3rd Annual Sustainable Transportation Roundtable
We sincerely appreciate Alstom's generous support in making this event possible.
In the 20th Century, the automobile became the predominant mode of transport in most cities in North America. This has had a wide range of negative environmental and social impacts. However, transport systems which focus on public transit and “active” transport (walking and cycling) are uniquely situated to address a wide range of societal goals including reducing GHG emissions and other pollutants at the same time improving health and safety. While cities have begun to embrace a move towards a new mobility paradigm, the path towards sustainable and inclusive transport systems has a number of technical, political, economic and societal barriers.
In this 3rd Annual Sustainable Transportation Roundtable, following their recent book, “Life after cars”, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon of the podcast “War on Cars” will open the day with a keynote. Following this, two panels consisting of local experts and stakeholders will discuss issues related to transport and sustainability. As always, the day wouldn't be complete without presentations by student researchers from McGill University and Polytechnique Montréal on diverse topics related to transport and cities.
Date: Thursday, April 9, 2026
Time: 9:30 AM - 18:00 PM
Location: Armstrong building, Room 365/370
Agenda
9:30 - 10:00 | Arrival and Coffee
10:00 – 10:15 | Opening Remarks by Kevin Manaugh, Associate Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Geography and the Bieler School of Environment
10:15 - 11:00 | Keynote Speech by Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon (Presentation in English)
11:00 - 12:15 | Panel #1 Nature and cars with Catherine Guastavino, Sarah Dorner and Lenore Fahrig
12:15 – 13:15 | Lunch
13:15 – 14:15 | Graduate Student Lightning Talks
14:15 – 14:45 | Coffee
14:45 – 16:00 | Panel #2 – Transport & Marginalized Groups with Alejandro Pérez Villaseñor, Marie-Soleil Cloutier, Meredith Alousi-Jones, E. Owen Waygood
16:00 - 18:00 | Closing Reception at Faculty Club (3450 Rue McTavish, Montréal, QC H3A 1X9)
Meet the keynote speakers
Sarah Goodyear is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in CityLab, Streetsblog, Grist, The New York Daily News, The Village Voice, Ms. Magazine, Psychology Today, and many other venues. She is the coauthor of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out on October 21st from Thesis, a Penguin Random House imprint. She is also cofounder and cohost of The War on Cars, a podcast that looks at the effects of automobile dependence on our society. She is the author of a novel, View from a Burning Bridge, published by Red Hen Press. She holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in Biography and Memoir from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Sarah lives in Brooklyn.
Doug Gordon is a writer, media producer, public speaker, safe streets advocate and passionate believer in cities for people. He's also one of the hosts of The War on Cars podcast. Their book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile, was published by Penguin Random House in Fall 2025.
His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, Salon, Jalopnik, The New York Daily News and Streetsblog. He's frequently quoted in the press about New York's livable streets revolution.
As a TV producer with credits for PBS, ABC, Discovery, History, Travel, and NatGeo, Doug knows how to tell a good story. Using these skills, he has advised transportation advocacy organizations, climate groups, and mobility companies on communications strategies that make the case for safer, smarter and more sustainable cities. Doug is a tireless advocate for safe streets for cyclists and pedestrians, a dedicated community volunteer, and helped establish New York's "LPI bill," which makes people on bikes safer at intersections.
He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Leora and their two children, who love getting around the neighborhood by biking, walking, and public transit. He has not owned a car since 1998.
Discover their Podcast
Meet the panelists
Sarah Dorner, Professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, is co-chairholder of the Industrial Chair on Drinking Water. Professor Dorner’s research focuses on the whole urban water cycle and novel technologies for safe community drinking water supplies. Prof. Dorner is leading projects on nature based solutions for stormwater control and climate change adaptation.
Catherine Guastavino is a professor at McGill University (School of Information Studies) and co-director of the Quebec-wide network AIRS (Air, Intersectorality, Respiratory and Sound research). She also directs the Sounds in the City partnership, which brings together diverse academics, professionals, artists, and citizens to rethink the role of sound in cities. Her research interests include urban soundscapes, environmental noise, (multi)sensory experience, spatial audio and hearing. She has extensive experience collaborating with industry partners, cultural institutions, municipal, and provincial governments in Quebec and abroad.
Alejandro Pérez Villaseñor holds a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering and has research interests in Bus Rapid Transit systems, last-mile mobility, and road safety. His research focuses on indoor air quality in transit units, the effects of prolonged exposure to transportation-related pollutants on human health, and the mechanisms that promote active mobility in urban contexts.
Marie-Soleil Cloutier is a geographer, a full professor, and director of the Centre Urbanisation Culture Société at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique. She also lead the scientific activities of the Pedestrian and Urban Space Laboratory (Labo Piétons et Espace urbain). For over 15 years, she has been conducting research projects on urban walkability and road risk, including the ones faced by the most vulnerable pedestrians (children, seniors). Her partnership-based approaches lead her to collaborate with various stakeholders in the public and private sectors, as well as with researchers in Quebec, the rest of Canada, and France.
Meredith Alousi-Jones is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the School of Urban Planning at McGill. Her research examines the everyday travel of underserved populations, focusing mainly on older adults, and explores how transport systems and urban environments shape social participation and quality of life. Using interdisciplinary and mixed-method approaches, she works closely with communities, practitioners, and policy partners to co-produce research that informs more equitable transport and urban planning.
Lenore Fahrig is Chancellor’s Professor of Biology and Gray Merriam Chair in Landscape Ecology at Carleton University, Ottawa. Lenore and her students research the effects of landscape structure on biodiversity and the abundance, distribution and persistence of wildlife populations. Study species include frogs and toads, turtles, birds, mammals, insects, plants and lichens. Landscape structure includes the amounts of various kinds of land cover in a landscape (e.g., forest, wetland, roads, urban areas, crop fields), and the spatial arrangement of these cover types. Lenore is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) and recipient of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, Canada’s top award in Science and Engineering.
Professor Owen Waygood is a full professor at Polytechnique Montréal, Canada. Professor Waygood is interested in how the built environment affects not just how we travel, but its impact on our lives through social, environmental, and economic impacts. Dr. Waygood has published research on children’s travel (Canadian, British, Dutch, Japanese, and Swedish), life-cycle stages, cohort effects, information use for more environmentally friendly travel, and psychological impacts on the interpretation of CO2 information. He was an Associate Professor at Laval University, Canada from 2012 to 2018. Before that he held a research position at the Centre for Transport & Society in the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2012. Professor Waygood completed his PhD at Kyoto University in 2009.