A Comparative Analysis of Travel Speeds Between Suburbs and the Downtown Core in the Greater Toronto Area

Traffic congestion is a major problem in urban areas and poses numerous environmental, economical, and health-related challenges. It is, therefore, important that congestion is understood, measured, and spatially identified. A large body of research on traffic congestion exists, with studies increasingly focusing on comparing congestion between suburbs and the downtown core. Suburbs are typically more dependent on automobiles. It is assumed that suburbs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are getting more congested than the downtown core, though research to substantiate this assumption is not readily available. This paper attempts to fill the research gap by employing spatial analysis to compare average travel speeds between the GTA’s suburbs and its downtown core. Interzonal automobile travel time and distance data are combined to estimate average speeds between GTA traffic analysis zones (TAZs). These speeds act as a proxy for traffic congestion, to determine whether suburban or downtown zones are more congested.