The morning and evening commute around Metro Vancouver can be trying at times.
Heading into the city from the suburbs to the east, you can find yourself caught on any of the Pattullo, the Port Mann or the Alex Fraser bridges.
As you head in south from the North Shore, you can end up stuck on the Lions Gate.
Coverage of Vancouver traffic on Globalnews.ca:
The latest Census release from Statistics Canada shows just how long Metro Vancouverites are spending on their way to and from work — and just how residents of different cities are travelling.
The Census showed that Vancouverites spend an average of 29.7 minutes commuting one way.
They spend an average of 27.3 minutes moving around by car, truck or van. They take 43.6 minutes by public transit.
And they spend 17.4 minutes commuting by some form of active transport, such as biking or walking to work.
READ MORE: Mobility pricing report notes some of Metro Vancouver’s worst congestion points
Of Canada’s three largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), Vancouver saw the biggest growth in the proportion of transit users from 1996 to 2016, StatsCan said.
In that time, the share of commuters grew by 6.1 per cent, rising to 20.4 per cent in the most recent Census.
This came amid expansions of the SkyTrain transit system, which saw 53 additional kilometres of track added in 2002, with the addition of the Millennium Line, and in 2009, when the Canada Line opened.
“This increase significantly narrowed the gaps in the proportion of workers using public transit compared with the other two largest CMAs,” StatsCan said.
But just because more people are using transit doesn’t mean it’s become the dominant mode of travel in Metro Vancouver.
Analysis by Andy Yan, director of the SFU City Program, shows that while 30 per cent of City of Vancouver residents use transit, the number falls to as low as 15 per cent in Surrey, where travel by car, truck or van as a driver or passenger is the highest in the region, at 81 per cent.
Richmond and Coquitlam aren’t quite on board with transit either the way the rest of the region is — at 19 and 18 per cent, respectively, commuters in those cities use public transit less than the Metro Vancouver average.
Nevertheless, it’s a mode of transportation that’s crucial in a region like this one, where housing costs have skyrocketed in recent years, Yan told Global News.
“Good public transit is a means of dealing with the considerable housing costs that has certainly developed in Metro Vancouver and I think it’s also a means of really ensuring that we have sustainable cities,” he said.
The two issues go hand in hand, Yan has said in the past.
For him, housing prices aren’t the only facet to examine when it comes to housing affordability.
As people look for affordable homes to rent outside Vancouver’s downtown core, many are also being forced to spend more money on transportation, he noted in a previous story.
READ MORE: In Metro Vancouver, 43 per cent of renters are living in homes they can’t afford: Census
People in the downtown core might be spending more of their income on shelter, but a resident of Pitt Meadows who has to commute into the city might be spending an even bigger share when you factor housing and transport costs together, he said.
To say nothing of how long said commuters would have to spend in traffic.
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