UTTRI associated faculty Shauna Brail did a series of interviews for CBC Radio across Canada about the recent Statistics Canada report Long commutes to work by car indicating that Canadians are spending more hours in their daily commute.
According to the report, about 7% of all car commuters in Canada spend at least 60 minutes getting to work.
Dr. Brail notes that the greatest increases in commute times are in Canada’s largest cities: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
She identified some potential actions governments could take which would support reduced commute times in cities:
- Densify urban and suburban areas to enable more opportunities for people to live and work in closer proximity
- Invest in public transit and encourage residential and employment density around transit nodes
- Price roads and road use, for instance via road tolls and congestion charges
- Create incentives that deter people from choosing to commute in single occupancy vehicles
Dr. Brail’s interview for CBC Radio Vancouver is available online:
March 5, 2019, CBC Radio One, On the Coast with Gloria Macarenko (time 1:27-1:34)