Creating a sustainable transportation system, or Paving over the landscape?
| In 2007, the ECO undertook an examination of the challenge of creating sustainable communities in southern Ontario. The following articles are included: | |
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Since the 1950s in North America, day-to-day mobility for residents has increasingly been linked to the use of the passenger vehicle (cars, trucks and vans, or simply the “automobile”). Over that same period, many key parameters for measuring the impacts associated with this form of personal mobility have been increasing: the size of the vehicle population, the average kilometres driven per year, and the gross carbon dioxide emissions produced by the vehicle population. This is true in Ontario, where the number of automobiles owned by Ontarians grows annually. There are currently 48,000 automobiles owned and operated in Ontario for every 100,000 residents – roughly one for every two residents.
To track patterns in road use and commuting, municipal works departments compile “transportation counts.” These records show that the average vehicle occupancy in much of the GGH is typically 1.2 persons – meaning less than one in five drivers are carrying any passengers. Each vehicle commuting on Ontario highways requires a certain amount of road space – under heavy traffic conditions, each one-kilometre lane of road surface can accommodate only 100 automobiles; that’s just 120 people per kilometre given the current occupancy rates that are being recorded.
If these trends continue (i.e., the preference for the automobile for mobility, one vehicle for every two persons, and low vehicle occupancy rates), the province will be required to continue to devote thousands of hectares of land in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) to new or expanded roads and highways to accommodate the transportation of Ontario’s growing population.
Added pressure for road expansion comes from the freight handling sector which, in Ontario, has become heavily dependent on trucks for the movement of goods and raw materials.
When roads are built or expanded in Southern Ontario, either farmland or natural areas are almost always lost. The loss of either carries a significant environmental penalty. The continued availability of local sources of produce, meat and dairy products is key to strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while natural areas are limited, usually fragments of larger ecosystems, and disappearing fast.
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Land use planning and transportation strongly linked
The Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth (GGH) Plan proposes moving more people by transit, fewer by automobile, and continuing to accommodate a high volume of freight on highways. The PGA and the GGH Plan also seek to promote more compact, less sprawling forms of urban growth, and encourage settlements with a mix of housing and employment. Through the GGH Plan and PGA, the province intends to reduce the need for travel, lessen traffic congestion, support the use of transit, and encourage walking and cycling. The GGH Plan includes the following vision for the region for the year 2031:
“Getting around will be easy. An integrated transportation network will allow people choices for easy travel both within and between urban centres throughout the region. Public transit will be fast, convenient and affordable. Automobiles, while still a significant means of transport, will be only one of a variety of effective and well-used choices for transportation. Walking and cycling will be practical elements of our urban transportation systems.”
By setting guiding rules for development, the GGH Plan attempts to ensure growth takes place in existing urban centres in the GGH in a way that should preserve the integrity of natural features, such as the Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment. The ECO regards a planned approach to be a very good thing. We also support intensification and building within existing urbanized areas, as opposed to sprawling onto ‘greenfield’ sites. But the ECO questions some of the GGH Plan’s claims and intended outcomes based on our review of its targets, such as those related to density and intensification.
Transportation Objectives in the Growth Plan for the GGH
3.2.3 Moving People. Public transit will be the first priority for transportation infrastructure planning and major transportation investments. 3.2.4 Moving Goods. The first priority of highway investment is to facilitate efficient goods movement by linking inter-modal facilities, international gateways, and communities within the GGH.
Outcome of GGH intensification: Nearly the status quo?
New urban development in the GGH will require the appropriate mix and placement of residences, employment opportunities, schools, shopping and recreational facilities, and other amenities if automobile usage is to be reduced and the use of other modes (like transit, walking and cycling) improved. Studies of the development patterns over the past two decades in urban centres of the Greater Toronto Area (such as Mississauga and Brampton), show a continuing pattern of residential construction on the fringe of urban areas. Meanwhile, employment centres are concentrating in large office or industrial parks near Ontario’s 400 series highways, which often have limited transit links and schedules. These patterns have been setting the stage for more automobile use, over the next 20 years, not less. Much of the development that has already been approved for GTA urban centres continues these unsustainable practices and the GGH Plan will not be able to change the pattern of these approved developments.
Some of the municipalities identified in the GGH Plan as urban growth centres like downtown Guelph and Hamilton, Mississauga City Centre and Kitchener are already very close to achieving the density targets they are expected to meet by 2031 under the GGH Plan. However, these centres have not moved substantially away from automobile-based mobility and toward an integrated live-work and transit-based environment. Research by respected transportation planners has concluded that road expansion will continue in the GTA unless and until there is a major shift in lifestyle by the residents of the GGH. The lack of progress to date in shifting away from a car-based culture calls into question the efficacy of the GGH Plan’s density targets in promoting the hoped-for mobility changes in the future.
Transit integration – A good first step
To help make the GGH Plan work, the province established the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (GTTA) through passage of the GTTA Act, 2006. GTTA's mandate is to ensure that all levels of government work together to develop a comprehensive long-term transportation plan. More specifically, the GTTA will integrate planning for local transit, GO Transit, major roads, and new transit infrastructure for the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton. The GTTA is also to address issues, such as congestion, commute times and air emissions generated by the area’s transportation system. As of early 2007, there is little to report about the GTTA’s progress toward meeting its principal goal; however, the corporation has assembled a board and is beginning to establish itself as an organization.
Moving forward, the GTTA will undertake initiatives such as:
- implementing a GTA fare card system, which would enable commuters to travel on public transit from Durham Region to Hamilton using a single card;
- integrating municipal and regional transit planning, and coordinating fares and transit service delivery, in an effort to improve convenience for commuters;
- coordinating the purchase of transit vehicles on behalf of municipalities;
- managing GO Transit; and
- developing and submitting an annual capital plan and investment strategy.
The GTTA will be governed, primarily, by the province and representatives of regional municipalities in the GTA. To create the seamless transit network envisaged by the GGH Plan, a highly efficient and effective agent of change will be required. It remains to be seen whether the GTTA will succeed with the task of effectively coordinating so many different bodies, each with their own local needs and interests.
Highways still being built
Along with transit upgrades, highway network expansion will remain a major part of transportation planning in Southern Ontario. The GGH Plan included three major transportation corridors. These corridors would accommodate:
- the extension of Highway 407 east to Highway 35/115;
- a new east-west highway between Guelph and southern York Region; and
- a new mid-peninsular highway from the western GTA to the U.S. border near Fort Erie.
These projects will result in substantial losses of green space and agricultural land in the Greenbelt and Oak Ridges Moraine. Building these highways or extensions raises a number of complex questions: Will people and goods simply be traveling further each day (for example, between the GTA and communities outside the Greenbelt Plan Area, such as Guelph)? Can access to certain highways be controlled to make them better freight corridors (for example, by limiting the number of interchanges)? Or will these highways quickly become as congested as other GGH highways?
On the same day in June 2006 that the GGH Plan was announced, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) also announced its Five-Year Plan for Southern Ontario Highways. Key construction projects in the plan include:
- widening Highway 401 from Woodstock to Cambridge;
- instituting high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on the Queen Elizabeth Way from Oakville to Burlington and along Highway 417 in Ottawa; and
- widening Highway 7 near Ottawa.
To some degree, all new road surfaces and road widenings enable and encourage residents and businesses to continue to rely on road vehicles for mobility and freight transport.
More transit and more highways
On March 6, 2007, the federal and provincial governments announced a combined investment in public transit and highway infrastructure projects for the GTA worth close to $4.5 billion (when contributions from GTA municipalities are included). Transit upgrades included a subway line extension from the City of Toronto into York Region, and improvements to the transit systems of Brampton, Mississauga, York and Durham Regions. Along with the investment in the public transit network, MTO agreed to invest in three highway projects: extensions to Highway 407, Highway 404 and Highway 7.
A purportedly “balanced” approach to investing in both highway and transit infrastructure is not likely to achieve the GGH Plan’s landscape protection goals. The Ontario government’s 2007 budget dedicates $6.5 billion to the provincial highway system and $4.5 billion to transit improvements. Preventing further infringement on agricultural and green space by road-based transportation will be difficult if the majority of transportation spending continues to be dedicated to highway and road expansion. Additional transit spending promises were announced by the Ontario government in June 2007 (see Ministries’ Joint Comment for further details).
Transit use follows from urban form
A good illustration of the importance of transit in containing urban sprawl and safeguarding green space is a comparison of the transit usage rates in the GTA inside and outside the boundaries of the City of Toronto. In 2006, about 85 to 90 per cent of all transit rides in the GTA were taken on the transit system of the City of Toronto (operated by the Toronto Transit Commission). Transit ridership in those GTA areas outside of the City of Toronto accounts for just 10 to 15 per cent of the overall total. The reason? The City of Toronto has population densities that are double or triple those of nearby communities, and higher densities greatly support transit ridership. Urban form has a significant bearing on transit use and the ability to provide efficient and more economical transit services.
Over the long term, the GGH Plan is seeking densities for satellite communities that are about half of the densities set for the City of Toronto. Furthermore, the GGH Plan envisages that 60 per cent of new development will continue on greenfield sites and this development must achieve only one-quarter of the density of a major urban area; this density is only slightly higher than that achieved in recently built suburbs. Most transit experts agree that these densities are not sufficient to succeed in significantly raising transit ridership. If communities in Southern Ontario do not achieve a dramatically more compact and integrated urban form, then these communities likely will not succeed in raising transit ridership, improving rates of walking and cycling, diminishing automobile use and, thereby, curbing the need for further road expansion.
Summary and ECO comments
The ECO welcomes Ontario’s efforts to harmonize future growth and development with environmental protection (and other) objectives – such an approach is much better than unplanned growth. However, highly effective efforts to intensify urban settlement patterns, prioritize transit use, and reduce the use of automobiles will be critical to ensuring that existing green spaces and agricultural areas in the GGH are not further fragmented by road expansion.
Changes to our ‘car-centric’ system of mobility are required not only to protection natural heritage and farm lands from development, but to address the mounting problem of traffic congestion with its attendant costs in time and money. To ease congestion on Southern Ontario’s road network, the ECO believes that even greater changes will be needed: measures like prioritizing transit over automobile use in a large portion of the GGH, and making much greater use of rail and, where viable, water transport for freight transport.
If urban growth and road network expansion continues under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario – that is, one vehicle for every two residents – then another million automobiles will appear on the province’s roads by 2020 and more highways will be needed, particularly in Southern Ontario, to accommodate them. The GGH Plan was developed, in part, to advance a different scenario for the region: one with “an integrated transportation network” that allows “for easy travel both within and between urban centres throughout the region,” and emphasizes multiple modes of transportation.
Reviewers of the GGH Plan have emphasized a need to monitor the Plan’s implementation. The GGH Plan includes many laudable principles, but also some conflicting objectives, such as the need to preserve green space versus the need to expand Ontario’s road network. To achieve the goal of green space protection, the ECO believes that the GGH Plan must prevent road network expansion from gradually etching away existing green and agricultural areas across Southern Ontario. Since the GGH Plan is long-term and subject to periodic revision, the province should monitor certain trends to gauge its success and make adjustments sooner, rather than later. The ECO believes the GGH Plan will not succeed unless it can meet certain tests, and demonstrate continuous improvement:
- Contain road network expansion – the GGH Plan needs to avert any further plans for new highways and/or highway expansion projects, aside from those already announced in the region, over the working life of the Plan.
- Improve intensification and density targets – the Plan’s goal of allocating 40 per cent of new-builds in existing urban areas is not substantively different than a business-as-usual approach. Also, the province needs to revisit the density targets of those centers that are already very close to their target and seek ways to adjust those targets upward.
- Substantially increase transit use in the GGH – various modeling scenarios indicate that transit usage in those areas outside of the City of Toronto is unlikely to change appreciably beyond its current rate of 10 to15 per cent of all trips made. To be successful, the GGH Plan needs to improve this rate significantly, as well as a means to measure the progress in making the transportation system affordable, efficient and environmentally sustainable.
Based on our review, the ECO believes that the province will encounter increasing difficulty in the years ahead reconciling the goals of green space protection in the GGH and providing for personal mobility, if mobility is achieved mainly through highway and automobile-based travel. These two competing priorities will continue to clash and cause further environmental degradation in the GGH unless improvements are made to the GGH Plan.
| This is an article from the 2006/07 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2007. "Creating a Sustainable Transportation System, OR Paving Over the Landscape?." Reconciling our Priorities, ECO Annual Report, 2006-07. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 28-35.
