What's a long commute for each city? What are the worst commutes you know of?

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Jeddy1989 and his boyfriend are working in Prague right now as well. Seems to be very popular with Spaniards and North Americans. Enjoy!

The city has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe at around 2.2% last I heard and lots of global companies are located here (as in most of the big ones). Also great infrastructure. I am born in Prague though and speak native Czech so its probably a bit different for me here. One of my brothers even lives here as he returned a decade earlier. It has been one of the best decisions I have recently made in my life going from Vancouver to Prague. World of a diference. Vancouver has some serious issues and its future looks pretty depressing (costs, infrastructure and other rapid changes with no improvements in sight). Also I am always up for a beer if anyone happens to be here.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by megadude

For Calgary, are there a lot of people who want to live in the Rockies and so they tolerate their drive into the city?

Yep absolutely, a lot of people live in Cochrane or Canmore and commute. My friend lives in Canmore and works on the east side of the city, takes her an hour each way. I had a boss who lived in Canmore, 70-90 mins each way or more, and if there's a blizzard they were sometimes snowed in. According to the census, 6.5% of Canmore residents (555) commute to Calgary, couldn't find info for Cochrane.

Just using Google Maps and setting the time to 7am, a commute from the very farthest corners of Calgary to downtown is listed as 30-60 mins.

[Airboy]

My commute is better now than earlier in the fall. Currently I get in my car at 7:04 and pull into my parkade at 7:45 and at my desk in 6 min. Worst is usually 45 min. If it snows I avoid the main roads and hit side streets, can make it to the office in 45 min evening home those days can be a bit trickier. Funny thing is if I ride my bike it is a straight 45 min ride in. I am in Central St Albert and work just on the west side of Downtown Edmonton, but next year will be in the centre of downtown. My bike commute will still be the same but the drive (if I get Parking) will be another 10 min. I have a coworker that lives in the SW of Edmonton out past the Henday. His commute is at best 45 min but is usually an hour.

in 89 when I last lived in TO I would commute from the Bloor&Ossington area out to the Darlington Generating station. Usually an hour+, the home commute was about 1.5. It always astonished me that people would drive from Peterborough or further everyday.

My Calgary commutes from Bragg Creek to the Airport were only an hour on average. Worst drive right now for time is my once a month trip to Grande Prairie, 4 hours one way for a 420km trip. Back the same day.

I have a cousin living in St Catherines and commuting to Downtown TO. She takes a bus and sleeps the whole way.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Yep absolutely, a lot of people live in Cochrane or Canmore and commute. My friend lives in Canmore and works on the east side of the city, takes her an hour each way. I had a boss who lived in Canmore, 70-90 mins each way or more, and if there's a blizzard they were sometimes snowed in. According to the census, 6.5% of Canmore residents (555) commute to Calgary, couldn't find info for Cochrane.

Just using Google Maps and setting the time to 7am, a commute from the very farthest corners of Calgary to downtown is listed as 30-60 mins.

Not sure I'd place Canmore and Cochrane in the same category, though.

Cochrane is a bona fide outer suburb of Calgary. Canmore is not.

[jonny24]

I work in the country between Woodstock and Brantford. When I lived at home with my parents it was a 14 minute drive- 15 if there was a tractor in the way. Could get it under 10 with some serious speeding

But now I suppose I "reverse commute" from downtown Hamilton, which takes about 50 minutes. On the road between 6:45 and 7. I don't actually mind it, listen to the radio and cruise. All the traffic is going the opposite way- I only have to dip below 100km/h on the 403 in the stretch from the Linc to Wilson St. Whereas people are crawling down the mountain.

At night is a lot more variable, sometimes it hit a wall of traffic as far back as the Hwy 52 exit (15 km away) sometimes I make it all the way through without much of a slowdown- the choke point is always the Linc though.

I had a guy I carpooled with who lived in Stoney Creek on the opposite side of the city. He had a 20 minute commute to get to our spot and then the 45 minute drive from there. He couldn't stand it and got a new job 5 minutes from his house.

My girlfriend drives to Aldershot and takes the GO to Union, then walks to her downtown office. She leaves at 7 and starts at 9, but she has about 35-40 minutes of downtime. So a "long" commute, but she can sleep/read/whatever for most of it.

[Innsertnamehere]

I either bike, or car2go to work and streetcar ride back. So I see all 3 modes. Biking is about 15, car2go is driving across downtown on Richmond so it's fast, 10-15, and streetcar is about 25-30 with the king street pilot now. Used to be 40-60. My girlfriend drives about 10-20 depending on traffic, she needs her car for work. In a few years we are planning to boot it out to the burbs for the property, probably the Burlington area. I'll probably continue to GO downtown for a bit but ideally would like to find something out there that is a bit easier of a drive.

I did 2hrs each way on GO for a year in university, that was painful. Worked in Vaughan for a while while living with my parents in uxbridge,took me about 40mins to carpool on the 407. I'd consider anything between 15 and 30 to be ideal, anything over an hour long, and anything over 1:30 just not worth doing.

[GlassCity]

If we're talking about personal experiences now, I commuted by transit around 90 minutes to UBC every day when I was going there, but it really wasn't too bad. Peak service meant it was just two 40 minute buses. Way back could get up to 2 hours though, with traffic or missing transfers.

Honestly, you get used to it though. I'd either do my readings, or just space out out the window and chill. Logistically the amount of time you waste per day ends up being more of a factor than the actual inconvenience of commuting itself.

[hipster duck]

^I think two 40 minute one way bus rides might be acceptable when you're a student, but not when you're working full time. I doubt you'd want to commute 80 minutes including a bus transfer one way today.

A student's life is a lot more broken up and varied than a working person's life. For one, you don't have to be there for 8 consecutive hours or, really, at all. There isn't the threat that you'll be disciplined if you don't show up or if you sneak in late. Secondly, between classes you can socialize, wander around outside, catch up on other things. It feels a bit like the weekend for 2 hour periods every 3 or 4 hours, or so. Even the group assignments - tedious as they were at the time - seemed more like play than work in retrospect.

I think that commute time is really something to be minimized, especially when you're raising a family with young children. You're already away from your house for a minimum of 8 hours, and then you have to spend 2 hours, unpaid, in transit to get to this place. This shrinks the amount of time you have to spend with your family to about 4-5 waking hours in the evening. Then again, for some parents, the commute might be therapeutic because it's the only time of the day when you get to be alone. They would be loathe to admit this, though.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^I think two 40 minute one way bus rides might be acceptable when you're a student, but not when you're working full time. I doubt you'd want to commute 80 minutes including a bus transfer one way today.

A student's life is a lot more broken up and varied than a working person's life. For one, you don't have to be there for 8 consecutive hours or, really, at all. There isn't the threat that you'll be disciplined if you don't show up or if you sneak in late. Secondly, between classes you can socialize, wander around outside, catch up on other things. It feels a bit like the weekend for 2 hour periods every 3 or 4 hours, or so. Even the group assignments - tedious as they were at the time - seemed more like play than work in retrospect.

I think that commute time is really something to be minimized, especially when you're raising a family with young children. You're already away from your house for a minimum of 8 hours, and then you have to spend 2 hours, unpaid, in transit to get to this place. This shrinks the amount of time you have to spend with your family to about 4-5 waking hours in the evening. Then again, for some parents, the commute might be therapeutic because it's the only time of the day when you get to be alone. They would be loathe to admit this, though.

Well I decided to stay a student for another couple years, but yes, I definitely wouldn't recommend the 90 minute commute to anyone. I know I'm definitely enjoying my now 5 minute walk. But long commutes, as anything, are something you just get used to. You're right in saying that it's different when you're only really looking after yourself.

[ssiguy]

Vancouver's problems is not only horrid infrastructure but also a very disconnected one.
As an example, for a transport coming from the US there is only 1 border crossaing they can use and to get to HWY#1 they have to negotiate the following on HWY#15...........13 traffic lights, go thru the centre of a community of over 15,000, go thru 2 school zones one of which informs drivers to slow to 50km/hr when kids are playing, a firehall, the highway is still heavily used by farming tractors, no overpasses, stop lights at the bottom of 3 VERY steep hills so the transports crawl, a fairly busy bike route with no bike lanes, busy cross streets with no lights, all with horrid traffic and 2 lanes in each direction. Believe it or not this is an "upgraded" road and one of the busiest transport routes in the province. Enough said.

As for smaller/mid-sized cities I don't think any of them can hold a candle to London as anyone familiar with the city can attest.

[kool maudit]

I recently moved out of Copenhagen to the northern seaside town of Espergærde. It's an interesting commute because the coast railway is so superior to driving... it's about an hour on the highway at rush hour, and potentially worse if there are backups into Hellerup (northern inner suburb with many offices etc.), but 25 minutes station to station.

Sold my car.

[kool maudit]

Stockholm can be monstrous for the same reasons as Halifax and Vancouver... it's an archipelago tied together by massive highways. Outside of the centre its a maze of overpasses, forests, high-rise clusters and railyards whereas Copenhagen is a very even low- to mid-density carpet of settlement.

If that city had 5 or 6 million people it would probably be among the world's worst commuter towns.

[VANRIDERFAN]

When I was at the RCN base at Victoria (well Esquimalt really) I commuted from Maple Bay/Duncan, which meant crossing the Malahat twice a day. Luckily I was in a Vanpool where all of us worked at HMC Dockyard. Normal commute was 45 minutes and I drove in the morning. The afternoon commute was sweet because someone else drove and I had a nice 40 minute nap on the way home.

Then move to Regina where everywhere was 15 minutes and then the city grew and people started to bitch about their 17 minute commute! I had a nice bike path along Wascana Creek and my commute was usually 25 minutes.

Now I'm in Ottawa and my bike commute from my home in Westboro to my office beside Algonquin College is 30 minutes, by vehicle its about 10 to 15 (depending on the time)

[speedog]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Yep absolutely, a lot of people live in Cochrane or Canmore and commute. My friend lives in Canmore and works on the east side of the city, takes her an hour each way. I had a boss who lived in Canmore, 70-90 mins each way or more, and if there's a blizzard they were sometimes snowed in. According to the census, 6.5% of Canmore residents (555) commute to Calgary, couldn't find info for Cochrane.

Just using Google Maps and setting the time to 7am, a commute from the very farthest corners of Calgary to downtown is listed as 30-60 mins.

Did someone recently move Cochrane to the Rocky Mountains or vice versa because when I was out at Cochrane last week it did seem to me that the mountains were still about a 40 minute drive away from Cochrane.

[q12]

2016 Stats Canada data out today:

Average one-way commuting duration (in minutes), census metropolitan areas, 2016



https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/dai/bt...suals/other013

[MonctonRad]

Nice chart q12.

It suggests the average commute time in Moncton is 17 minutes.

That sounds about right. I personally commute from the Kingswood Park area to the Moncton Hospital, which is in north central Moncton outside the city core.

Commuting times for me have risen in the past few years as congestion has increased. Peak rush hour however is fairly short. If I don't time it right, it can take me 18 minutes to get to work. If I'm only 10 minutes earlier in my take-off, the commute can be as little as 12 minutes.

As for the longest commutes, some people will travel from as far as Bouctouche or Cap Pele (to the north), Sackville (to the east), Hillsborough (to the south) or Petitcodiac (to the west). I would imagine an exurban commute from Bouctouche to the downtown might take 35-40 minutes.

[MonctonRad]

I think it would be interesting to try and figure out how much commuting time is due to distance, and how much is due to congestion.

I had to go into the Moncton Hospital on call last night at 12:15AM, and it took me 8 minutes to get there on mostly empty streets.

Going back in there to work this morning at 7:45AM, using the same route, it took me 14 minutes (a difference of 6 minutes). Traffic was relatively light this morning for some reason, but I thought this was an interesting comparison.

[manny_santos]

My usual commute to Downtown Toronto involves a combination of the Sheppard subway, the Yonge-University subway (Line 1), and a streetcar, normally about one hour going to work and just over an hour going home. However due to track repairs at various points along Line 1 the started this week that have to be done at rush hour for some reason, the commute has become painfully slow. It now takes me 90 minutes each way, and based on information on the TTC's website, it may be like this right through Christmas.

I drove to work yesterday. Took me 20 minutes at rush hour to get there and 34 minutes going home, again at rush hour. Parking is $10 for the day. I don't work in the area of the King Street Pilot, so this does not affect my drive.

I'm probably going to avoid Line 1 entirely until after Christmas, at least between Bloor and Finch. Aside from driving I have the option of a GO train, haven't tried that option yet.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I had to go into the Moncton Hospital on call last night at 12:15AM, and it took me 8 minutes to get there on mostly empty streets.

Though I don't work there, you'd like my commute there... 1 minute walk.

I drive to work downtown each morning (MacBeath, Vaughn Harvey, Queen) and can go from door to door in about 7 minutes. Traffic is almost never a factor. If I had to go down Amirault or Champlain or Main, it'd be... bad. Even though Moncton is kinda got a "spoke-hub" layout, it's still ridiculously easy to avoid hotspots as long as you don't work IN them.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Vorkuta

Even though Moncton is kinda got a "spoke-hub" layout, it's still ridiculously easy to avoid hotspots

Indeed. I actually have four potential routes I can take to get back and forth to the hospital. I will vary them based on road construction schedules, and I find the morning traffic reports on CBC Radio useful.

By and large, inbound I use Mountain Road. In the evening, I usually make my way over to Mapleton and then over to Gorge via the TCH. I take a different route in the evening because of the traffic chaos in the Mountain/Wheeler/Trinity area during rush hour.