Abstract Manager

Why invest in transportation equity? In Canada, where there are no mandated equity requirements and targets in place for public infrastructure, many transit professionals are left to their own devices to estimate the social equity impacts of proposed transit projects and demonstrate that equitable transit makes for a good investment.
Although traditional business case frameworks have been used increasingly to support evidence-based decision-making, they rely on analytical and economic methodologies that often fail to acknowledge the unique experiences and needs of marginalized individuals or to measure how transit project benefits and impacts are distributed among different demographic and socioeconomic groups. Yet, individuals with lower access to opportunities and amenities stand to benefit the most from reliable transit, and economic research indicates that people with lower incomes place greater value on project outcomes.

This presentation will discuss different approaches to evaluate equity in transit infrastructure business cases, as applied in published business cases and beyond. In a first part, the presentation will consider how lived experience should shape Strategic Evaluation in business cases and propose innovative quantitative evaluation metrics and methodologies to assess transit benefits and burdens for equity-deserving communities. Examples from the Ontario Line Initial Business Case (Metrolinx, 2019) and Eglinton East LRT Updated Business Case (City of Toronto, 2023) and their use of distributional analysis will be reviewed.
Then, the presentation will dive into economic benefit-cost analysis with a focus on the “Social Equity Value Analysis” methodology, the result of two years of research, which accounts for distributional differences in project outcomes to people according to their incomes. This approach produces a different measure of project value to society, a weighted benefit-to-cost ratio that incorporates a social equity perspective.

With rising infrastructure costs and growing social and environmental crises, the tools presented can help guide just decisions and strengthen the case for transit projects by highlighting their social value and benefits.