Re: Commuters spending more time in transit: Statistics Cana
Royson James' take...
Link to article
GTA
               
Business
               
Waymoresports
               
A&E
               
Life
       
Blogs                 Classifieds                 New In Homes                 Photos                 Podcasts                 Shopping                 Evergeek                 Travel                 Wheels                 Workopolis
                        Advanced Search
                               
                Ticker Name        
Members
Sign up | Login
Membership Centre
GTA
Crime
Education
The Fixer
Global Voices
Star Columnists
> Advertisement <
Most Emailed
Today's Paper
RSS Feeds
News Alerts
Special Reports
Fringe Festival
Fall TV Preview
Canada in 2020
Collision Course
Fresh Air Fund
Afghanistan
[More Specials]
Email Newsletters
My Scoreboard
My Stock List
My Subscription
Notices
Announcements
Births/Adoptions
Deaths
In Memoriams
Place an Ad
Features
Comics
Contests/Events
Crosswords
Ellie
Horoscopes
Lottery Results
Puzzles
Traffic Cams
TV Listings
All Ages
Brandnewplanet
Global Voices
I.D.
Starship
Initiatives
Classroom Connection
Fresh Air Fund
Santa Claus Fund
The Star
About Us
Media Kit
Affiliates
Archives
Careers @ the Star
Contact Us
FAQ
Internships
News Releases
Pages of the Past
Special Sections
Star Store
Subscribe
Search the Web
        Thestar.com Google Search
       
       
Print Story
       
       
E-mail Story
       
GTA Columnists
Jim Coyle
Rosie Dimanno
Joe Fiorito
Christopher Hume
Royson James
Adam Mayers
Tag and Save
Tag and save this article to your Del.icio.us favourites.
What is Del.icio.us?
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.