Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Canada

[EnviroTO]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

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

Moscoe shouldn't be at the head of the TTC and this kind of nonsense proves it. More people on transit means more ability to implement new routes cost effectively and those new routes should seek to ease bottlenecks and create more direct routings. Even if routes are kept exactly the same, if a bus runs every 10 minutes now, then ridership doubles, the bus should now be running every 5 minutes to handle the ridership increase which means the commute is reduced by 5 minutes at the same cost recovery ratio!! The only reason his comment would make sense is if a ridership increase of 10% isn't going to be followed by a total budget increase of 10%... knowing the fare box should increase proportional to ridership it means the government would be reducing their subsidy if that is the case.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

"which means the commute is reduced by 5 minutes"

It doesn't reduce your commute unless you're waiting the entire 10 minutes for the bus that comes every 10 minutes (and why would you, they run on a schedule, and suburban bus routes actually stick to the schedule) and now have to wait only the entire 5 minutes.

I don't know how many more people are going to switch to transit if they work downtown, but for those that work in random suburban places, there is often an abundance of capacity waiting for them, and throwing a few more buses on the road is a simple way to add more if needed.

 

[EnviroTO]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

OK, I didn't put much thought into the calculation... so the commute is reduced up to 20 minutes each day, on average about 5 minutes a day (not following the schedule), or at worst stays the same as it is now if it is the only bus route you take and the vehicles remain the same. Still... it is a reduction in commute time financed by greater ridership. If budget and capacity keeps up with growth everyone should be seeing lower commute times on transit and that is the point I am making. The only way to send more water through a pipe over a certain time frame is to increase the flow rate or widen the pipe (i.e. increase the frequency of vehicles, the capacity per vehicle, or the number of routes (requiring more vehicles)). The only other option is telling people to go to work at completely different times which would mean the subsidy is being reduced and riders are getting screwed.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

"Still... it is a reduction in commute time "

Not necessarily...at best it gives you 5 minutes more freedom as to when you arrive at your destination, but it will do nothing to your actual commuting time unless you live near the end of a bus route (say, Finch at Bayview) that suffers from bunching that messes up the schedule. Even if my local bus routes ran buses every minute, it would not shorten my commute since I very rarely have to wait more than a minute for the bus even now when they're coming every 20 minutes. It won't speed up buses and it won't affect your subway connections, although in isolated cases it will improve your bus transfers. Now, if they kept 10 minute regular service and added an express/rocket bus instead, THAT would do wonders for commuting times in addition to giving riders more flexibility and doubling capacity.

 

[doady]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

Moscoe shouldn't be at the head of the TTC and this kind of nonsense proves it.

How is it nonsense? How else do you explain the fact that the busiest routes are the slowest? If no one waits for the bus, then the bus doesn't have to stop, it's pretty simple.

 

[wyliepoon]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

Royson James' take...

Link to article

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We'll happily commute until it kills us
Jul. 17, 2006. 01:00 AM
ROYSON JAMES

We're stuck with road congestion. Gridlock — at least what we call gridlock — is as certain and ever-present as poverty or crime, maybe even as inevitable as old age, unless you die, of course.

And people are cool with that. Really.

Two or three hours in from Barrie or Peterborough? Great. The quiet hum of the daybreak hustle; beating the snow trucks to the highway; the GO train cancellations; the cumulative effect of three weeks spent travelling to work by transit each year, two weeks by car.

If we weren't fine with that, we'd opt for something else, no? Like moving closer to work, for example.

Sure, many have limited or no options. At least no obvious ones. They want to pursue the dream of owning a home and the farther away from the central city the cheaper the home, so they go farther and farther away.

A family friend moved from Don Mills to Oshawa to Clarington to Brooklin. Meanwhile, the wife travels back to Scarborough. So, each move extends their communion with the road, but what's a few hours a day in Highway 401 traffic when country air awaits you at the end of the adventure?

So, never mind last week's report from Statistics Canada that says the average daily commute to work in the Toronto area is now 79 minutes by car and just under two hours by transit.

Yes, the commute is getting longer and longer. And more and more people are moving out to Barrie or God's half acre and travelling back at least that far to work. The headline in Thursday's Star called it the "long and grinding road," but I beg to differ.

People love what they are doing. They must. For even the ones with options gladly engage in the daily madness.

Pickeroonians travel to a Brampton factory while Bramptonians refuse to move close to their job in Ajax. Both live in the 'burbs. Both are far from downtown Toronto. Both choose to live far from work, though they might find a similar house at a similar price in the town of their workplace. Both are part of the problem, except, no doubt they don't see it as a problem.

A Newmarket mother treks to Bay and King while a Harbourfront resident trudges up to Markham and beyond. The city slicker clings to his love of living in the midst of where the action is; the fresh air lover won't give up the country life, even if more and more of it is being idled away, stuck in traffic.

Look, we love our cars. We love a big house. We are hooked on the dream of living in the country, even if a lot of those subdivisions in "the country" are less country than many in the city.

We like the convenience and comfort and flexibility of the car. We will complain if governments impose any type of restriction on our car travel — such as road tolls. And we'll keep living like this until it kills us — all in search of Nirvana.

The average round trip to work across the GTA has increased by 11 minutes since 1992 and by three minutes since 1998. In other words, for the past seven years, the work commute has been increasing by about 26 seconds each year.

No wonder people keep moving farther and farther from work — all the while expecting other people to get off the road so they can cruise into town and back out to the idyllic suburbs, er, country.

Which big-house hunter, or large-backyard seeker, wouldn't sacrifice an extra 26 seconds each day for the next year to sustain this lifestyle that's possible in the GTA?

People will go through hell on the road, whiling away nearly 300 hours a year on Toronto-area roads, if it means they go home to the "calmer life" of the country, whatever that means.

How many of us have visited a house in Mississauga or Oshawa, only to find it every bit like one in Scarborough or North York? And we won't mention that many a neighbourhood, directly off an arterial road in the city of Toronto, has much more of a "country feel" than most of the subdivisions springing up around the region.

Yes, affordability is a factor for many. But so is stupidity. How many refuse to buy a house closer to work, citing price, only to opt for a similarly priced — but bigger — house further away.

Thank God for choices.

There are many ways that have been suggested to reduce commuting times and make the road to work a smoother, quicker experience. Few of them are easily attained; few have worked; few are feasible.

Baher Abdulhai, Canada Research Chair in intelligent transportation systems, delivered the bad news to Star reporter Steve Rennie last week:

"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."

And I think we're okay with that.

 

[Ontarian1976]

Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana

"Yes, affordability is a factor for many. But so is stupidity. How many refuse to buy a house closer to work"

But if the husband's work is 45km from the wife's, they can't move close to both. Plus it's silly to expect someone to move closer to their work every time they get a new job.

As for the article, there are actions that can be taken to improve travel speeds for both drivers and transit users, but the government has seemingly little interest in taking such actions.