Indicator 11.4.1 Percentage of the population living within 500 metres of a public transport stop

Percentage of the population living within 500 metres of a public transport stop

No specific target

This indicator measures the proportion of the population within the geographic unit living within 500 meters of a public transit stop.

Province or territory, Census metropolitan area, Census metropolitan area part

Percentage

The main method used to estimate the percentage of Canadians living within 500 meters of a public transport access point is as follows:

a) The location of public transport stops of all kinds (bus, trolley, surface and underground rail) were accessed from city web-sites or acquired from local transit authorities. Almost complete coverage was obtained for the municipalities making up the 35 metropolitan cities.

b) The public transit stop locations were incorporated within Statistics Canada’s geographic databases containing population counts for 2016 Census Dissemination Blocks. All Dissemination Blocks located within a 500 meter radius of a transit stop were selected, and summed for the municipality. A straight-line distance is sometimes not the most direct route, but it is consistently applied to facilitate comparison across cities. This approach will produce a slight over-estimate.

c) In the final step, the population living within 500 meters is divided by the total population of the entire metropolitan city.
The total population is used, as it provided a better indication of the true count of persons interacting socially and economically within the space of the metropolitan area, and thus potentially using public transportation.

Not applicable