Toronto's Transportation System

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Over the past century Toronto’s transportation system has substantially developed. Before 1945, the dominant form of transportation that existed other than walking was the streetcar. Toronto post-1945 to present day has seen development in public transportation through subways, buses, and street cars, as well as a huge increase in the use of the car. The major role of transportation in Toronto is to move various commodities within Toronto and from Toronto to outside places, both for consumption and production (Boudreau & Young, 2009). Transportation also provides a convenient way to travel from place to place around the city. The BIA, Historic Queen East, exhibits some of the norms of transportation in Toronto but not others, in terms …show more content…

1). Environmental sustainability presents itself as a major problem with transportation and negatively effects both present and future generations of people living in Toronto, in order to meet transportation demands. The level of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and volatile hydrocarbons (VH) produced from cars in Toronto are comparable to that of the United States. However, the level of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and volatile particulates produced in Toronto are 2.3 kg/capita and 3.9 kg/capita, which is significantly higher than parts of the United States (Kennedy, 2002). Automobiles themselves account for 57% of the CO emissions, 27% of the NOx emissions, and 19% of the VOC emissions. (Kennedy, 2002) These large amounts of emissions can negatively affect the health of citizens in Toronto causing such effects as respiratory and cardiovascular failure. This problem is evident in Historic Queen East particularly along Queen St. E between Victoria St. and Dalhousie St., due to a high circulation of cars producing a concentrated amount of pollution in this area. The frequency and amount of trips made by people in Toronto increase substantially with people who are employed versus people who are un-employed (Abulibdeh, Zaidan, & Abuelgasim, …show more content…

From my own personal experience, there is a high demand for taxis late at night since public transportation stops running at approximately 2 a.m. If public transportation ran later, the amount of taxis used would be less thereby decreasing the amount of pollution. In fact, a study was done on the affects of adding service during off-peak hours to the PVL line in New York, and it was found that ridership increased substantially (6000 people to 7075 people on average per weekday) during a year after it was added (Deka & Marchwinski, 2013). This is strong evidence that off-peak hours are in high

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