Gentrification, Mobility and Automobility; A Quantitative Study of Local Driving Mode Share and Commute Time in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver

摘要

This thesis investigates how gentrification affects the transport mode and travel time of commuters in large, globalizing Canadian cities. While there is evidence that gentrification is associated with transit, cycling and walking, gentrification also involves the displacement of low-income and racialized households, and commuters in these households are the least likely to drive to work. Does gentrification contribute to automobility? Also, how are residential mobility and exclusionary displacement related to everyday commute mobility in gentrification? In this dissertation, I cross tabulate commute time and mode by household income, racial status and other sociodemographic characteristics at the census tract scale in 1996, 2006 and 2016. I find that in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver, gentrification is correlated with a decrease in the mode share for driving among affluent commuters and visible minorities who live in gentrifying neighbourhoods. However, there is no change in the overall percentage of commuters who drive to work, since low-income and racialized minority commuters, who are less likely to drive, are displaced and higher-income and white commuters, who are more likely to drive, become more concentrated in gentrifying places. Also, while within gentrifying places I find little evidence of racial differences in commute time, through gentrification racialized residents are displaced from places where they have a lower driving mode share, and shorter commute times by private vehicle and transit. Moreover, a case study of the Toronto metropolitan area shows that the centralization of households with above average incomes is not on its own associated with a reduction of their private vehicle use over time. At the same time, the private vehicle use of low-income households does not change in gentrifying neighbourhoods, but is bolstered by their increasing concentration in the suburbs. Thus, the cultural aspects of gentrification processes have an important influence on commute behaviour, and these combine with economic change and improvements to local transport infrastructure to support the motility of affluent, white households, while contributing to displacement pressure for low-income and racialized minority households.