Comparing scenarios to improve accessibility to local opportunities in Montreal, Canada.

Density and diversity of land use are recognized as key features of neighbourhoods that can reduce car dependency and improve accessibility to local opportunities. This paper proposes to evaluate scenarios optimizing the spatial distribution of local opportunities to better align the distribution of both day population (where people conduct their activities) and night population (where people live). Hence, COVID-19 has changed the typical distribution of people across space, because of full or partial virtualization of activities, raising questions about the optimal distribution of opportunities. We thus evaluate the opportunity density per square kilometer for night and day population, with the current distribution of opportunities as well as two scenarios that distribute opportunities proportionally to the night and day populations. Furthermore, we evaluate two scenarios of restaurant redistribution that may result from the teleworking. The results indicate that the current distribution of opportunities is better aligned with the day population distribution. However, the population distribution could, in the upcoming years, shift towards the night population distribution with the increase in activity virtualization. Our findings show that strategic planning oriented towards a distribution in proportion to the night population would increase proximity for large proportion of the population in Montreal.