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Toronto Board of Trade; “Embarrassing” Commuting Times for GTA

March 29, 2010 By 5 Comments
What is the price of gridlock? Do you calculate it in money wasted while idling on a 400 series highway? Do you calculate it in lost productivity due to late workers? Do you calculate it in personal time lost for the simple “pleasure” of driving yourself, alone, to work?

From The Toronto Star:

Toronto ranked last in survey of commuting times

Study by Toronto Board of Trade calls finding “embarrassing”

It takes people in Greater Toronto an average of 80 minutes to commute to work, round trip, the study found.

That’s 24 minutes slower than Los Angeles, and the worst among 19 cities including New York, London, Chicago and Berlin.

While acknowledging that the measurements for some U.S. cities may be underestimated, the study called Toronto’s performance “embarrassing.” The figures blend commute times for both drivers and public transit users.

“Toronto’s commuting problems give rise to serious congestion issues,” the report notes.

Full article here

Filed Under: commuting, news Tagged With:
About duncan

Duncan rides bicycles in the city of Toronto and contributes to the main blog of BikingToronto as well as writing and taking photos for his blog Duncan's City Ride.

  • http://bikingtoronto.com/members/bikeroo/ Bikeroo

    According to Transport Canada, congestion in urban areas cost $2.3~3.7 billion in 2002. Toronto specifically ranges from $889.6m~1.6b. I remember reading an article in the start explaining how congestion and travel time has been increasing dramatically and the author leads us to assume that there is no clear indication why and yet people seem to forget that more cars increase demand for a limited supply of roads that, in urban areas, will not expand.

  • duncan

    Last night, watching the evening news, I cringed as this report was discussed. I was expecting a call for more highways or for higher speed limits. I was expecting to hear the worst. Shockingly, the news pieces mentioned instituting road tolls and transit funding.

    It’s become clear. Living far away from where you work, just so you can own a car and have a crappy backyard (I love backyards, but I find they are mostly wasted space in the ‘burbs), just isn’t something you can sustain.

    So, should businesses move out to the ‘burbs, or ‘burbonites move into denser areas?

  • http://bikingtoronto.com/members/bikeroo/ Bikeroo

    Rather than having a ‘burbs vs. city issue on who moves where it would be great to see intensification of existing suburban areas, this could greatly cut travel times for suburbanites. Bringing businesses into the suburbs but also encouraging denser development can create clusters of communities sprouting around the GTA which can make use of existing space wasted on suburban development which can drastically cut commute times for these drivers, decrease congestion for others, and create balanced growth in the ‘burbs.

    What do we call these people anyhow? Suburbanites? Suburbanauts? Suburbanians? Suburbanists?

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