Sustainability Of Vehicular Transportation In Toronto, Ontario

Infrastructure is a constantly evolving part of everyone’s lives. Most infrastructures possess a high-cost, but are vital to a country’s economic prosperity. A major and most commonly identifiable infrastructure segment is vehicular transportation. The growing dependency of transportation throughout the 20th century has altered how cities are planned. Many vehicular modes of transportation include road ways, underground subways, bridges, highways, etc. Toronto, Ontario is a busy city of 2.6 million people. Transportation infrastructure is critical to moving large volumes of traffic from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible. This research will identify and discuss issues Toronto’s transportation infrastructure faces regarding the high costs of building and restoring, addressing congestion inefficiencies, and how air quality plays a role. Often disruptions in traffic are related to inclement weather, technical difficulties in the infrastructure, traffic accidents, and mass transit breakdowns to name a few. Weather related delays and mass transit failures are typically not preventable. Of course, …show more content…
The volume of vehicles relates directly to the amount of carbon monoxide released into the atmosphere. Emissions have established a role in diminishing urban air quality as well as simultaneously increasing green house gases in the atmosphere (Bigazzi & Figliozzi, 2012). Alongside carbon monoxide, other emissions released due to vehicles include “carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or hydrocarbons (HCs), nitrogen oxides (NOx), [and] particulate matter (PM)” (Zhang, Batterman, & Dion, 2011, para. 1). Occasions where vehicle emissions are released yet, no traffic movement is present are work zones and during rush hour. This is an issue that receives limited attention, yet affects efficiency as well as the environment greatly (Zhang et al,