Daniel Romm

Measuring and moving on the street: A scoping review of street space allocation studies A field of research is emerging that examines the allocation of street space to different transportation infrastructures, backgrounded by the increasingly recognized need to redesign city streets a...

We have a new study systematically reviewing the emerging field of street space allocation studies:

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/MMXIG...

These studies can make important contributions to improving our streets – excited to see future work on this!

Last week, @daniel-romm.bsky.social participated in the North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association #NABSA Conference in Montréal. He presented our work exploring Grand Rapids Michigan's free fare #escooter pilot program.

Really enjoy working on @uoftcities.bsky.social projects like this.

Heavy lifting by @jamaps.bsky.social with data analysis & visualization. Also Mia Wang who’s led data collection and GIS data processing.

Who are streets for?

h/t @daniel-romm.bsky.social @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social #IdeasAtWork

Check out the full study here: doi.org/10.1016/j.jc...

I reiterate our findings on space allocation in the roadway (97.7% cars : 2.3% bikes), the street (79.6% cars : 18.8% sidewalks : 1.6% bikes), the disparity between space and mode share, and our finding that more bike infrastructure is correlated with decreased rates of crashes involving cyclists.

Montréal’s bike infrastructure hardly takes up any space from cars on city roads Bike infrastructure in Montréal takes up less than three per cent of the roadway, while car infrastructure has more than 90 per cent of roads across the city.

Bike lanes are a key issue in Montréal's elections. It's important that these conversations are informed by data. Our study of street space in Montréal was featured on an invited article in @theconversation.com.
theconversation.com/montreals-bi...
theconversation.com/a-montreal-m...

Data-Driven Mobility Analytics Workshops 2025 Montreal The Data-Driven Mobility Analytics Workshops 2025 aims to broaden the conversation on current analytical tools, frameworks, and open data that support informed decision-making in sustainable transport...

Do you work with mobility data? Come discuss! ptal-io.github.io/ddma2025-mon...

October 27, the @platialanalysis.bsky.social at McGill will be hosting the Data-Driven Mobility Analytics workshop (DDMA2025).

Free participation but limited space, so please declare your interest by October 3!

Spatial Data Science Symposium 2025 December 4-5 | Distributed & Online. The symposium aims to bring together researchers from both academia and industry to discuss experiences, insights, methodologies, and applications, taking spatial...

The Spatial Data Science Symposium #SDSS2025 is back. Check out the Call for Sessions and Call for Papers: sdss2025.spatial-data-science.net

Media Spotlight on Montreal Cycling Study A study led by lab member Daniel Romm on Montreal’s cycling infrastructure has received wide media coverage...

Congrats to lab member @daniel-romm.bsky.social, whose study on Montreal’s bike lanes is gaining national and international media coverage.
platial.science/media-spotli...

Happy to have @daniel-romm.bsky.social stop by the @uoftcities.bsky.social offices this afternoon to chat in between his well deserved media interviews.

Tagging some friends @davidzipper.bsky.social @thewaroncars.bsky.social @nerd4cities.bsky.social I think will be interested in Daniel’s work.

The cars are going to be alright: Examining micromobility infrastructure space allocation and potential improvement scenarios in Montréal Many cities today are redesigning their streetscapes to redress the historical privilege afforded to the automobile in planning and policy. Much stree…

Clearly communicating about street space is evidently important in understanding cities. I appreciate Metro Morning providing the opportunity to talk over this topic in another urban context. We would love to extend this analysis to other Canadian cities.

The article: doi.org/10.1016/j.jc...

2/2

© CBC/Radio-Canada 2025. All rights reserved.

This morning CBC Metro Morning had me on to talk about our recent study "The Cars are Going to be Alright", and how it is relevant for Toronto. You can listen here: www.cbc.ca/listen/live-....

For a post explaining the main findings: platial.science/new-pub-the-...

1/2

Hopefully we'll have the opportunity soon, we'd like to see how the numbers change with updated data. Thank you for your interest!

The disparity between the proportion of trips by cyclists, and the proportion of space given to their infrastructure, relative to cars, seems to be especially resonant, so I threw together this map based on the study's data for another form of illustration (though, see the maps in the study).

4/4

We found that in Montréal, streets are overwhelmingly allocated to cars, at the expense of cyclists' space (97.7% to 2.3%). This is true even in boroughs we tend to think of as cycling friendly. In the Plateau, 22% of trips are cycling trips, but they only have 4.7% of the roadway.

3/4

All this to say, one of our main goals for this study was to communicate clearly about street space - and it seems that our framing strongly resonates.

Street space frames our experience of the city. It matters deeply to people; no wonder there's so much passion here, for better or for worse.

2/4

Happy to see media and popular interest around our recent article "The Cars are Going to be Alright" (platial.science/new-pub-the-...). We've been featured on CBC, Radio Noon, Daybreak, Le Devoir, Radio Canada, CTV, Global, CityNews, and more to come. A lot of engagement on social media too.

1/4

Street space is overwhelmingly allocated to car infrastructure, yet any efforts to reallocate space to other transport modes is hotly contested. Turns out, even with radical proposals to increase micromobility infrastructure space, drivers need not worry – the cars are going to be alright.

We also model scenarios: what if we doubled all the bike lanes in Montréal? Still, in no borough would cars have less than 90% of the road, space per driver would fall by just -0.154 sq. m/traveller, but micromobility area would increase to +4.447 sq. m/traveller.

Boroughs with more cyclists have a worse ratio; in Plateau, drivers have 3.36 sq. m/traveller, compared to 1.51 sq. m/traveller for cyclists. We present several measures for communicating this inequality in street space allocation, look at spatial distribution, relationship to socio-demographics...

We measure how street space is divided between transport infrastructure in Montréal. Between cars and micromobility, cars are given 97.68% of space to micromobility's 2.32%; per traveller, cars are given 5.8 sq. m/traveller to micromobility's 4.54 sq. m/traveller.

Blog post about the paper on the @platialanalysis.bsky.social website here: platial.science/new-pub-the-...

New paper out, open access in the Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research: "The Cars are Going to be Alright: Examining Micromobility Infrastructure Space Allocation and Potential Improvement Scenarios in Montréal" (doi.org/10.1016/j.jc...).

The Potential of Shared Micromobility Systems for Connecting to Regional Transit Services In a Position Paper prepared for Ontario's Metrolinx, Daniel Romm provides an overview of shared micromobility systems...

In a Position Paper prepared for Ontario’s #Metrolinx, lab member, @daniel-romm.bsky.social provides an overview of the potential for current shared #micromobility systems. platial.science/the-potentia...