A new report claims that Greater Vancouver has some of the longest transit trip times in North America.
The global survey of major cities from commuter app Moovit, concluded transit riders in the Metro Vancouver system faced average travel times, including waits, of about 60 minutes.
“However what’s nice is that 54 percent of people is enduring commutes of 30 minutes or less and 15 percent of people are enduring commutes of two hours or more,” Moovit spokesperson Sharon Kaslassi, told Global News.
Kaslassi said the average Metro Vancouver passenger spent 15 minutes waiting for transit, but noted that 59 per cent waited less than five minutes.
Moovit calculated that would translate to a year and eight months spent riding buses and SkyTrains over the lifetime of a Metro Vancouver passenger.
Rounding out the top three travel times for North America were Toronto — the only other Canadian city included — followed by Miami.
TransLink said cutting travel times remains one of its key priorities, but that it can’t be done without addressing regional congestion.
“If not, it’s only going to get worse,” spokesperson Tina Lovgreensaid.
“Our buses are stuck in the same traffic your vehicles are stuck in. We need to improve that.”
Lovgreen said TransLink’s 10-year Access for Everyone plan could put a dent in the issue by doubling bus service, adding nine Bus Rapid Transit lines and increasing SkyTrain and SeaBus frequency.
However, the $21-billion plan remains unfunded by senior levels of government.
Lovgreen said TransLink is also working on ways to make buses faster, including dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal priority.
Lawrence Frank, an affiliate professor of population and public health at the University of British Columbia, said Moovit’s numbers don’t tell the whole story.
He noted that other major Canadian cities like Calgary and Montreal weren’t included in the results, and added it compared geographically large regions like Metro Vancouver to compact European cities like Venice.
“For example, the Evergreen Line has very long commutes — you would expect it to take a very long time to get from Port Moody or Coquitlam or Port Coquitlam into the centre of the region,” he said.
“That’s wonderful that we actually have transit service that long of a distance … You are comparing things that are completely different in scale.”
Frank added that most people in the Lower Mainland do live within a 10- to 15-minute walk of TransLink’s frequent transit network, and that the few people who have particularly long commutes could be skewing the averages.
Kaslassi said Moovit is looking at adding other large Canadian cities into the survey in the future.
Meanwhile, TransLink has warned that Metro Vancouver’s commutes could get exponentially worse if it can’t sort out stable funding for the long therm.
The transit and transportation agency says it has a $600 million operating deficit starting in 2026, which, if unresolved, could mean major cuts to routes across the region.