Can We Learn from Other Cities How to Build Transit Better?

Program International Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone Project | Launched 2023 | Mission To team up students with international community partners to help research and propose solutions to urban challenges

When a public transit project in Toronto takes years or even decades to materialize (hello, Eglinton Crosstown), it may provoke groans or shrugs – but not surprise. We’ve come to accept the seemingly endless planning process and construction delays as inevitable.

So, Alec Mak found it inspiring to learn this past February that in Pune, a city of about seven million in Western India, transportation decision-making can happen quite efficiently. Mak, who was then in his final year of an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, was visiting the city for three days as part of the School of Cities’ new International Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone Project.

Mak and four other students worked with leaders of the Pune Municipal Corporation to understand how to better manage traffic congestion and poor air quality arising from rapid urbanization. He learned that action on subway and bus infrastructure happens relatively swiftly compared to in Canada.

“They have a go-all-in approach to solving transit problems. They try solutions they think will work, versus a lot of the consultation that we do here,” says Mak, who graduated in the spring and now works at a transportation consulting firm.

Participants in the new capstone course, which launched last year with support from the University of Toronto India Foundation, are final-year undergraduate students from any program. They work in multidisciplinary teams on an urban challenge presented by a global partner. The students research the problem, engage directly with the partner remotely and on site in their country, and develop a prototype of a solution.

Faculty advisor Aditi Mehta, an assistant professor of urban studies, describes the course as a form of experiential, community-engaged learning that prioritizes cooperative problem-solving between the community partner and students. “We’re helping students understand that none of them are experts – that we’re going to lean on what the community organizations are telling us. You might have an idea, and you might have a way of running with it. But you have to be willing to pivot quickly, be flexible, and be open to challenging your own assumptions,” says Mehta, who researches development geared to achieving social change.

Last year, Mehta guided two groups of students (the other focused on how the city manages information). Mak’s team, which consisted of students in urban studies, architecture, international relations and computer science, studied global standards for accessible building design, which helped them understand how to adapt Pune transit stations for users with mobility limitations. They also discussed Pune’s traffic and transportation issues with the city’s IT lead and visited subway and bus stops to observe obstacles to public usage. They used their findings to develop a digital tool for decision-makers to track human and vehicle movements in the city.

While in India, Mak and his team members also participated in historic walking tours of Pune and Mumbai (where they also spent a few days), and met with local organizations focused on social development, including Swach Coop, India’s first wholly owned co-operative of self-employed waste-pickers. The students learned that the members’ methods for organizing collection routes, sorting trash and composting organic material have helped improve recycling levels and kept waste out of landfills. Understanding how people in the Global North can draw lessons from the Global South is just one of the outcomes. “I think we can learn a lot from how powerful initiatives like this can be,” says Shreya Shourie, now a fifth-year urban studies and political science student who was part of the information management team.

Shourie’s project, which brought together students from sociology, economics, East Asian Studies and information technology, involved collaborating with Pune city staff to gather and store public records, news stories and social media posts about the city, and make them available online. After consulting with city staff, policymakers and Pune citizens, and then researching various solutions, the team developed a prototype of an internet archive with a browser-based web tool that had AI capabilities and was accessible to people of all abilities. Both Shourie’s and Mak’s teams presented their findings and recommendations to Pune city officials.

This academic year, participants in the capstone course are working with new community partners in Pune and collaborating with final-year undergraduate students at Ashoka University near Delhi to solve different urban challenges.

Mehta sees the capstone course as aligning with U of T’s broader mission to provide students with meaningful opportunities for global learning and fieldwork. “It helps them broaden their worldview and see other ways of knowing and living. It builds their empathy skills, helps them connect with different types of people and gives them a new sense of confidence.”