Toronto has the worst average commute in the world

[Eug]

...or so says this study:

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.

I've said this before, but when I bought a house, one of the most important criteria was have a commute to my workplace (which isn't downtown) and a commute to downtown of less than 30 minutes in rush hour. That seems like it's pretty good for Toronto, and it is, being less than average according to that study. Still, that's almost 60 minutes round trip, which is worse than LA according to that study.

 

[JayBee]

Not surprising seeing as our subway line and highways are a joke.

Takes me 2 1/2 hours round trip. Total of 4 trains and 2 buses.

 

[kettal]

"While acknowledging that the measurements for some U.S. cities may be underestimated..."

sounds like a good report.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

This is so embarrasing.

 

[junctionist]

Not surprising seeing as our subway line and highways are a joke.

Takes me 2 1/2 hours round trip. Total of 4 trains and 2 buses.

Indeed, our highway system is incredibly overbuilt while our rapid transit and commuter rail system is amazingly underdeveloped.

 

[lead82]

Yet both systems are jammed and not being expanded any time soon. No money they say, yet there is tonnes of money to bring people into the city via immigration and other means, and lots of money for tax cuts to 'expand' our economy, yet no one thinks that in order to grow you need to add capacity to transportation. We're at max capacity. Any failure in TTC subway, or highway causes a huge bottleneck for half the day.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

but it's okay. we shut off the lights for an hour 2 days ago. we're so green!

 

[doady]

Perhaps having the worst commute times is a good thing: encouraging people to live closer to work, encouraging higher densities and mixed use development, making the suburbs even less attractive, etc.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Report:

http://www.bot.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Scorecard&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4433

Section on commute (p. 43 of pdf)

Labour Attractiveness Indicators
Commuting time***
# cities ranked: 19

Definition
Calculated as the average time (in minutes) of a trip to and from work, based on: US: 2008 Canada, Europe, Sydney: 2006.

Significance
CMAs associated with low commute times are considered to be more attractive places to live. With the highest average commute time, Toronto ranks last among the 19 metro areas for which data are available.

What about Toronto?
With the exception of New York, the US CMAs do well on this indicator. London, Montreal and Toronto are the only CMAs to receive “D” grades.

The Grade
1. Barcelona A (48.4)
2. Dallas A (53.0)
3. Milan A (53.4)
4. Seattle A (55.5)
5. Boston A (55.8)
6. Los Angeles A (56.1)
7. San Francisco B (57.4)
8. Chicago B (61.4)
9. Berlin B (63.2)
10. Halifax C (65.0)
11. Sydney C (66.0)
12. Madrid C (66.1)
13. Calgary C (67.0)
14. Vancouver C (67.0)
15. New York C (68.1)
16. Stockholm C (70.0)
17. London D (74.0)
18. Montreal D (76.0)
19. Toronto D (80.0)

Data unavailable for Hong Kong, Oslo, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo.

***Commute time data from Eurostat is available only at the regional level. However, the boundaries of these “regions” are not strictly defined and vary greatly across European metro areas. In addition, data for US cities was calculated using the boundaries from the 2000 Census. These boundaries are much smaller than the MSA regions used to estimate GDP. Therefore, US commute times might be underestimated.

_______

Comparing apples and oranges and having the gall to use it in a composite index without any adjustments.

AoD

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ Is it just me or do Canadian cities in general have bad records?

 

[Hipster Duck]

Indeed, our highway system is incredibly overbuilt

Are you kidding? Have you been to an American city like Los Angeles, Houston or Dallas?

Heck, we don't even have to compare ourselves to sprawly, auto-centric Sunbelt cities. Try Madrid, the Ruhrgebiet or Frankfurt for size.

Yes, all those orange lines are bonafide freeways.

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ Are those links broken?

Yes, compared to most other cities, Toronto even has a terrible highway system. Los Angles, while being incredibly hard to navigate and not being pleasing at all, has a good system to transport people.

 

[Dan416]

^^ Are those links broken?

Yes, compared to most other cities, Toronto even has a terrible highway system. Los Angles, while being incredibly hard to navigate and not being pleasing at all, has a good system to transport people.

When referring to Toronto's "highway system", are you guys talking about the City of Toronto? Or the GTA? Because I don't think the GTA's highway system is underdeveloped. Certainly Mississauga has no lack of freeways...

 

[urbanboom]

This same report also called us the fourth most prosperous. Just putting that out there.

 

[doady]

How does average commute times in Halifax reach 65 minutes? And London (Ontario?) at 74 minutes?