The Future of Transportation Finance in Ontario (FTF-Ontario) Partnership

This SSHRC Partnership Development Grant proposes to address the following:

Challenges

Transportation infrastructure is becoming more expensive
The roles of different public actors in funding transportation is evolving
The gas tax is generating less revenue
With the gas tax, transportation program and climate policy objectives are at odds

Goals

To identify how transportation finance in Ontario should evolve to navigate long-term potential conflicts between policy objectives to fund the transportation system and to reduce GHG emissions.
To identify how a new federal role in transportation funding might be best integrated with provincial and municipal transportation funding needs.

Project Updates

TransForm is pleased to co-host the Ontario Transit Funding Forum with Transport Futures! TMU student researchers Victor Copetti and Kohbod Khandan-Barani will be presenting as part of the event on September 22, 2025.

Objectives

To conduct an international scan of how transportation funding and climate change objectives have been navigated with respect to the gas tax and alternative funding investments.

To conduct a policy scan of transportation funding in Ontario with respect to current transportation finance, the gas tax, and municipal implications.

To identify how the federal government, province and Ontario municipalities may best navigate the future of transportation finance and how the success of transportation finance may be assess using evidence from focus groups and partnership research.

To develop a system of simulation models which will be used to explore existing transportation infrastructure characteristics, population and job growth, travel demand, and revenue alternatives within Ontario Municipalities.

To use the systems of simulation models to develop an online scenario-based toolkit and to illustrate the broader implications of social, policy, and transportation infrastructure, and the state of good repair. Scenarios will consider the roles of internal policy, how external factors (food, energy, costs, economic conditions) may evolve and what the economic efficiency, social equity and efficacy implications (notably on revenue adequacy and feasibility are of alternate transportation finance, and carbon emissions futures.