Abstract

Focus on sustainable transit has grown in recent years, as Canada invests in active and public transport (Infrastructure Canada 2023), and plans to reduce CO2 pollution (Government of Canada 2022). While the health benefits of commuting by walking, biking or even public transit may seem clear, the impact on health inequality within cities is less so; some researchers claim that strong transit systems equalize access to health care (Abu-Qarn and Lichtman-Sadot 2022), while others argue that uneven implementation of sustainable transit may lead to gentrification in transit-accessible neighbourhoods, leading to worse outcomes for vulnerable residents (Tehrani, Wu, and Roberts 2019). This investigation seeks to determine the impact of sustainable transit availability on health inequality in Canadian cities using cross-sectional regression analysis. We use the gap in the hospitalization rate between the highest and lowest income quintiles as a proxy for health inequality. Walkability is found to be related to a smaller gap, while bikability is associated with a wider gap. This may be explained by bikability and transit being associated with gentrification, mitigating any positive effects they may have had on the gap in hospitalizations.