Goods movement in the GTA

NRU
Aug. 16, 2017
Dominik Matusik

The Toronto Region Board of Trade released a report yesterday, highlighting the importance of, and challenges to, goods movement in the Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor.

The report finds that, despite contributing 1.4-million jobs and $171-billion of annual GDP growth, the goods movement industry is not given the same attention as commuter movement, and core data is unavailable.

“This report is trying to illustrate the economic impact of goods movement in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor,” Toronto Region Board of Trade president and CEO Jan De Silva told NRU. “The reason we undertook this is about focusing, on behalf of the business community, to ensure the competitiveness of our business climate.”

De Silva says that key data is missing, including the job and GDP impact of goods movement, as well as the cost of inefficient goods movement to consumers. She says that congestion and border delays for produce, for instance, results in waste which leads to higher prices for consumers. The Board of Trade, therefore, is advocating for the federal and provincial governments and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority to adopt a “multi-modal comprehensive regional strategy” for goods movement.

The report, created in partnership with consultant CPCS Transcom, is the first in a four-part series on goods movement in the GTHA, with the next report, Key Freight Generators, Attractors & Bottlenecks, due to be released in mid-September.