Toronto workers have longest commutes in Canada: StatsCan

Gone are the days of empty roads and unoccupied seats on trains and buses that marked the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent data from Statistics Canada, released Monday, reveals that more Canadians are commuting to work, and average commuting times have returned to pre-pandemic levels. In May, the number of commuters reached 16.5 million, an increase of 585,000 compared to the same time last year. This rise continues a trend that began after significant declines in 2020 and 2021 when pandemic restrictions kept many workers at home.

The average commute for Canadians is now 26.4 minutes, slightly above the previous high of 26.3 minutes recorded in May 2016.

The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is particularly affected by long commutes. Toronto, specifically, has the highest average commuting time at 33.3 minutes. Jonievy Luther Cabansag, a Toronto commuter, says that it can take her up to an hour-and-a-half to travel from Scarborough to downtown. "That's why I always budget two hours for travel just to make sure I won't come to work late," she said. She also notes, "90 percent of the time, I agree with the meme that 'Toronto is an hour away from Toronto.'"

Other cities with long commutes include Oshawa (32.6 minutes), Barrie (30.7 minutes), and Hamilton (30.6 minutes), which have longer average commutes than Vancouver (30.5 minutes) and Montreal (29 minutes). Steve Farber, a transportation expert and professor at the University of Toronto, explains that the longer commutes in cities around Toronto are expected. "A pretty large share of commuters living in Hamilton or Oshawa are actually coming to work either in downtown Toronto or elsewhere in the GTA," he said.

Samantha Pereira from Mississauga mentions that her commute to Hamilton takes 35 minutes "on a good day." She often encounters issues with the bus service, saying, "There are so many times where I'm just standing there and then the bus just vanishes from the app and just doesn't exist anymore."

In Oshawa, one-fifth of commuters spend an hour or more getting to work, the highest proportion among all cities. Toronto follows with 15.7%, and Barrie has 14.6%.

Bilal Malik, a software engineer, describes his one-hour commute from Oshawa to Toronto as "a huge waste of time." At Toronto's Union Station, he recounted missing his GO train stop and enduring an additional hour of travel. Malik, who works at least two days a week in the office, finds that hybrid workers like himself typically spend 14.4 minutes more on their commute than the average worker. He moved to Oshawa to avoid high living costs in Toronto, only to face longer commutes now that he has to go into the office more frequently.

According to Statistics Canada, the rise in commuting is driven by increased employment and more people working outside the home. Among commuters, 81.5% primarily drive, while 11.4% use public transit. Farber attributes the increased commute times to traffic congestion and reduced transit services. "Reduced revenues lead to reduced services. And of course, ridership goes down when there are fewer services, leading to a downward spiral," he said.

Urban transit ridership in May 2024 was at 87% of pre-pandemic levels, its highest since the pandemic began, but it has not fully recovered. Meanwhile, Toronto's traffic has worsened so much that it was ranked the third worst in the world last year.

Farber advocates for carpooling to alleviate road congestion. Nationally, 89.5% of commuters who drive to work do so alone. "We are entering a permanent new stage for the city where driving through downtown is going to be slower and worse than taking transit," he said.

Commuters also cite other issues affecting their travel times, such as construction and transit closures. Shelagh Pizey-Allen, director of the advocacy group TTC Riders, attributes Toronto's commuting problems to buses getting stuck in traffic and newly-installed slow zones on subway lines needing repair. "Minutes are being added in each direction every day and there's no clear end date," she said.

While Pizey-Allen acknowledges that new improvements to TTC service announced this week are a positive development, she remains concerned about the system's ongoing funding challenges. "Whether people are really going to feel the difference of these investments is another question," she said.