Projects

Rethinking Park Accessibility

Transit-to-Parks: Evaluating public transit connections to regional parks and greenways

  • Sponsor/funding program: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, Utah Transit Authority (UTA), UBC Hampton Grant, UBC Sustainability Scholars Program
  • Period: 2021-ongoing 
  • Research team: Keunhyun Park (Principal Investigator on UBC grants), Alessandro Rigolon (the University of Utah, Principal Investigator on the UTA grant), Yiyang Wang (PhD student)
    • Past research assistants: Paul Liu (Research Assistant), Tony Jiang (Research Assistant), Daniella Jialu Zhang, Xiaofan Shen (Research Assistant)
  • Collaborators: Metro Vancouver, TransLink, Utah Transit Authority
  • Link to an interactive web map of Transit-to-Parks initiatives in Canada and the U.S.
  • Publications
  • More details regarding publications, project reports, and presentations can be accessed through [Transit-to-Parks Project Page].

Multi-Modal Transport Challenges in Metro Vancouver

  • Sponsor/funding program: Translink New Mobility Grant, NSERC Alliance Grant
  • Period: 2023-ongoing  
  • Research team: Keunhyun Park (Principal Investigator on UBC grants), Yiyang Wang (Ph.D. student), Kai Hei Mau (Research Assistant) 
  • Collaborators: Metro Vancouver, TransLink

Vibrant urban blue-green spaces: Mixed methods analyses of accessing,
using, and experiencing urban beaches and waterfronts

  • Sponsor/funding program: SSHRC Insight Development Grant, UBC Four-year Doctoral Fellowship
  • Period: 2022-2026 
  • Research team: Keunhyun Park (Principal Investigator), Asim Khanal (PhD student)
  • Collaborators: Lorien Nesbitt (UBC), Angela Rout (TU Delft), Metro Vancouver, Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation
  • Research objectives:
    • 1) Provide a comprehensive literature review of urban blue space usage, including their types, kinds of activities they support, and groups utilizing these spaces for fulfilling various needs.
    • 2) Propose a conceptual framework that summarizes the influence of both user volume and diversity in achieving vibrant urban blue spaces.
    • 3) Identify the motivations, constraints, and resulting negotiated usage of urban blue spaces by various user groups.
    • 4) Determine the multidimensional accessibility of beaches and waterfronts, by combining physical accessibility metrics (such as the number of access points, availability of ramps, number of nearby bus stops, etc.), with visual accessibility (i.e., access to the view of water), and haptic accessibility (i.e., access to touching water).
    • 5) Understand the relationships between the multidimensional accessibility to urban blue spaces and the surrounding neighborhoods’ socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., SES, race/ethnicity, indigeneity, residency status, etc.).
    • 6) Explore the correlation between user volumes in urban blue spaces and their multidimensional accessibility.

Developing automated visitor monitoring tools for better management of urban nature 

  1. Sponsor/funding program: NSERC Discovery Grant 
  2. Period: 2022-2027 
  3. Research team: Keunhyun Park (Principal Investigator), Mingze Chen (Research Assistant)
  4. Collaborators: TBD 
  5. Research objectives: The short-term objectives are 1) Develop reliable and valid visitor monitoring tools in parks and greenways using WiFi sensors, 2) Automate the behaviour mapping process in parks and greenways, using a combination of WiFi sensor data and UAV flight system, and 3) (using the collected longitudinal data) Estimate visitor volume and movements, using spatiotemporal models. This grant will lay the foundation for achieving UNDER Lab’s long-term research vision to provide urban forestry planning and design with novel monitoring tools, models, and data, which are informative, cost-effective, and accessible to all.

Natural space and health equity: Who benefits: Why and How?

  • Sponsor/funding program: UBC Four-year Doctoral Fellowship, UBC Forestry internal funding
  • Period: 2021-ongoing
  • Research team: Everly Jazi (Principal Investigator), Keunhyun Park (Supervisor)  
  • Collaborators: Matilda van den Bosch (Barcelona Institute for Global Health; European Forest Institute), Margarita Triguero-Mas (Open University of Catalonia), Michael Meitner (UBC)
  • Research objectives
    • 1) Assess mental health benefit received from use of nature and access to nature, identifying specific differences between engagement with more natural versus more built spaces
    • 2) Assess any differences in mental health benefit between marginalized and advantaged sociodemographic community members. As a subobjective, see if access to and use of nature can narrow the gap in mental wellbeing between sociodemographic groups (i.e., equigenic effect)
    • 3) Understand marginalized sociodemographic community members’ perceptions and conceptualizations of nature, naturalness, and nature-derived mental health benefits
    • 4) Examine if green place attachment and/or leisure constraints variables modify the association between access/use of nature and psychological wellbeing. As a subobjective, explore if it is together with sociodemographic variables that they have a moderation role in the nature and psychological wellbeing chain

A Socio-Ecologic Framework Supporting Individuals with Disabilities’ Community Living and Participation 

  • Sponsor/funding program: National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research  
  • Period: 2019-2025 
  • Research team: Keith Christensen (Utah State University, Principal Investigator), Keunhyun Park (Co-Investigator), Brent Chamberlain (Co-Investigator), Ziqi Song (Co-Investigator), J.C. Sheen (Co-Investigator), Carlos Licon (Co-Investigator), etc.  
  • Collaborators: Wasatch Front Regional Council, Independent Living Centers in Utah
  • Research objectives: This research project aims to develop a socio-ecologic framework describing the physical environmental factors associated with individuals with disabilities’ community participation (intervention development research). This socio-ecologic framework will be used to examine the effect of mainstream community planning practices and policies on individuals with disabilities’ community participation (intervention efficacy research).
  • Publications
    • Park, K., Nasr-Isfahani, H., Novack, V., Sheen, J., Hadayeghi, H., Song, Z., & Christensen, K. (2023). Impacts of disability on daily travel behaviour: A systematic review. Transport Reviews 43(2): 178-203. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2022.2060371 [The Editors’ Choice] [download]
    • Park, K., Chamberlain, B., Song, Z., Nasr-Isfahani, H., Sheen, J., Larsen, T., Novack, V., Licon, C., & Christensen, K. (2022). A double jeopardy: COVID-19 impacts on people with disabilities’ travel behavior and community living. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 156: 24-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2021.12.008 [download]