Towards equitable transit: Examining transit accessibility and social need in Toronto, Canada 1996-2006

摘要

The location of transit infrastructure distributes publicly-funded benefits to residents throughouta region. However, these benefits are not always distributed equally among different populationgroups. This research seeks to determine whether the benefits of Toronto’s public transit systemare equitably distributed, and how these benefits change from 1996 to 2006 after theimplementation of several transit projects in the region. We develop a methodology using asocial indicator based on census tract level socio-economic characteristics to measure therelationship between social disadvantage and accessibility to jobs and transit travel time in theToronto region over time. Transit equity is examined at three levels: spatially, temporally, and byjob type. We find the range in accessibility and transit travel time narrows over the 10 yearperiod. In addition, the most socially disadvantaged census tracts have statistically significantlybetter accessibility and lower transit travel times relative to the rest of the region in both 1996and in 2006. Our findings show that Toronto has a generally equitable transit system that benefitsthose in social need, who are likely to gain the most from transit. The methodology proposedpresents a useful way to bring issues of social equity directly into the land use and transportationplanning process.