwise have. I did my undergrad in Montreal, and it wasn’t nearly as diverse as a U of T, so I was really happy to come back home to Toronto and be able to experience the diversity of our multicultural city.
Do you have any fond memories of certain classes or certain profs? The nice thing about this CEM program is that it’s a small cohort, and you get to know the professors really well. So, knowing, and having worked with Dr. Eric Miller before the program and then realizing he was just very accessible, despite having a wealth of knowledge, was really valuable. And if you know anyone involved with Transportation at U of T, you’ll know that almost every professor has been through a PhD with Dr. Miller himself.
And also Dr. Mark Fox. He was really great at making some of the big data problems really, really accessible or really practical. We got to work on real problems, some of them with the City of Toronto, some of them with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and really put into practice what this emerging idea of a urban data science really is.
The 25th annual competition saw University of Toronto’s team take 3rd overall, in addition to many other honours including:
Innovation of the Year (with using Capacitance to measure canoe thickness and zero portland cement in concrete mix)
1st place in Enhanced Focus Area
2nd in Project Proposal (Tech report)
3rd in Final Product
4th in Paddling
5th in Presentation
Concrete Canoe Project Manager 2T1-2T2 Ernie Lee says he’s extremely proud that his team managed to reach the podium.
“This competition is a great example of team collaboration and talent among all engineering disciplines to make our concrete canoe float,” says Lee. “We were especially proud to have won the Innovation Award.”
This year’s squad was under intense pressure to complete its canoe during a pressed work schedule with COVID-19 restrictions, but Lee says they had fantastic support from faculty and friends.
“Clear communication among team members and casual social events are examples of how we establish this tight bond within the Skule™ community. Shoutout to all the other design teams who have helped make our design and construction process much smoother!”
The team’s faculty supervisor, Prof. Karl Peterson says he was impressed with how they pushed the limits of alternative cements this year.
“This team not only managed to overcome the extra challenges of safely coordinating the in-person construction of a canoe in the midst of a pandemic, but also created a concrete canoe without relying on the hundred-years-plus tried-and-true traditional technology of portland cement-based binders,” says Peterson.
By David Goldberg
Lantsov standing in front of a 797F Mining Truck during his PEY with Syncrude.
When you mention “mining” to most people, they’ll automatically conjure images of coverall-clad crews wearing hard hats, driving dump trucks and extracting ore from hundreds of metres below the Earth’s surface.
That’s all accurate, however, while understanding how we mine metals is essential, it is also important to have experts who know how to analyze the value of a company and the minerals being uncovered.
That’s where mining finance professionals such as University of Toronto Alumnus Denis Lantsov come in.
Lantsov (Min 1T8+PEY) is an Investment Banking Analyst in RBC’s Metals and Mining division and formerly worked on the Metals and Mining Equity Research team at BMO where he assisted in covering large-cap Canadian listed gold and base metal producers.
The U of T alumnus uses the knowledge he gained from the Lassonde Mineral Engineering program to valuate projects from a technical and financial perspective. Right now, he works in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, but Lanstov credits his practical background in the field and in the classrooms at U of T for all his career success.
“My technical experience was so important and what I learned served as a good foundation for understanding what’s being published in the company reports I’m interpreting. Engineering knowledge has been a necessary complement to my financial skills.”
Lanstov’s interest in the mining field was already piqued by the time he started university, having grown up with family members working in the lucrative oil and gas industries.
The fact that there are so many avenues you can choose from was very appealing to him and his desire was cemented through a summer internship experience working for Franco-Nevada Corp., the leading precious metals royalty and streaming company.
“Working in mining, you can travel to remote locations or work in big cities. You can crunch numbers at a desk 20-storeys in the air or grind it out in a mine hundreds of metres underground. There are so many options, but as I completed more courses at U of T, I realized the financial side of things was my true calling.”
Recalling his LME studies, Lanstov points to a few courses for anybody interested in pursuing a similar career path post-graduation.
The alumnus also says anybody interested in pursuing the finance stream should consider joining the U of T Engineering Finance Association (UTEFA) to hone their stock valuation skills.
“We’d get up on a stage to practice pitching companies and talk about why we think it’s a good buy, and then we’d have a competition to see whose stock picks were the best.
According to Lantsov, there’s never been a better time to jump into the industry. A labour shortage combined with commodity prices at an all-time high means there’s no shortage of opportunity for new graduates.
And of course, there’s an added competitive advantage when you come from U of T.
“The best thing about being on the St. George Campus is that you’re located in Toronto, which is a global hub of mining finance, and many companies have their head offices based here.”
All this to say, Lantsov stresses you can’t underestimate the power of networking to enhance your education and jumpstart your career.
“I find that U of T students are breaking into the industry with relative ease compared to other schools because a lot of alumni are already working there. In fact, tapping into that network is how I got my first job.”
By David Goldberg
Junshi Xu, PhD installs a temperature and humidity sensor on the front porch of a Toronto home Wednesday, May 11, 2022. Xu is a Postdoctoral Fellow (PDF), working in the Transportation and Air Quality (TRAQ) research group in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto. Some 200 sensors are to be installed across the city to gather data over several summers. (Photo by Phill Snel)
An ambitious project to install 200 sensors across Toronto is underway. The study is gathering data on temperature and humidity over several summers as part of a heat study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research(CIHR).
The Transportation and Air Quality (TRAQ) research group, within the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering (CivMin) at the University of Toronto, is collecting data on small-scale variations in ambient temperatures across Toronto. The project is headed by lead investigator Prof. Scott Weichenthal from McGill University in cooperation with CivMin’s Prof. Marianne Hatzopoulou.
Heat waves harm/kill people, particularly vulnerable populations, through a variety of pathways. These events are expected to become more frequent and more severe in the coming years. “Our team will build models to predict high-resolution variations in summer air temperature; there is a wide range of epidemiologists on the team who will use this information and link it to health outcomes to better understand the effects of heat on vulnerable urban populations” says Prof. Hatzopoulou.
The sensors are to be spread across the GTA, while covering a range of urban environments. The group hopes to not only monitor from residential sites, but also also install sensors in green spaces, such as parks or conservation areas. The team will also develop interactive web-based tools to communicate the findings with public health officials and community members.
By Phill Snel
SENSOR INSTALLATION SITES NEEDED If you live in the GTA, have a front porch, backyard, or a first-floor balcony, please consider volunteering to host one of our sensors by filling out the following form: CIHR Heat Grant – Toronto 2022 sampling campaign (google.com). Where necessary, the team can install a pole for the monitor to perch atop of. No external power is required, so if you’ve not thought of getting involved in science, unless it was by a ten-foot pole, then this is your opportunity. If interested in participating, please fill out the form link above.
According to MetSoc, the Emerging Professionals (EP) Development Program helps emerging professionals to engage with our Society, participate in Society activities, become better acquainted with each other and make important contacts with CIM and MetSoc leaders over a period of two years.
The Metallurgy and Materials Society Metallurgists have been active in CIM since its inception in 1898. In 1945, the Metallurgy Division was formed to reflect the group’s technical interests. Constituted as a Society in 1967, the Metallurgical Society (MetSoc) is one of the four societies and five divisions making up the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum. In October of 2010, the Society adopted its new name The Metallurgy and Materials Society.
The Materials, Mineral and Mining society has its equivalent in different countries:
Canada: CIM – Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy & Petroleum
U.S.: TMS – The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society [the M is stacked as 3 M’s]
U.K.: IOM3 Institute of Materials, Minerals, & Mining [the M is stacked as 3 M’s].
Prof. Ogunsanya is a member of all three societies and was just recently awarded Professional Member of Institute of Materials, Minerals, & Mining (MIMMM) as well. He is an assistant professor of Civil Engineering at U of T, and is the newest faculty member in the Department, having started January 2022. He is known for his research work on electrochemistry and corrosion.
