Search

• Material intensities within single-family dwellings have coefficients of variation ranging from 13% to 160%. • Concrete basements are the largest driver of material use by mass and building envelope by volume. • Zoning ordinances incentivize high MI construction. • Understanding the variability in MI facilitates communication of its impacts on LCA findings, bottom-up MFA or circular economy studies, and similar. The need to reduce resource use in the built environment is widely recognized, but quantitative understanding of material use in buildings is limited, especially at neighbourhood and city scales. Existing bottom-up material inventories largely rely on typology-based methods, using representative buildings with little quantification of variability in material use. They also typically focus on advancing material replacement or recycling with less attention to reducing material use. This paper quantifies the material intensity of 40 single-family wood framed dwellings in Toronto, Canada. Design and construction drawings from the Toronto Committee of Adjustment and local building codes were used to estimate material quantities for each building. The variability in material use and intensity is explored per building, floor area and number of bedrooms and the largest drivers determined to identify opportunities for building design modifications to meaningfully reduce material intensity. Variability in the quantities of construction materials used within the single-family dwellings studied is large, with coefficients of variation ranging from 13% up to 160%. Concrete basements are the largest driver of material use by mass (mean 56% of total material mass) and building envelope insulation by volume (37%). This paper advances our understanding of the range of material intensities within a single building type in one city and the largest drivers of material use within single-family dwellings. This provides valuable information for including variability in typology approaches to bottom-up urban material intensity and insights for policy/design pathways for reducing material use in single-family dwellings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Mainstream green economies are market-driven models centered on growth and profit accumulation. • An analysis of labour is essential to shed light on green economies' logics and practices. • Recruitment promotes a representation of green jobs as sites for environmentalist politics. • The politicization of green work is ideological as it normalizes precarious and unpaid work. • Putting environmentalism to work extends the reach of labour subsumption. Market-driven green economies are premised upon the exploitation and ongoing commodification of both labour and nature. Yet their concrete incarnations experiment with new strategies to "secure and obscure" such processes. These strategies include the formulation and dissemination of an ideological representation of green labour in which environmentalism is "put to work." In this paper I focus on worker recruitment in Toronto and analyze its role in constructing green jobs as a venue for environmentalist politics, and therefore as "good" and "meaningful" work. My empirical material consists of green job announcements posted on GoodWork.ca, the main platform for green worker recruitment in Canada. Building on a Gramscian understanding of ideology, I query the concrete and symbolic functions performed by job ads and discuss them in relation to the structural processes that characterize Toronto's contemporary labour market. I suggest that an ideological representation of green work is used to select motivated and productive workers, justify the offer of non-specialized, precarious, or unpaid positions, and ultimately extend the reach of labour subsumption into spheres traditionally considered outside the employment relation, such as environmentalist activism. In turn, such a representation conceals the extent to which green economies rely on the exploitation of labour while it circumscribes environmentalist critiques within market-driven and economic growth-centered initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme cold weather alert programs have been implemented in some areas to address the significant health impacts of exposure to cold. One such program is the Toronto Cold Weather Program (TCWP) that was implemented in the City of Toronto since 1996 to protect the public from extreme weather conditions. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the TCWP in reducing mortality and morbidity outcomes related to cold temperatures. We applied a quasi-experimental study design using the Difference-in-Differences method coupled with propensity-score-matching to determine the effect of the TCMP on daily hospitalizations and deaths due to cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD) or cerebrovascular disease, using two complementary analytical approaches. Overall, the analysis did not detect an impact on reduced mortality/morbidity in the City of Toronto from the TCMP. For example, we obtained a Risk Difference (RD) of −0.88 (per 1,000,000 people) (95% CI: −3.27 to 1.51) and a Risk Ratio (RR) of 0.98 (95% CI: 0.91 to 1.05) people for CVD hospitalizations. The TCWP was not found to be effective in reducing cold related mortality and morbidity which demonstrates the importance of improving existing policies related to cold in Canada and other countries. • Exposure to cold is substantially increases an individual's risk for injury and death, and worsen pre-existing chronic conditions • Little is known about existing cold warning programs impact on reducing cold-related mortality and morbidity. • We observed that the Toronto Cold Weather Program was not effective in reducing cold-related mortality/morbidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the second part of a two-part study on the performance of ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) in single-family detached houses in Canada. In Part I the cooling performance of two GSHPs was tested, analyzed and evaluated over one cooling season. In this paper, the heating performance of three vertical closed-loop water-to-air GSHP systems installed in three new single-family detached houses in Innisfil (80 km north of Toronto, Canada) is monitored, analyzed and evaluated over one heating season. Results show that GSHP A , GSHP B and GSHP C were able to meet the peak heating load without using the auxiliary heating element. The seasonal coefficient of performance of heat pump of GSHP A , GSHP B and GSHP C is 4.2, 4.0 and 3.4, respectively, whereas the seasonal coefficient of performance of the GSHP system of GSHP A , GSHP B and GSHP C is 3.8, 3.4 and 2.7, respectively. GSHP A has the highest COP mainly because it is equipped with a variable speed compressor while GSHP B and GSHP C are equipped with two-stage compressors. The average temperature of water leaving the ground loop of GSHP A , GSHP B and GSHP C is 3.9 °C, 3.1 °C and 2.7 °C, respectively, where the average temperature of water leaving the ground loop varied by up to 6.3 °C throughout the heating season. The total power consumption and operating cost of GSHP A , GSHP B and GSHP C are less than conventional air-source heat pumps by up to 46%, 40% and 24%, respectively. It is concluded that GSHPs operate at high COPs without operational problems even in very cold climates if designed, sized and installed correctly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most investigations of incident-related delay duration in the transportation context are restricted to highway traffic, with little attention given to delays due to transit service disruptions. Studies of transit-based delay duration are also considerably less comprehensive than their highway counterparts with respect to examining the effects of non-causal variables on the delay duration. However, delays due to incidents in public transit service can have serious consequences on the overall urban transportation system due to the pivotal and vital role of public transit. The ability to predict the durations of various types of transit system incidents is indispensable for better management and mitigation of service disruptions. This paper presents a detailed investigation on incident delay durations in Toronto’s subway system over the year 2013, focusing on the effects of the incidents’ location and time, the train-type involved, and the non-adherence to proper recovery procedures. Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) hazard models are estimated to investigate the relationship between these factors and the resulting delay duration. The empirical investigation reveals that incident types that impact both safety and operations simultaneously generally have longer expected delays than incident types that impact either safety or operations alone. Incidents at interchange stations are cleared faster than incidents at non-interchange stations. Incidents during peak periods have nearly the same delay durations as off-peak incidents. The estimated models are believed to be useful tools in predicting the relative magnitude of incident delay duration for better management of subway operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toronto’s quest to host the Summer Olympic Games has dominated both contemporary planning discourse and practice. For some, the pursuit of the games embodies Toronto’s transformation into a ‘competitive’ global city. Relatively unexplored in this discourse are the contradictory roles that labour plays in contemporary urban development. I argue that the new labour geography can provide some interesting insights into such processes. Specifically, labour geographers have given workers with divergent interests greater agency in shaping economic landscapes and have noted the multi-scalar organisation of labour. The paper looks at the contradictory and conflicting positions held by different labour unions in Toronto toward the city’s bid to host the 2008 Olympics. The case study suggests that labour is an active agent in processes shaping contemporary Toronto and support the bid for complex reasons ranging from the promise of jobs to potential future organising opportunities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Bicycling rates increased across study sites regardless of the presence of a cycling facility. • A new cycling facility increased the odds of bicycling more on the street. • New facilities were associated with increased commute-related bicycling only for regular cyclists. • Mode-substitution was more likely near a new cycle track vs. a painted bicycle lane. • Urban vs. suburban location was associated with more cycling on street, but not with mode substitution. Cycling facilities have become a widely used sustainable transportation policy tool, but their impacts on reduced car dependence are difficult to isolate. This paper presents the findings from a household survey conducted in 17 neighbourhoods in the Toronto region, Canada, some with a recently built cycling facility and some without. Results indicate higher odds of increased commute-related bicycling on streets with a new cycling facility. People who were already commuting by bicycle at least once a week are likely to bicycle more frequently after new facilities are built. Bicycling uptake is more obvious in neighbourhhods with a new cycle track, while changes relating to bicycle lanes were not statistically different from neighbourhoods without a facility. All else being equal, urban cycling facilities were associated with higher odds of increased commute-related bicycling, compared to suburban locations. Findings offer insights into expected outcomes of bicycle network expansion policy/projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: A one-day workshop was hosted by the Symptom Control Committee of the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Clinical Trials Group (NCIC-CTG), in conjunction with the October 2002 annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncologists in Toronto, Ontario. The primary intention of the workshop was to direct the future research agenda of the Symptom Control Committee. Large group presentations were held initially to review the contemporary research issues of four selected areas of interest: fatigue, brain metastasis, bone metastasis and radiation-induced mucositis. Panel members were then charged with the identification of specific research proposals that could be considered for further development. Research questions were to be clinically relevant and currently appropriate. Any additional information needed before the launch of any potential trial was also requested. In this paper, we will review and summarise the outcomes from the radiation-induced mucositis sessions.Materials and Methods: Thirty-four participants participated in the large group sessions and contributed to one of four panel discussions on selected supportive care issues relevant to radiation oncologists.Results: Three potential and non-overlapping research questions were identified; two involving mucositis management in patients receiving radical radiation for head and neck cancer, and a third for patients with advanced lung cancer undergoing combined radiation and chemotherapy and at risk for the development of symptomatic oesophagitis.Conclusion: The workshop successfully identified three potential research questions. The large group and the smaller panel discussions successfully established consensus on important aspects of future study designs. The current ‘standard of care’, appropriate experimental treatments, primary outcomes of interest and study population parameters were each important issues that were discussed. The importance of developing meaningful biological assays was reviewed, as was the need to ensure the appropriate storage of biological samples from patients for future study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the application of surrogate modelling to create bottom-up archetype models, to improve the energy performance of specific residential building archetypes. The objective of this study is to quantify the application range(s) of surrogate models to predict and improve the annual energy performance of single-family home archetypes. Six distinct surrogate models were developed using multivariate regression and artificial neural networks, based on 6000 simulated samples extracted from four different century home archetypes in Toronto (Canada) as a result of random field study within a target neighbourhood. The results show that a single surrogate model can predict the annual energy requirements for four distinct archetypes with 7.87% average error with a multivariate regression model and 4.13% average error using an artificial neural network in 0.00047 and 0.013 ms respectively. These results indicate that the bottom-up surrogate model can describe the relationship between retrofit strategies and annual energy demand with substantial computational time savings. The findings of this study support the future application of surrogate modelling to develop bottom-up archetype models to continue the development of the Toronto Archetype Project and to support a national retrofit strategy in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Canada has created new markets in public land by gearing its public real property management toward commodification. • Privatization is pushed by Canada Lands (surplus land) and Public Works (sale and leaseback partnerships). • Snapshots highlight the privatization of once-public railway land and its implications for urban development in Toronto. • Snapshots highlight the connection between military land privatization and Indigenous reconciliation in Vancouver. • Larco, a secretive family-run private trust, has a scandalous track record in public land privatization from coast to coast. This paper explores three questions on public land and real estate privatization in Canada: which state institutions are involved, what logics guide these privatizations, and what are the implications of how privatization manifests? Answers are interwoven through three sections. The first section summarizes the historical context and institutional reconfiguration of public land and real estate management systems in capitalist-colonial Canada, examining the public sector institutions and ideas involved: the logics and procedures of surplus disposal (Canada Lands) and sale and leaseback (Public Works). The second section explores the implications of surplus land sales through snapshots highlighting some of its consequences: urban development in Toronto through the privatization of once-public railway land, and what the privatization of military land means for Indigenous reconciliation (and capitalist commercialization) in Vancouver. The third section delves deeper into how privatization manifests by exposing several scandals in the sale and leaseback of government buildings managed by Public Works, with implications revealed through the activities of its central private sector agent, the shadowy family-run private trust Larco Investments Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]