Killer Commute

This article makes a few interesting points about commuting. No big surprise, the transportation infrastructure in the GTA is lacking. My Dad and I have this same discussion everytime I'm back home. As he often points out, the politicians have no long term vision. They aren't investing in public transit. They aren't dealing with commuter transit like GO. The roads are never long enough, wide enough, smooth enough. "We're probably way behind the rest of the planet," - No kidding.

People commute from unbelievable distances in Ontario to work in Toronto. That's just a reality. I have friends that live in Ajax, Brooklin, Oshawa, Oakville, Mississauga, Barrie, Orillia, Schomberg... and they all commute into the GTA. I know what it's like. James and I lived in Schomberg for 2 years. We really liked it there but the commute killed us. Keeping to the Go Train's restrictive schedule was impossible. The commuter lots were almost always full and we would park our car in the ditch on Keele St. Because we only had one car (and we refused to get another one)we had to spend time coordinating meeting to come home together. Good luck trying to work overtime! So we drove alot of the time. Friday nights in the summer were a complete nightmare. We had to share the roads with all the additional cottagers heading out of the city and consequently, it would take us close to 2 hours to get home. And once we got home, we had no interest in getting back in the car and heading into the city to see friends or family. It just didn't make sense to us. So we bought a house in the city - a five minute walk to the subway and our lives changed for the better. We left our car in the driveway (most of the time) and we took the 45 minute 'grubway' downtown. When I got a job at Rogers, I was at work in 20 minutes.

I know city living is not for everyone - and without a question we had to sacrifice some of the 'nice-to-haves' like our own driveway, ample street parking, a big yard, a detached house etc. But our time was more important and we love it. I really disagree with the point that Marilyn Butt makes in this article, "For my kids, it's a calmer life in the country, and that's why I do this everyday." City life can be just as calming as country life. I know that a 12 hour day, hours commuting, Go Trains to catch, traffic to beat can make for a very frazzled mom - and that doesn't do very much for the kids.

I remember our neighbour Liz saying that when she turned the corner onto our street walking home from the subway, it felt like walking into a hug. Her kids (and the entire street worth of kids - about 36 on our block)would all be out playing on the sidewalks. Parents would sit out on their steps talking to each other - someone would hold your baby while you went back to check on your dinner in the oven. Barry (Liz's stay-at-home hubby) would be fixing some kid's bike or starting a water fight with a hose. Sheryl would hand me a bag of slightly used clothes for Jack - stuff her boys had just grown out of. Kate had just had her second baby and she was talking to Christine about her problems breast feeding. It was Friday and people usually headed over to Paula and Dmitiri house for some drinks and some BBQ. It was a really great place to live.

So I guess that the moral of the story is that community is what you make of it. It can be in the city, or the country or places in between. Take time to smell the roses.

A long and grinding road for commuters
GTA drivers spend 79 minutes daily on commute
It's even longer for transit users, StatsCan finds
If you live in the GTA, you spend an average of 79 minutes each day driving to and from work, but don't feel smug if you use public transit because you eat up just under two hours a day commuting.

The numbers mean we spend more time than anyone else in the country getting to work and back. And it doesn't look like it's going to improve any time soon.

"We're probably way behind the rest of the planet," said Baher Abdulhai, the Canada Research Chair in intelligent transportation systems. "There's no single solution that you could buy from somewhere, put it on the road today and tomorrow there's no congestion. It's not going to happen."

The StatsCan report released yesterday surveyed regions across Canada including the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, which stretches from Oakville to Durham Region and north to Bradford.

The report found the average Greater Toronto car commuter spends two weeks a year in transit. The average time for a round trip to work in the GTA has increased by 11 minutes since 1992 and by three minutes since 1998, according to Statistics Canada.

"What we wanted to check was the perception that a lot of people have that it takes longer to get to work," said Martin Turcotte, author of the report.

He said public transit users in the GTA spend about three weeks a year getting to and from work, and it's stayed that way since 1992.

That's consistent with public transit use across Canada. The report found that, in most cases, it's faster to drive to work than to take public transit.

It notes that 64 per cent of public transit users spend more than an hour and a half commuting to and from work, while only 21 per cent of those driving reported spending more than 90 minutes on the road.

By comparison, the 2003 U.S. census says the commute time to work in New York City proper is 38 minutes. Doubling that figure to account for the return trip would hint at a total travel time of 76 minutes.

Likewise, one-way trips to work in Chicago (33 minutes) and Los Angeles (29 minutes) also suggest lower commuting times in those cities than in Toronto's CMA.

More than 8 million people live in New York City, about 3.8 million in Los Angeles, and 2.8 million in Chicago. By comparison, about 4.7 million people live in the Toronto CMA.

Toronto Transit Commission chair Howard Moscoe said cutting the commuting time for transit users is getting harder as more people use it.

Marilyn Butt, who commutes from Georgetown by GO Transit, leaves the house at 6 a.m. and gets back in at 6 p.m.

"It helps me get into work mode when I am going downtown and out of it when I am coming back," she said. "For my kids, it's a calmer life in the country, and that's why I do this everyday."

Nationally, it took Canadians 12 full days a year — or about an hour a day — to make the round trip from home to work. In 1998, Canadians spent just under an hour a day commuting to work.

Average commuting times have risen since 1992 in three of the country's largest cities, with Toronto, Montreal (76 minutes) and Calgary (66 minutes) all showing gains. Vancouver's average commuting time has remained almost constant since 1992, dropping slightly to 67 minutes from 70 minutes.

Abdulhai said Canada lags behind other nations when it comes to transportation infrastructure. He said many major U.S. cities use ramp metering, essentially a stop light at the entrance to freeways, to control the flow of traffic.

"When you bring in more people and you don't put in the infrastructure to move them, things will actually get worse. We're not doing much to improve things. We're just playing wait and see and hiding our heads in the sand. If nothing major happens, it makes for a longer commute," he said.