Ontario Ministry of Transportation, 2011
The two most heavily-traveled corridors in Canada are the southern Ontario corridors linking Detroit, Toronto and Buffalo. Both have high volumes of passenger and freight movement, and play a critical role in the economy of Canada, yet both face growing congestion. To examine needs and future opportunities for improving those highway and rail corridors, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) initiated two major corridor planning studies. One is the GTA West Corridor, which links the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) westward towards Detroit, Michigan. The other is the Niagara-GTA Corridor, which links the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) eastward towards Buffalo, New York State (Niagara area).
Both studies focused on four key issues:
- needs for future transportation improvement,
- alternative projects and scenarios to address those needs,
- problems and opportunities associated with the alternatives, and
- implications for the economy and environment.
Both studies used TREDIS for analysis of multimodal freight and passenger needs, identfying effects of alternative future highway and rail investment scenarios on market access and corridor traffic flows, and their implications for the economy of Ontario and its sub-areas., The Canadian version of TREDIS utilizes an economic impact analysis engine built that draws on data from Statistics Canada, Statistics Ontario and OECD. The analysis process and its findings are described in a series of public documents developed by consultant teams including MRC, AECOM, URS and Ecoplans.
