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.