Furthermore, telecommuting a few days per week will result in people being more accepting of living further away from their workplace. This could actually increase the amount of long-distance commuting on systems such as GO, VIA and Exo. Commuting from Ste Hyacinthe to Montréal might be a bit far to do every day, but it would become a pretty attractive option for someone who only needs to head to the office a couple days per week.
It's also worth noting that the longer the commute is, the more of an advatange trains have over cars, since the time can be productive rather than lost.
I'm still not sold that telecommuting will be that big a factor in the near term; perhaps moreso 2 decades out.
I could be wrong, its not what I'm seeing for the moment in corporate plans.
That said; should people/business adopt this at a critical mass level AND as a result, people spread further out within urban areas; I expect there will be a very real demand to shorten per-km commute times.
That means one or more of:
- increasing the speed at which trains travel
- new service patterns (express trains)
- shortened routes / new ROW tunnel that subtracts several km from winding routes.
That last one can be especially pricey; the middle one low-cost, but might upset some whose stops would see less service; the top one varies as depending on what speed one is trying to achieve.
Even with 2 day per week office stints, I see the tolerance for 2 hour each way commutes as very low.
Dropping a 2 hour commute to 1 hr 15 changes a lot.
Dropping a 90 minute commute to 45 minutes change more.
But depending on the route in question, that may not come at a modest price.
