Transportation and Infrastructure Policy in Canada

Transportation infrastructure is the fabric that reinforces the competitiveness of Canadian companies that rely on ports, airports, roads, and railways for their supply chains. It is a key factor in the success of labour markets, which depend on the efficient and effective operation of road and public transit networks.

Many parts of Canada’s transportation network have suffered from under-investment in the last 25 years, including roads, bridges, and urban transit networks. This has led to the development of transportation bottlenecks that constrain productivity. Bottlenecks cause congestion and delays for passenger and freight services, which lead to higher transportation costs and environmental degradation.

Yet, money alone cannot ensure we have high-performing transportation networks that effectively support economic growth and higher standards of living. Four sets of issues arise in developing and maintaining transportation infrastructure:

1. Financing: The most immediate challenge is to determine the best ways of financing transportation infrastructure requirements—in particular, how to attract private funding for infrastructure projects, and on what terms. 
2. Prioritizing: A second, related challenge is how to prioritize infrastructure projects. For example, is an urban transit investment a higher priority than a highway upgrade? 
3. Assessing: When prioritizing projects, each project needs to be assessed objectively. What is the best way to quantify the economic, social, and environmental impacts of each project over its expected lifetime?
4. Decision-Making: A fourth challenge is to create effective policy, regulatory, and organizational frameworks. They must be structured in a way that encourages effective decision-making at strategic and operational levels, and supports effective management of the services provided by infrastructure operators. Innovative governance solutions are especially important for urban transit systems, which have seen a significant decrease in their share of passenger trips compared with automobile trips since 1980.

The Centre for Transportation Infrastructure (CTI) aims to address these challenges and find the best solutions for developing, maintaining, and operating transportation networks. The CTI’s scope of work covers all types of transportation assets, including roads, highways, bridges, transit systems, ports, airports, and railways.