The agony of the Colwood Crawl? It’s overrated.
Greater Victoria residents cannot only brag about better weather than the rest of Canada, but also relatively shorter commutes.
According to Statistics Canada, the Victoria Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) had among the lowest share of long commuters, which the agency defines as workers who spend at least 60 minutes in cars (including trucks and vans) to work.
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In 2016, 6.7 per of the 8.84 million car commuters in Canadian CMAs spent at least 60 minutes in a car, with the average long commute in a car lasting 74 minutes, unchanged from 2011, and covering 57 kilometres.
By comparison, long commuters in Victoria account for 3.2 per cent of all 119,215 car commuters. This was the second-lowest share for British Columbia behind Kelowna’s CMA, where 2.6 per cent of car commuters travel at least 60 minutes. By comparison, 7.7 per cent of car commuters in Vancouver’s CMA and 11.6 per cent in Abbotsford-Mission’s CMA fall into the category of long commuters. Both CMAs share a border with each other, and many residents of Abbotsford-Mission’s CMA commute to Vancouver’s CMA, the third largest in the country.
A comparable relationship also exists between Toronto’s CMA, whose of share of long commuters is just below 12 per cent, and Barrie’s CMA, which has the largest share of long commuters anywhere in Canada, with 18 per cent of its car commuters travelling at least 60 minutes to work.
The more CMAs clustered in an area, the greater the likelihood their respective residents will make longer commutes.
“In contrast, the lowest proportions of commuters with a long commuting time were found in smaller, more isolated CMAs,” the report notes.
Looking at specific commute lengths, Canadian commuters spent an average of 26 minutes travelling to their place of work, up almost one minute from 2011, according to a new report. By comparison, residents of Victoria’s CMA travelled almost four minutes less (22.2 minutes) on average.
Residents of Greater Victoria are also more likely to sustainable forms of transportation (like cycling and car-sharing) than other Canadians.
According to figures, just under 39 per cent of 170,830 employed commuters in the Victoria Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) use sustainable forms of transportation, with the share dropping away, the further away from the City of Victoria, with Saanich somewhere in the middle, when compared to the West Shore and Peninsula communities (excluding Sidney).