Who loves commuting?
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 - 1:32 pm
A surprising number of Canadians identify their commute to work as their favorite activity - about 3 percent in fact. Overall, the proportion of workers who said they liked commuting (38%) was greater than the 30% who viewed it negatively (the other 32% were neutral).
Respondents to the Statistics Canada 2005 General Social Survey (GSS) were asked to rate a set of activities (including “commuting to and from work”) using a scale from “1” to “5” where “1” meant they disliked the activity a great deal and “5” meant they enjoyed it a great deal. In total, 12% of all workers who had travelled between home and work the previous day rated commuting as a “1”, indicating that they disliked it a great deal, while another 18% gave it a “2”, indicating that they disliked the activity but not a great deal. One out of six workers (16%) even said that they liked commuting a great deal.
The average commute time for Canadian workers rose from 54 minutes in 1992 to 63 minutes in 2005. Commute duration correlated negatively to enjoyment of commuting, regardless of how people travelled to work. Another major factor influencing commuting attitudes was the size of the urban area — bigger cities make for less enjoyable commuting.
The results of the study show that in general, car drivers are more likely than mass transit riders to like travelling to and from work. However, the attitude difference between the two groups disappears when the fact that public transportation users have to spend more time commuting between home and work is taken into account; in other words, for equal commute times, drivers and public transport users are equally likely to enjoy commuting. These results suggest that should commuting times of public transit riders be similar to those of drivers (i.e. shorter), more drivers could be attracted to public transportation. (Other factors affecting the choice between public transport and the automobile, and not considered by the study, include: the comfort associated with each mode; access to subsidized parking at the workplace; cost differences; and easy access to public transit near one’s residence.)
The highest level of satisfaction with commuting was found among the 1% of commuters who rode a bicycle to work (the largest proportion of cyclists was 4.9% in Victoria, BC). The predicted probability that a cyclist would like their commute was 59%, followed by 46% for those who walked to work, while only 38% of people who used their cars to get to work like it. (Source: Statistics Canada, “Workers’ perceptions of their daily commute“)
