The Impacts of Urban Growth Policies on Transportation System Usage and Performance: A Simulation Approach

Abstract

Integrated urban models (IUM) are a useful tool in simulating the long term impacts of transportation and land use policies. In this paper, IMULATE, and IUM for the Hamilton CMA is used to investigate the impacts of several growth policies outlined in the Province of Ontario’s Places to Grow plan. Several intensification strategies are simulated and evaluated with respect to transportation system usage and performance. The simulation results are investigated at the aggregate level and disaggregately, since some impacts to the system such as pollutant emissions vary spatially. While IUMs have been used to compare growth strategies world-wide, little applied work has been published before in Canada. The results indicate that in the absence of modifications to the transportation system, the proposed intensification strategies have little net effect in mitigating growing system usage and weakening system performance over the next 25 years. They do however impact the spatiality of transport related externalities.