Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Mobility Audit

Successful cities balance economic competitiveness with environmental sustainability and social integration.  Global megatrends such as demographic change, urbanization, climate change and globalization are challenging cities to maintain this balance. A 2010 Siemens Study, “The Sustainable Cities Challenge in Canada”, began to examine stakeholder perceptions of the sustainability and infrastructure issues facing Canadians.  It found that experts across Canada saw transportation as the most important infrastructure system for attracting inward investment into their city.

As a follow-on to this Study, MRCMH was commissioned to focus upon the mobility challenges facing one metropolitan area in particular - the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.  The aim of MRCMH's study was to provide new insight into the current mobility system of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton (GTHA) relative to its global competitors, and establish the pathways needed to achieve a system that is capable of meeting the challenges that it and other global cities will face in the next 20 years.  The detailed Study involved stakeholder workshops and interviews with public and private sector representatives from the cities of Hamilton and Toronto in addition to the other four regional municipalities.  Participants covered different transport modes – transit, airports and road, and covered planning, policy, strategy and academic professions.

Initially presented was a City Index that measures performance towards the end-state of Complete Mobility including the newly added urban areas of the GTHA, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.  This allowed a comparison of relative Canadian city performance. The Study then provided a detailed assessment of the GTHA’s performance within the Index and an analysis of the current and future challenges it faces in achieving Complete Mobility by 2030.    Scenarios for the future development of mobility within the GTHA to 2030 were also developed.  The study concluded with an analysis of what would be necessary to deliver the scenario of Complete Mobility in the GTHA.