Exploring the Accessibility Gap: Quantifying Transport Disadvantage in the City of Toronto
Abstract
Researchers and policymakers have become increasingly interested in understanding the
intersection between transportation and equity. Many scholars argue that it is important to
understand transportation through an equity lens insofar as transportation provides the basic
capability of access, which is the freedom and ability for people to reach destinations that are
important for participating in society. However, not all transportation systems provide everyone
with comparable levels of access. Different groups and individuals may experience different
socioeconomic constraints that inhibit their ability to use or afford different modes of travel. This
combination of limited accessibility with different socioeconomic constraints that impede one’s
ability to travel is referred to as transport poverty, transport disadvantage, or transport-related
social exclusion.
The purpose of this thesis is to help planners and policymakers identify, analyze, and
understand existing accessibility conditions to non-work destinations and to measure the impacts
of different interventions on accessibility for transport disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The City
of Toronto is used as a case study. Overall, transport disadvantage in Toronto tends to be
concentrated in the city’s suburbs, namely in North York, Scarborough, and the northern parts of
Etobicoke. The results suggest that improving transit service is the most effective intervention
for increasing accessibility for transport disadvantaged zones and reducing the disparity in
accessibility levels between zones with higher and lower transport disadvantage.
Cite this version of the work
Janelle Lee
(2019).
Exploring the Accessibility Gap: Quantifying Transport Disadvantage in the City of Toronto. UWSpace.
http://hdl.handle.net/10012/14817
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