Lincoln chief executive officer Michael Kirkopoulos said while municipal staff have spent months planning for the launch of the service, that would also link with GO bus services, much of the work was done by someone who would actually use the service — a student.

Brock University master of sustainability student Meghan Birbeck “almost single-handedly looked at the route map and said, ‘No, here’s where it should go,’” he said.

He said the 24-year-old student who worked as an intern at town hall during the summer months “uses every sort of bus and active transportation network we have.”

Although “it’s great for us as bureaucrats to sit there and tell you, ‘Here’s where the stops should be and here’s the frequency,’” Kirkopoulos said Birbeck provided insight into the development of that transit service that town staff overlooked.

“It’s a user-design as opposed to an experiment and experience design,” he said. “It brings that lens.”

Considering how much Birbeck’s assistance improved plans for the transit service, Kirkopoulos said he’s excited to see what other students contribute in the months and years to come.

The town signed a memorandum of understanding in February to launch the initiative which has evolved in the months that followed into a “living lab” that was officially launched this week, during an event at Vineland Estates Winery.

It’s a long-term partnership through Brock’s environmental sustainability research centre that will give students like Birbeck an opportunity to use their knowledge in practical applications, while also benefitting the town and residents by providing access to research and expertise of students.

Brock president Gervan Fearon said the living lab agreement with Lincoln is a first for the university. He hopes it won’t be the last.

“This agreement and the MOU with the Town of Lincoln, as well as the activities that we’ve already conducted through the environmental sustainability research centre as well as through the living lab, is exactly the kind of relationship that we’d like to forge with communities across the region,” Fearon said.

“It allows us to bring not only our faculty and staff, but indeed our students to be able to participate in real-life, hands-on opportunities to contribute to the betterment of communities. It allows us to partner with communities such as the Town of Lincoln, in order to have them move forward with some of their agenda items and priorities and have a resource for them in supporting community development.”

As a result of the initiative, Kirkopoulos said he hopes to see many more students at town hall as a result of the partnership.

“The more the merrier for us. The more we have the better,” he said.

The work the students are doing transcends the environmental lens, he said.

“It’s everything from shoreline protection to what happens if we put up multi-storey buildings. How does that change the composition of a community?” he said.

Kirkopoulos said there will be a strong, visible Brock University presence on the first floor of town hall in the months to come.

He said the challenge and opportunity for the town and university will be expanding that relationship.

“This is for us the start of a further conversation,” Kirkopoulos said. “We’re going to have a cohort of students working in town hall, sharing space with us and then where it goes from there, those are the opportunities.”

Story from The St.Catharines Standard.