TRANSIT IN TROUBLE - THE POLICY CHALLENGE POSED BY CANADA CHANGING URBAN MOBILITY

After two decades in which auto use increased along with public transi t ridership, Canada's ability to balance public and private means of u rban mobility appears to have broken down. Since 1990, urban transit h as steadily lost riders while urban auto use continues to increase. Co nsumer price data show that public transit has become more expensive r elative to the automobile since 1989. Price divergence can be explaine d by a coincidence of fiscal austerity in the public sector, where urb an transit is supplied, and growing efficiency in the private sector w hich produces autos. Despite a heightened awareness of social, economi c, and environmental externalities created by urban auto use, policy-m akers have done little to address this shift towards the auto. The Tor onto region's postwar development suggests that public officials are i ll-equipped to do more than accommodate auto use. Decades of ambivalen ce over urban mobility were abetted by demographic trends and economic affluence that allowed transit to succeed along with more cars. With these factors now changed, fiscal and regulatory initiatives are neede d to limit the externalities of growing urban travel by car. Transit s ubsidies to regain lost ridership, externality pricing of city driving , and land use regulations that discourages surburban sprawl will be n eeded to maintain alternatives to the auto and to preserve the quality of urban life that Canadians have long taken for granted.