Feel free to paraphrase or use some of the notes included in the template. I expect you to follow my style (almost precisely) in numbering the sections and sub-sections. Topic: The Economic Costs of Urban Congestion in Canada 1.0 Introduction
 This paper examines the economic costs of urban congestion from a Canadian metropolitan perspective.
 Congestion has substantial economic costs. For most households, decisions on investments and jobs depend largely on the quality of transportation infrastructure and the free flow of goods and people.
 More discussion on the relationship among the various variables and issues………………
 I hope to achieve two major objectives in this paper. I will examine the economic costs of congestion using two major studies in Canada, in addition to other pieces of information. This is the first major objective of this research.
 The second objective is to examine the likely effect of ………
 I adopt a data-driven approach and pay particular attention to major deviations from the reviewed literature. In the interest of keeping the analysis as simple as possible, I use descriptive methods to get some idea on the likely behaviour of the main research variables. I then apply other analytical methods before interpreting my results in light of the estimation strategies employed.
 The paper proceeds as follows. In section 2, we review some related literature. Section 3 focuses on the theoretical framework of how commuting costs impact housing prices, while section 4 introduces our data sources, estimation methods and empirical results. Section 5 presents conclusions and some suggestions for further research.
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2.0 Literature Review
Grant (2012) looks at the relationship between congestion and productivity and concludes that the rate ……….
Read this: http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Current-and-Projected-Costs-of- Congestion-in-Metro-Vancouver.pdf
And this: http://www.comt.ca/english/uttf-congestion-2012.pdf
And this: http://www.adec-inc.ca/pdf/02-rapport/cong-canada-ang.pdf
While the urban economics literature is still unclear about the role of ABC in the determining XYZ, it has been argued that improvements in transportation that help lower commuting time may provide an incentive for nonmetropolitan populations to contribute to metropolitan economic activity by commuting (So, Orazem and Otto, 2001).
Using a system of simultaneous equations, Hamilton, Wang and Mendu (2009) use a large sample of Canadian metropolitan data for the period 1995-2005 to analyze the……. Their results show that, on average, congestion………., while the effect of ……. statistically insignificant.
3.0 Theoretical Framework
In this section, I review a number of theories that establish a framework that will help explain congestion as a pure economic phenomenon.
3.1 Deadweight Loss
Explain the fact that negative externalities result because social costs exceed private costs. Refer to the lecture slides on externalities. Also see section 3.1 with some mathematical explanation of deadweight loss on pages 15-18 here: http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp- content/uploads/2015/02/Current-and-Projected-Costs-of-Congestion-in-Metro-Vancouver.pdf
Include at least one good graph.
3.2 Congestion Externalities and Congestion Tax
See lecture notes; slide #8. Include at least one good graph.
3.3 Externalities cause Inefficiency Axiom
Use this fundamental axiom in urban economics to explain the nationwide costs of congestion. Refer to the lecture slides on externalities.
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3.4 The Cost of Travel and Modal Choice
As discussed in class, explain this model: Trip Cost = m + Ta *da + Tv*dv
4.0 Empirical Analysis
4.1 Methodology
The empirical analysis is based on the theoretical framework in the preceding section. I use two reports to examine the extent of congestion in Canada. The first1 is the Transport Canada report titled, “The Cost of Urban Congestion in Canada”, prepared in April 2006 and updated in 2009. The second report2, prepared by TransLink, is titled “Current and Projected Costs of Congestion in Metro Vancouver”. This is dated February 2015.
While there are many components of the costs of congestion, I focus solely on delay costs (i.e. time lost during congestion) in my analysis. I then use descriptive analysis to understand the strength of the relationship. Data limitations preclude employing the full model. Even though the models cannot be estimated fully, I still use it as a framework as best as I can.
4.2 Data Sources/Assumptions
The Transport Canada report develops time values for business and for non-business trip purposes. Tables 1, 5 and 6 from the report are used in this paper. The other report views excess congestion as excess transit time to transit users. Table 7 of this report is used.
4.3 Analysis
Now, use the models under sections 3.1 – 3.4 above to explain Tables 1, 5, 6 and 7. Present your analysis intuitively. At this point, you may want to revisit the Literature Review and Theoretical sections to draw some inspiration.
5.0 Conclusion
1 http://www.adec-inc.ca/pdf/02-rapport/cong-canada-ang.pdf
2 http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Current-and-Projected-Costs-of-Congestion-in-Metro- Vancouver.pdf