The reconciliation of global trade interests, regional transportation necessities, and urban everyday life and politics is at the centre of the emergence of new infrastructures in general, and new transportation networks in particular. In Toronto recent rescaling and restructuring of regional government provide a potential opportunity for new modes of regional governance. Will transportation in the Toronto region remain bifurcated into a premium network of transport infrastructure systems, on the one hand, and underserved community-based systems, on the other hand? We argue that the existing transportation situation has become a bottleneck for the continued globalization of the region, because global and local circuits of mobility are not well coordinated and various scales of decision making do not visibly interact for the regional good. At this point we ask whether there is an emerging collective actor (or collective actors) to remedy the situation, or whether we can instead expect the anarchic governance model of the recent past, with its biases towards suburban road building, to continue. We are particularly interested in casting light on the institutions that have been created (or dismantled) to deal with comprehensive transportation planning in the region. We posit that, in the context of recent institutional reforms, transportation agencies had to adjust, and we pose a series of research questions as a means of exploring and understanding those adjustments.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AminA, 2002, “Spatialities of globalisation”Environment and Planning A34385399
2.
AminA, 2004, “Regions unbound: Towards a new politics of place”Geografiska Annaler, Series B863344
3.
BrennerN, 2004New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
DracheD, 2004Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America (Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, NS)
6.
ElighB, 2005, “Software model simulates future travel patterns”Novae Res Urbis916
7.
ErieA, 2004Globalizing L. A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)
8.
FowlerEPLaytonJ, 2002, “Transportation policy in Canadian vities”, in Urban Policy Issues: Canadian Perspectives Eds FowlerEPSiegelD (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp 155171
9.
GertlerMS, 2000, “A region in transition: The changing structure of Toronto's regional economy”, report to the Neptis Foundation ‘Portrait of a Region’ Project (with the assistance of Yael Levitte, Denise Moylan, Greg Spencer), Toronto: Programme in Planning, Department of Geography, University of Toronto
GuimeràRMossaSTurtschiAAmaralLAN, 2005, “The worldwide air transportation network: Anomalous centrality, community structure, and cities' global roles”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA10277947799
15.
HallJ, 2005, “Ten years after”The Toronto Star 6 August, pages B1, B4B5
16.
HarrisN, 1994, “The emerging global city: Transport”Cities11332336
17.
HensherDABrewerAM, 2001Transport: An Economics and Management Perspective (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
18.
KaikaMSwyngedouwE, 2000, “Fetishizing the modern city: The phantasmagoria of urban technological networks”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research24(1) 120138
19.
KainJFLiuZ, 1999, “Secrets of success: Assessing the large increases in transit ridership achieved by Houston and San Diego transit providers”Transportation Research A31601624
20.
KasardaJD, 1996, “Transportation infrastructure for competitive success”Transportation Quarterly503550
21.
KeilR, 1998Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization and Social Struggles (John Wiley, Chichester, Sussex)
22.
KeilRBoudreauJ-A, 2006, “Metropolitics and metabolics: Rolling out environmentalism in Toronto”, in In the Nature of City: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism Eds SwyngedouwEKaikaMHeynenN (Routledge, London) pp 4162
23.
KeilRYoungD, 2007, “Transit justice coming to suburbs”The Toronto Star 13 March, page 15
24.
KennedyCA, 2002, “A comparison of the sustainability of public and private transportation systems: Study of the Greater Toronto Area”Transportation29459493
KennedyCAMillerEShalabyAMacLeanHColemanJ, 2005, “The four pillars of sustainable urban transportation”Transport Reviews25393414
27.
KipferSKeilR, 2002, “Toronto Inc? Planning the competitive city in the new Toronto”Antipode34227264
28.
LathamAMcCormackDP, 2004, “Moving cities: Rethinking the materialities of urban geographies”Progress in Human Geography28701724
29.
McArthurK, 2003, “Airports look to the ground for fun and profit”The Globe and Mail 30 August, page B1
30.
MackettREdwardsM, 1998, “The impact of new urban public transport systems: Will the expectations be met?”Transportation Research A32231245
31.
MillerGKiguelDZielinskiS, 2001Moving the Goods in the New Economy: A Primer for Urban Decision Makers (Canadian Urban Institute, Toronto)
32.
NewmanPThornleyA, 2004Planning World Cities: Globalization, Urban Governance and Policy Dilemmas (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
33.
OliveD, 2004, “The high cost of landing”The Toronto Star 20 November, page D1
34.
PurcellM, 2005, “Scale, urban democracy and the right to the city”, Conference on the Political Economy of Scale, York University, Toronto, 4 February
35.
RaffanJ, 2004, “Four o one liner”Canadian Geographic September/October, 6272
36.
Region of Waterloo, 2005, “Southern Ontario Gateway Council Membership”, Report of Planning, Housing and Community Services, Transportation Planning, Region of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
37.
RichmondJ, 2004Transport of Delight: The Mythical Conception of Rail Transit in Los Angeles (University of Akron Press, Akron, OH)
38.
RomanJ, 2004, “Riding the rails to prosperity: The Toronto Board of Trade and the attempt to remake public transit in the Greater Toronto Area”, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa
39.
RubinTAMooreJELeeS, 1999, “Ten myths about US urban rail systems”Transport Policy65773
40.
ShellerMUrryJ, 2006, “The new mobilities paradigm”Environment and Planning A38207226
41.
SmithDTimberlakeM, 2002, “Hierarchies of dominance among world cities: A network approach”, in Global Networks, Linked Cities Ed. SassenS (Routledge, New York) pp 93116
SwyngedouwE, 1997, “Neither global nor local: ‘glocalization’ and the politics of scale”, in Spaces of Globalization Ed. CoxK (Guilford, New York) pp 137166
44.
TBT, Toronto Board of Trade, First Canada Place, PO Box 60, Toronto 2001A Strategy for Rail-based Transit in the GTA
45.
TBT, Toronto Board of Trade, First Canada Place, 2002Strong City, Strong Nation: Securing Toronto's Contribution to Canada
46.
TBT, Toronto Board of Trade, First Canada Place, 2003The Case for a Greater Toronto Transportation Authority
47.
Transport Canada, 2003Straight Ahead: A Vision for Transportation in CanadaHer Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, Ottawa, ON, available at http://www.tc.gc.ca
