Governments at all levels have recently been setting new aggressive targets for reduced GHG emissions, but despite improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and pollutant emission rates, the trend in urban areas is towards increased fossil fuel use (and thus, GHG emissions) per capita for transportation. Municipalities across the country have outlined various strategies for reducing GHG emissions from transportation, but to date, few have linked the relative impacts of these strategies with stated targets. Using the Greater Toronto and Hamilton metropolitan region as an example, this paper quantifies the GHG impacts of several different levels of transit service ranging from "business as usual" to a very high level of transit investment with supporting TDM measures and technological advancements. Urban transportation emissions in the region are assessed using transportation demand models and Transport Canada's Urban Transportation Emissions Calculator. Results show that the highest level of transit service increases will reduce GHG per capita emissions by approximately 30 percent, which only just off-sets the impacts of population growth. These results indicate that municipalities across Canada cannot rely on transit improvements alone to address sustainability objectives and aggressive GHG reduction targets. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E216597.
Abstract