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Into the Mist
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Toronto has the worst average commute in the world

When a study admits that it's flawed within the study itself, you're looking at an incredibly flawed study.

I don't mind that this is getting attention as it's putting more focus on how terrible the province's transit cuts were last week, but the study itself seems like complete bunk.
 
doady said:
How does average commute times in Halifax reach 65 minutes? And London (Ontario?) at 74 minutes?
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Either that is the real London or Sydney Nova Scotia also has some explainin' to do!

Probably, though, a pretty meaningless piece of drivel......they can't even say that they are comparing like data from like regions....so what does it mean?
 
Kansas City has an almost comical number of highways, as do most Ohio cities. Interesting that Las Vegas and Phoenix have relatively few highways, though they're both working on beltways - while Houston's working on its fourth(!). Flat cities not on a coast typically have more highways because they can and do have spokes running out to every neighbouring city - or out to nowhere, as with some interstates. I wonder how suburban/exurban Chicago is functioning without a Fox Valley Expressway.

The average round trip commutes for the Canadian cities make sense...it's the American cities that are obviously wrong if we're looking at the whole metro area. There's vast swaths of LA where virtually no one gets to work within 30 minutes.

The study tweaks the data to suit its purposes...in this case, making Toronto look bad in some way(s) to gain support for whatever policy changes they're advocating.
 
So you're suggesting commutes in Toronto aren't bad? Cuz they're terrible in Toronto. I'd say 80 minute average might just be accurate. Some of my coworkers are jealous of my 55-60 minute daily commute times.

Even if LA is in reality worse, that's nothing to brag about. BTW, there is much, much more ghettoization in LA though so maybe a portion of the population in LA works closer to their residence than they might in Toronto, I dunno.
 
80 minutes is definitely the average if travelling inwards from the 905 region or having to use 3-5 connecting transit vehicles to complete one's one-way commute every morning. I should know, cause it just took me 90 minutes to get to get to my workplace.
 
Fresh Start said:
80 minutes is definitely the average if travelling inwards from the 905 region or having to use 3-5 connecting transit vehicles to complete one's one-way commute every morning. I should know, cause it just took me 90 minutes to get to get to my workplace.
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But of course not everyone in the 905 works in Toronto and not every transit user transfers 2-4 times. In fact, the average TTC user transfers 1.7 times and average 905 transit user transfers around 1.4 times.

If I work in the Financial District, and drive 3 km from my home to Streetsville GO and take the train to Union, would the entire trip take 80 minutes?
 
doady said:
But of course not everyone in the 905 works in Toronto and not every transit user transfers 2-4 times. In fact, the average TTC user transfers 1.7 times and average 905 transit user transfers around 1.4 times.

If I work in the Financial District, and drive 3 km from my home to Streetsville GO and take the train to Union, would the entire trip take 80 minutes?
Click to expand...
I just checked. That GO trip alone is 40 minutes, or 80 minutes round trip, not including the 3 km drive or any subway trip downtown.

So yeah, you have a longer commute than average even for Toronto. Remember, the 80 minutes is for BOTH directions.
 
Eug said:
So you're suggesting commutes in Toronto aren't bad? Cuz they're terrible in Toronto. I'd say 80 minute average might just be accurate. Some of my coworkers are jealous of my 55-60 minute daily commute times.

Even if LA is in reality worse, that's nothing to brag about. BTW, there is much, much more ghettoization in LA though so maybe a portion of the population in LA works closer to their residence than they might in Toronto, I dunno.
Click to expand...

No, I'm suggesting you read what I actually wrote. Also read what Alvin bolded and note the unavailable data for Asian cities, the inconsistent figures for European cities, and the underestimated times for American cities. The study basically says we have a slightly longer commute than Montreal, which isn't news. The figures for the non-Canadian cities might as well not be there. If they arrive at these figures by randomly calling a few thousand people, we can also be wary of the Canadian figures.

Toronto's CBD hugs the lake and is accessible by 2 highways, a few subway lines, and a few GO lines, none of which have much room at rush hour. We have long 'fingers' of growth out to Oshawa and Newmarket and Oakville but there's nothing but farms between the fingers. There's a belt of well-situated neighbourhoods like central Etobicoke and the Bridle Path/York Mills that are almost empty. Hell, even our highway network follows the road grid...there's almost no way to get anywhere diagonally. We don't know if our total is bumped up a few supercommuters from Barrie or by the large number of people taking 10-20+ minutes to walk/cycle downtown, or people taking 20-45+ minute trips on the TTC or GO. We don't have a lot of people living one highway interchange and a 5 minute drive away from work. Still, would people rather drive on a highway for 30 minutes or sit on a subway/train for 40?
 
On one hand, these studies stink because they selectively choose their metrics and the study context to suit a hidden agenda. Unfortunately, empirical studies are fraught with this kind of bias; in many ways it is inescapable.

On the other hand, our responses on this forum are no better because we are trying to benchmark our commutes with those of other cities to argue that our's is not so bad. But if we suspend comparisons for a second, we realize that our commute time in the GTA does suck; most people are unhappy about it and billions of dollars in productivity are lost every year. Comparing ourselves to Los Angeles is not going to ameliorate that. That's the problem with benchmarking.

It's not like people in Medieval Europe said "Well, I've lost two of my children to dysentery in the last ten years but that is better than the statistical average in Genoa where three children are lost per family, so I guess I can't complain."
 
From the NYPost today:

The average commute citywide was 39.4 minutes, compared to 29.5 minutes in Los Angeles and 34.1 minutes in Chicago.

These numbers are stated as "each way".

There is no methodology given. But essentially, these numbers are off enough to show that no one seems to really know how long people are commuting.
 
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No one here is arguing that our commutes aren't bad, and a criticism of the study itself is not a defense of our commutes. One can say that we're "the worst in the world" even though data for every non-Canadian city might be missing or inaccurate, but who cares if it's actually true if it'll play well in the media. Comparing cities can be useful if we're talking about productivity and trying to track the real effects of longer/shorter commutes. We don't lose productivity in the same way with every commute, which is why it makes sense to wonder why and where the times are different (are people able to snooze or make calls or type or read while travelling, how happy are they living and working where they do, what's the median/quintile times, how many are moving away from 9-5 hours and how does this affect workplaces, etc.). All we got with this study was an admittedly faulty ranking whose only purpose was to make Torontonians even more unhappy with the infrastructure and policies we have, as if an increase in unhappiness will change anything. It won't.

edit - average times are such a poor way to look at commutes in huge metropolitan area like New York or LA, where millions might be across the street from their job and millions more might be suffering for 3 hours a day in gridlock. An average increase from 20 to 30 minutes could be the result of a bajillion new exurban homes or could be the result of fewer lifetime jobs or some impossible to quantify combination.
 
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True, the statement that Toronto is the worst commute in the world may or may not be accurate, but IMO that's missing the point. As you and many have said, the main point is to emphasize that Toronto commutes suck. You can criticize the study all you want, and you can talk about justifications as to why Toronto commuting "scores" did bad, but the bottom line here is that Toronto commutes suck.

I also find it curious that the Toronto Board of Trade chose to publish this so close after the announcement that transit funding had been gutted. Personally I'm glad the Toronto Board of Trade decided to publish this when they did.
 
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