OC Transpo Light Rail Transit trains are shown in Ottawa on Sept. 25, 2023.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
In the journey toward a greener future for Canada, it’s important not just to build a more environmentally friendly transportation network – but also to make it so people will want to use it, experts say.
Building sustainable transit networks in urban areas requires new and improved technology such as electrified rail lines and buses, says David Cooper, principal and founder of Leading Mobility, a transportation planning firm that offers strategic support for public transit and infrastructure projects.
“But transportation networks need more than that,” he says. “They also need to be kept in good repair and reliable, and that requires sustainable funding.”
Sustainable transit and smart infrastructure make a big difference in the effort to address climate change because transportation accounts for more than one quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the most recent Statistics Canada figures from 2023.
“We’re making progress in some respects,” Mr. Cooper says. “Alberta pioneered light-rail transit in North America [in the 1980s] and was emulated all over North America; new services such as Toronto’s Ontario Line are under construction and Vancouver has been a leader in integrating housing with transit lines to make it easier for people to get where they need to go.”
In October, a national umbrella group, the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), held a zero-emission transit conference in Burlington, Ont., to gather experts from the government and transportation sectors to talk about electrification and moving toward zero emissions. Among other topics, the conference heard technical presentations on transit electrification, zero-emission buses and new developments in charging stations and depot- infrastructure design.
We should be creating densities and a mix of uses that enable walking, cycling and transit.
— Jennifer Keesmaat, president, The Keesmaat Group
CUTRIC will be holding a virtual conference in March to discuss smart-rail innovation, looking at high-speed rail, light-rapid transit and future possibilities for hydrogen-powered and self-driving rail systems.
The trolley-bus appeal
Meanwhile, in addition to building new lines, cities are purchasing and deploying new hybrid and fully electric buses, experimenting already with hydrogen-powered vehicles and switching natural gas vehicles to natural gas obtained from sources such as landfill methane, Mr. Cooper says.
One of the more promising technologies is actually an older technology – electric trolley buses that draw power from overhead wires. “I guess everything old is new again,” Mr. Cooper says.
“The new ones have battery capacity so they can go off the wires for part of the route. Vancouver has put out a request to look at a significant order for these types of buses, which could possibly be used on routes that now use diesel buses,” he says. The deadline was late September for bids to be submitted for consideration.
Studies show that sustainable transit is cost effective as well as environmentally beneficial. In 2019, a report by the Canadian Urban Transit Association found that using transit reduces yearly operating costs for Canadian families by $12.6-billion, and that even before new sustainable transit lines are completed, using transit can reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 4.7 million tonnes a year, worth $207-million in savings on climate-change protection and repair.
At the same time, despite the potential savings, building a sustainable transit infrastructure is also highly cost intensive. For example, in addition to the vehicles, in July, the federal government provided details for a $30-billion, 10-year Canada Public Transit Fund, which was promised in the last budget and which cities can apply to receive beginning in 2026.
The fund covers three categories: baseline funding for existing infrastructure, metropolitan and regional agreements for Canada’s biggest cities and funding for specific projects in areas such as rural and Indigenous communities and active transportation such as biking or walking.
The federal government has continued to announce funding for transportation projects under the fund, despite the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the proroguing of Parliament until late March, says Nate Wallace, program manager of clean transportation at Environmental Defence, a not-for-profit watchdog group.
“However, it is unconfirmed whether cities can rely on these announcements because the program doesn’t begin until fiscal 2026, presumably after an election and a change in government,” Mr. Wallace says.
Convenient spacing of transit stops
One of the keys to building a sustainable transportation infrastructure is to organize communities so it’s easy to get from place to place without a car, says Jennifer Keesmaat, former City of Toronto chief planner and president of the Keesmaat Group.
“The very first thing we have to start talking about is, how are we planning land? We should be creating densities and a mix of uses that enable walking, cycling and transit. We know intuitively that transit is more sustainable and is a better use of land and more efficient,” she says.
“We still have many places where we’ve had overlay transit,” she adds.
Transit doesn’t help sprawling neighbourhoods if the stops are too far away to reach, she explains. “When we don’t have the right kind of land use, transit doesn’t get used very well.”
The other key to sustainable transit is obtaining more help to fund operating costs as well as building and buying new services, says Mr. Wallace.
“We put out a report in February 2024 that showed how Canada could unlock the power of public transit, modelling what it would take to double public ridership by 2035 and cut carbon emissions by 65 million tonnes. It comes down to helping transit systems grow their service levels, so the buses and trains come more often,” he says.
The group followed up by hosting a Transit for Tomorrow summit last fall, whose participants issued a joint statement calling on the federal government to do more to help fix the broken public-transit funding model.
“The federal program helps fund capital expenditures such as new lines and electric buses, but it doesn’t offer funding for operating the transit systems,” he says. “That’s like fighting climate change with one hand tied behind your back. Transit needs operating funding too.”