Nearly one in five people who travel to work from Barrie by car, will spend at least 60 minutes on the drive in, according new-released data from Statistics Canada.
The results from the 2016 census show that people from the city had the highest proportion of long car commutes (more than 60 minutes) in the country.
Oshawa was a close second, with about 17 per cent of car commuters spending 60 minutes or more getting to work daily.
Statistics Canada attributes this to the regions’ proximity to Toronto.
“Toronto is one example of a large urban agglomeration with a large number of people and jobs,” the report reads. “In 2016, close to 1 in 5 commuters in Canada had a usual place of work in the Toronto (census metropolitan area) CMA.
While the average commute time to work for Canadians is about 26 minutes each day, those living in CMAs such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal often experienced longer commutes, the report noted.
Car commuters in Toronto experienced an average commute time of 34 minutes while those in Montreal and Vancouver spent about 30 minutes getting to work.
The report also found that about 11 per cent of car commuters from Toronto spent at least 60 minutes travelling to work.
“Toronto also had a significant number of people coming from other CMAs (such as Kitchener–Cambridge– Waterloo, St. Catharines–Niagara, Brantford and Guelph) and from non-CMA/CA areas. Nearly one-half of people who lived in these areas and worked in Toronto were commuters with a long commuting time, who reported an average commuting time of at least 80 minutes.”
Other types of commutes were also measured. People using public transportation in Canada travelled for an average of 45 minutes to get to their place of work, the report showed.
One Toronto driver told CTV News Toronto that the traffic trend has led him to alter his business model.
“It used to be you could leave at eight o’clock,” said Dalton Gonsales. “Unless you are leaving at 5:30 a.m., 6 a.m. you aren’t beating the traffic.”
“We just work in the areas that we live now.”
The report found that many Barrie residents who have a long commute by car typically leave their homes earlier in the day: more than 50 per cent said they left their homes between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.
Statistics Canada found that between 2011 and 2016, the number of car commuters with long travel times increased by five per cent. The total number of cars on the roadway also rose by three per cent.
