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

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Definitely a subjective question. But based on your's and your coworkers' experiences, and your general feeling, what do you consider a long commute for each city?

I am curious what it's like for cities outside TO. Me personally, I drive to the GO station, take train and then walk. It's 1 hour in morning and 1:05 going back. My longest has been 1:15 for the last two places I lived. I don't consider this long for TO.

I think over 1:30 is long. Almost everyone I know is well below 1.5 hours (some are 10 minute walk), but I have known quite a few people to come in from farther GO stations or take bus and subway/streetcar from farther reaches of the city and it takes 1.5 hours or so. Anything past that I consider long.

I can google average commute time for some major cities, but I can't get a feeling of what's considered a long commute or what is an acceptable commute for smaller sized cities.

I would imagine for Regina or Saskatoon that anything over half an hour would be long if you're driving in. Though I imagine plenty of people drive 45 minutes or longer and just grin and bear it because they don't want to uproot their family for their new job in Saskatoon or wherever.

My company has a big office in another Ontario city of about 120k people. Of those I talk to there, most are a 15-20 minute drive. One is half hour because he lives by a lake so it's worth it. One is 40 minutes for family reasons but could easily live much closer and it'll still be very affordable. She considers it long but can live with it.

I know Montreal and Vancouver also have nightmarish traffic like TO. I have been in Montreal rush hour before. Not fun. But they are smaller cities than TO. So what is a long commute in those places?

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

What about Winnipeg? There's some big waters to the north that look like about a one hour drive.

And how about Halifax. Plenty of ocean front land. Do many people live on the ocean and drive say 45 minutes and it doesn't seem that long to them?


As for examples:

- I worked with someone who took bus from St. Catharines to Downtown TO everyday for over 10 years. Gotta be about 2 hours door to door.

- At TD, after Canada Trust was bought out and their leases in London expired, many of those offices moved to Mississauga. TD paid for a Greyhound every day for whoever wanted to work in Sauga. About eight people were coming in every day at 9am and got to leave at about 4:00. Not sure if this arrangement continued as I left a year later.

- My friend works with a guy at a tool and die shop in Oakville who comes in from Dundalk. That's 1.5 hours on a good day.

- Another friend used to live up around Midland and his coworker drove from just south of North Bay to Midland every day. 2.5 hours each way. Didn't want to uproot his three kids.

- I know of someone who worked and lived in Scarboro, but they love going to the cottage. So they knocked down their cottage on the lake and built a proper house on it. So their commute from Buckhorn to near Scarboro Town Centre is 1:45 to 2:00 when leaving around 6:30am. But it's worth it to him.

- One of our clients, who is rich like almost all our clients, told me his wife was flying from Niagara four or five days a week to TO Island Airport for about 6 months. Then cross over to the mainland and streetcar it from there. Originally she was driving and couldn't take it anymore. It was for consulting and for a sizable pay cheque of course.

- My old boss told me his friend lived on one side of Cook's Bay in Lake Simcoe. Had to drive around it to get to work in Keswick. In the winter, when it froze over, he'd just zip across on snowmobile. Kind of scary.