Latest StatsCan report confirms all our stereotypes about commuting in the GTA
Statistics Canada’s latest report about commuting across Canada came out yesterday, and there are lot of interesting goodies in there (to the point that the Toronto Star basically geeked out and ran a half-dozen different stories). The numbers for Toronto basically confirm every stereotype we previously held about ways to get around this city.
Some highlights from from the Statscan report (here in PDF):
• People who take transit on average have a commute 20 minutes longer than those who drive. Yup, getting around by TTC is slower than driving.
• Drivers almost entirely refuse to take transit if there’s any other option (with 85 per cent of car users saying they’ve never taken transit).
• People with longer commutes (car or transit) feel more stressed out.
• Pedestrians and cyclists are the happiest commuters of all, giving statistical weight to the common belief that they’re all smug hipsters.
One thing that stood out was the fact that other cities actually do a better job with transit, as measured by the additional time it adds to a trip. In Montreal, transit only adds nine minutes to a daily commute. The report doesn’t give an explanation about why this is—is Montreal’s Metro better than our subway, or is the gridlock worse?—so for now we’ll just say that whether we’re in a mood to defend transit or not, it’s pretty clear that Toronto doesn’t do it perfectly. But then we knew that too.
• Commuting to work: Results of the 2010 General Social Survey [Statistics Canada] • The route to commuter happiness? Two wheels [Toronto Star] • 85% of drivers have never used transit [Globe and Mail] • Bus-and-subway slog takes nearly an hour [Toronto Star]
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