Building Transit in Canada: Lessons Learnt from Europe

TRACCS is proud to announce our upcoming presentation from rail and construction industry experts, to discuss some lessons learned and costing of constructing transit from Europe and how they may or may not be applicable to how and how we build transit in Canada.

Meet Matthew Slade, Rail Director at Ellis Don. Matthew is a Multidiscipline railway specialist with experience of consultancy work, main contractor delivery and client organisations. He has experience on large multidiscipline projects such as West Coast Route Modernisation, Euston Area Remodelling, Watford Bletchley Alliance, Ledburn Junction Blockade, Bourne End Blockade, Waterloo & City Line refurbishment, East London Line and Crossrail.

Meet Jonathan English - Jonathan is the Director of Policy for Transportation and Infrastructure at the Toronto Region Board of Trade. He has written on transportation and other issues for publications including the Globe and Mail and Bloomberg CityLab. He has a doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University, with research examining suburban transit policy and the relationship between transit service levels and transit demand from a historical perspective. His research has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Vox, Wired, CBC, and NPR. Johnathan will be speaking on a number of issues including categorization of cost prroblems, as well as examples in Canadian and American cities.

Meet Marco Chitti - Marco graduated in architecture in 2008 at the University of Ferrara. Between 2008 and 2014, he practiced as an architect and a planner in Italy and as a foreign expert in a technical assistance project in Palestine for the Italian Cooperation Agency. He is currently a PhD candidate in urban planning at the University of Montréal, a former Vanier scholar, a lecturer at the École d’urbanisme et d’architecture de paysage, and a research fellow at NYU’s Marron Institute working on the Transit Costs project. Marco will be discussing Building Infill Stations with standardized, cost-effective design and will present examples from Italy’s RFI rail infrastructure manager, Sudtirol’s STA transit agency, and others.

TRACCS is inviting all of our members to register for this event and be a part of the discussions that may help improve rail standards in Canada.