Governments at all levels have recently been setting new aggressive targets for reduced GHG emissions, but despite improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and pollutant emission rates, the trend in urban areas is towards increased fossil fuel use (and thus, GHG emissions) per capita for transportation. By all accounts, the contribution of urban motorized transport to climate change will continue growing unless per capita GHG emissions can be decreased more quickly than the rate of population growth. Municipalities across the country have outlined various strategies for reducing GHG emissions from transportation, but to date, few have linked the relative impacts of these strategies with stated targets. Fewer still have looked at the combined impacts of behavioral and technological changes for reducing GHG emissions, in comparison to what can realistically be expected from each approach. Using the Greater Toronto and Hamilton metropolitan region as an example, this paper quantifies the GHG impacts of several different levels of transit service ranging from “business as usual” to a very high level of transit investment with supporting TDM measures and technological advancements. Urban transportation emissions in the region are assessed using transportation demand models and Transport Canada’s Urban Transportation Emissions Calculator. Results show that the highest level of transit service increases will reduce GHG per capita emissions by approximately 30%, which only just off-sets the impacts of population growth. These results indicate that municipalities across Canada cannot rely on transit improvements alone to address sustainability objectives and aggressive GHG reduction targets; but must also consider a broad range of strategies in the areas of technology, active transportation and TDM.
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