August Update on Transportation Priorities

Transportation was a major theme at this year’s Hamilton Economic Summit on May 17, 2010.

Delegates identified a number of priority leadership actions needed to help boost local jobs and prosperity through strengthening our transportation infrastructure and increasing the utilization of assets.

These actions are:

1. Re-commit to Hamilton as an intermodal transportation hub
2. Strengthen co-ordination among entities as it relates to the movement of people and goods
3. Market existing facilities and build for the future
4. Attract distribution centres
5. Small delivery vehicles for downtown

Last week, we received an e-mail from the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics (MITL) updating us on some of their work related to advancing these actions.  Here are two important examples:

• MITL and its partners are accelerating efforts to form TransHub Ontario, a fully functional intermodal transportation gateway centred in Hamilton. This initiative was cited as a key recommendation in a 2009 MITL study titled A Sustainable Strategy for Developing Hamilton as a Gateway.  A key next step is to engage local stakeholders through employing a self contained presentation that helps to visualize the gateway concept and bring its benefits to life.  The institute is eager to gain input from the business community and others.

• MITL is conducting research for Metrolinx geared to simulating commercial movements by road in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.  When complete, this research will help us better understand the nature of goods movements and strengthen an argument for collecting superior data.  Such research demonstrates MITL’s importance locally, and on the larger stage.

For more information, contact MITL Director Dr. Pavlos Kanaroglou at pavlos@mcmaster.ca or MITL Senior Research Consultant Dr. Mark Ferguson at fergumr@mcmaster.ca.

We’ll keep you posted over time.