Regional Transportation Plan Review Transit Equity In The GTHA

NRU
Feb. 3, 2016
Geordie Gordon

Metrolinx should incorporate social equity as a stated objective of The Big Move Regional Transportation Plan, according to a report released yesterday by The City Institute at York University. Through its 18 recommendations, the report calls for greater fairness in all aspects of transit services. These include a call for Metrolinx to address issues of equity, affordability and access, and to redress the unintended consequences of improving transit in the GTHA.

Not surprisingly, the report notes that equitable transit service is most pressing among particular segments of the population. These include people with lower than average incomes, living in spatially marginalized neighbourhoods (such as on the urban-suburban fringes), women, the young and the old, and those that identify with minority ethnic and cultural groups.

Report authors Sean Hertel, Roger Keil and Michael Collens recommend that as part of the 2016 provincial review the regional transportation plan be brought in line with the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which includes social equity as one of the pillars of the plan.

The report recommends that social equity should be a stated objective of the Big Move. The authors define equity as “the fair and responsive delivery of transit infrastructure and services to meet people’s needs, especially vulnerable populations including low-income residents, users in underserved parts of the GTHA including newly-developed areas, visible ethnic and cultural groups, the elderly, and persons with mental and physical disabilities.”

Metrolinx spokesperson Mark Ostler told NRU in an email that the transit equity report is currently being reviewed by Metrolinx staff, but he did not say whether specific recommendations would be incorporated into the Big Move.

“Staff working on the regional transportation plan legislative review will use the report’s findings and recommendations to inform the …review as applicable,” he said.

In addressing the topic of fairness, Ostler said that Metrolinx is “very sensitive to the issue of social equity as it overlaps with transit planning.”

Hertel told NRU that one of the most important aspect of the report for GTHA municipalities is that they can address the unintended consequences of planning for and building transitintensive and mixed-use areas such as nodes or urban growth centres. Hertel said that the research indicated that some people settling in the GTHA were seeking out areas with little access to transit or amenities because they are more affordable areas.

“You build the transit... people are going to have access to transit that didn’t have it before, but I think what’s happening now is that due to market forces and other [economic] forces, people that we’re planning transit for the most, inadvertently get priced out of the very areas that we’re putting the infrastructure in in the first place,” he said.

Hertel said there are a number of the ways that municipalities could address these unintended consequences. One way is to have a minimum threshold for affordable housing within urban growth centres or intensification nodes. Some municipalities have these in place now but are having difficulty enforcing them. Another example would be to monitor growth in transit areas a little differently than other areas by keeping track of price thresholds for residential and commercial units.

“I think we could be a little more detailed and thoughtful in some of the ways that we measure growth,” he said.

One of the bright spots for transit equity in the GTHA identified in the report is the fare structures in place in many GTHA municipalities outside of Toronto, which Hertel said don’t get enough credit.

“GTHA municipalities, for the most part, have very progressive fare policies. They’ve been offering low income fares for a long time, and different fare structures for students and seniors ...A fare structure that recognizes the different needs of different people is inherently equitable because it’s based in part on one’s ability to pay,” Hertel said.

Ostler said that the Metrolinx fare integration project, which is working towards a consistent approach to transit fares across the region, takes social equity into account. Metrolinx “will take an evidence-based approach to understanding the effects of different [fare structure] options on disadvantaged communities. These impacts will guide our recommendations.”

Next Stop: Equity - Routes to Fairer Transit Access in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area was funded through a grant from Metrolinx.

Stage 1 of the review of the Metrolinx regional transportation plan is underway and the public process will be launched soon with public meetings to be held across the GTHA during February and March.