Joshua Mitchell

During the recent decade, the Canadian retail landscape has undergone considerable change with the introduction of big-box retailers. Big-box retailers are three or four times larger than conventional store sizes in a given category and typically occupy industrial style buildings. The clustering of three or more big-box retailers designates a power centre, and is currently the dominant form of retail development, particularly in suburban localities. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA), which is the largest metropolitan region in Canada, has experienced extensive power centre growth since the mid 1990s. While the growth of power retail in the GTA has been accredited with the deceleration of regional and super-regional shopping centre construction, little is known about the travel impacts associated with power retail. Using temporal shopping travel observations taken from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey in conjunction with retail structural data from the Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity, measurable travel indicators were applied to both shopping centres and power centres in the GTA to identify changes in consumer travel behaviour over time. Moreover, a second aim of this research was to compare the realities of consumer travel behaviour in the GTA with public policy recently released by the province of Ontario which calls for regional and area municipalities to adopt more sustainable development practices. Results indicate that while power centre growth has been substantial between 1996 and 2001, shopping centres remain to be the most significant fixture in the GTA commercial landscape. In addition, auto use in shopping travel dominated trips to both retail formats, while transit use played a more limited role shopping travel, especially in trips to power centres.