Overview
The transportation sector is responsible for 36% of the GTHA’s emissions, driven by gasoline and diesel use. Emissions increased by 9% in 2022, the highest increase in a single year since 2015. This is only partly due to the rebound in emissions since the pandemic decrease.
Emissions increased across all six regions in the GTHA.
The biggest increases were in Peel (up 11%), Durham (up 9%), and York (up 9%), while the lowest increases were in Halton and Hamilton (up 6%).
Ontario’s monthly fuel sales data shows that the majority of increases happened during the first half of 2022, with fuel sales largely stabilizing during the second half of the year.
Private vehicles continue to make up a significant portion of the GTHA’s overall mode share and are a key factor in the increase of transportation emissions
The GTHA’s mode share includes 69% gasoline passenger cars and trucks, 12% diesel heavy commercial trucks, 9% commercial light trucks, 7% commercial vans and pickups, and 3% diesel transit buses. Trends also show that urban deliveries continue to rise, likely leading to an overall increase in commercial travel.
A shift from personal vehicles to transit, walking, and cycle is critical. All remaining personal vehicles must be electric.
While electric vehicles (EVs) make up <1% of total vehicles registered in the GTHA (based on 2020 data), EV purchases increased significantly in 2022.
A total of 48,931 EVs were purchased, 75% more than the previous year. Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure are critical to reducing transportation emissions and need supportive policies and incentives from the federal and provincial governments to be accelerated.
GTHA transit ridership increased by 58% in 2022, with Peel and York having the highest increase in ridership.
This is largely due to a rebound from the drastic decreases during the pandemic.
(limited to agencies with publicly available ridership data)
GTHA transit ridership experienced a steady increase in the first half of 2022 and retained high transit ridership after September. Walking trips continued to increase (up 9%), mainly in the City of Toronto.
On the other hand, cycling trips dropped by 2.3% across the region due to the mode shift to public transit, also as an after-effect of unprecedented pandemic increases. The biggest mode shifts were observed in Peel, York and Hamilton.
Historical transportation emissions have been updated and are slightly higher than those reported in previous releases as we started to include transit bus diesel and bio-diesel emissions. These make up 3% of total transportation emissions across the GTHA. TAF's downloadable methodology file provides more information on this process.
Scope 3 Aviation Emissions: For the first time this year, TAF quantified Scope 3 aviation emissions at Pearson Airport and Billy Bishop Airport. Aviation emissions is almost doubled from 2.0 MtCO2eq (2021) to 5.8 MtCO2eq (2022) as air travel increased and pandemic-related travel restrictions lifted. These Scope 3 emissions are not included in the 19.2 MtCO2eq transportation emission total.