[getsmart-l] getsmart-l Digest, Vol 42, Issue 3

[Mike Fearon]

I'm usually the optimist, however this time I fear that the "good news" may
be veiled.

Statistics can be used in many ways. Please consider the following, if for
no other reason than to seek out what the truth is.

 With an increase in carpooling and public transit use, it is quite possible
that the reason is simply due to the vast amount of immigration that lands
in Canada. Many of the aforementioned do not drive, or haven't managed to
get their Canadian Driver's License yet. So, with an influx of non-drivers,
the amount of those still driving will appear to have propped, where it may
have remained the same or even gone up, relatively speaking.

Michael Fearon
Greenwood, 
Ontario.

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Today's Topics:

   1. The numbers also show gains for public transit,	carpooling
      and cycling. (John O'Gorman)
   2. Re: The numbers also show gains for public transit,
      carpooling and cycling. (Gloria Boxen)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 09:51:20 -0400
From: "John O'Gorman" <jcogorman at sympatico.ca>
Subject: [getsmart-l] The numbers also show gains for public transit,
	carpooling and cycling.
To: <getsmart-l at list.web.net>
Message-ID: <BAYC1-PASMTP073A900AB68C757355FB74CFF70 at CEZ.ICE>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080403.wcensuswork03/BN
Story/National/
Reversing century-long trend, fewer people driving cars to work
JEFF GRAY From Thursday's Globe and Mail April 3, 2008 at 4:00 AM EDT

In what some observers believe could be a turning point for the country,
Statistics Canada says that for the first time since it started studying how
Canadians get to work in 1996, a smaller percentage of us were making the
trip behind the wheel.

It may appear to be a small decline. But the 2006 census data yesterday
showing the percentage of Canadians who drive to work at 72.3 per cent, down
from 73.8 per cent in 2001, is a departure from a century-long trend of
increasing automobile use. The numbers also show gains for public transit,
carpooling and cycling.

"A reversal in the long-term historical trend ... is, I think, firmly in
place now," said Michael Roschlau, head of the Canadian Urban Transit
Association. "...To me, this is really groundbreaking information."

However, the numbers released yesterday also contain some of the bad news
commuters have been used to hearing. For instance, the median distance
travelled each day to work continues to rise, hitting 7.6 kilometres in
2006, up from 7.2 in 2001 and 7.0 in 1996.

Related Articles
Recent

  a.. Canada's visible minorities top five million  
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  c.. Interracial relationships rise 30 per cent in five years  
Also, in raw numbers, Canada's roads still had 714,900 more cars heading to
work in 2006 than in 2001, a 7.2-per-cent increase. (That's down sharply
from the increase between 1996 and 2001, when just under one million new
cars were added.) 

Cindy Strugnell, 37, commutes every day from Whitby, Ont., into downtown
Toronto for her job in advertising, and says the stress of her
90-minute-plus trek has prompted her to switch to the (delay-plagued) GO
Transit commuter train system for a couple of days a week. 

"It's does wear you down. It tries your patience for sure," Ms. Strugnell
said of her commute along Highway 401, Toronto's congested main east-west
highway. "A lot of my peers do a lot of commuting, and I see the exhausted
look on their faces on Thursday of the work week."

Her partner, Karen Wickiam, 37, a nurse, said she has largely stopped taking
shifts at downtown Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children solely because of
the worsening commute, opting instead to work at Oshawa General: "I couldn't
take it any more. ... It was just miserable."

An increase in public transit's share of commuters suggests others are
getting fed up, too. Over all, public transit use rose to 11 per cent of
commuters, up from 10.5 per cent in 2001. Oshawa (near Whitby, east of
Toronto) had a 2.3-per-cent increase in the proportion of commuters using
public transit.

But the biggest boost to public transit came in Calgary, where it rose 3.1
per cent as the city struggles with oil-boom-driven traffic problems and
expands its C-Train light-rail system.

Optimism at these shifts was tempered by other numbers released yesterday.
More Canadians were commuting to workplaces in the sprawling suburbs of
major cities, away from established public transit networks. 

These workers were more likely to drive.

Over all, 5.9 per cent more people were working in "central municipalities"
in 2006, according to Statscan, while the number of people working in
suburban municipalities grew twice as quickly, at 12.2 per cent.

Leading the pack among large municipalities was Vaughan, Ont., on Toronto's
northern boundary, which had 22.2-per-cent job growth since 2001. The number
for Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver, grew by 17 per cent, and for Laval,
outside Montreal, by 15.8 per cent. Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport
Policy Institute said it is important not to overstate the significance of
the shift away from the car. "Keep in mind that for most of the last
century, the trend was pretty steady in terms of increasing automobile
travel," said Mr. Litman, whose B.C. hometown leads the country in cycling
and walking, according to yesterday's census data. "[Car use has] pretty
much levelled off in most developed countries, due to, essentially,
saturation."

While there have been investments in public transit, Mr. Litman said efforts
to promote carpooling and cycling can coax drivers out of their cars even in
suburban areas, where public transit is scarce.

Carpooling, yesterday's numbers suggest, is up slightly, no doubt partly
because of increasing gas prices. Between 2001 and 2006, the share of
commuters that rode to work as a passenger in a car rose to 7.7 per cent
from 6.9 per cent.

Cycling to work, while showing a 20-per-cent increase, still accounted for
only 1.3 per cent of commuters, up from 1.2.

*****

How to discourage reliance on cars

In addition to improving public transit and stopping sprawl, cities around
the world are experimenting with other - often unpopular - new policies
aimed at discouraging reliance on the car.

PUTTING A PRICE ON DRIVING

New York city council voted this week for an $8 toll for cars headed into
the most congested part of Manhattan, a controversial proposal that the
state legislature must approve. 

It was inspired by London's ?8 ($16) congestion charge, which officials say
has reduced traffic by about 20 per cent. 

Stockholm has brought in a similar, though less expensive, charge, and other
cities in Europe and the United States are studying the idea.

TEAR IT DOWN, THEY WON'T COME

Traffic planners in San Francisco were baffled in the mid-1990s when they
shut down the city's Central Freeway amid predictions of dire traffic jams
yet the rest of the city's streets moved as usual. Traffic experts said the
freeway was carrying "induced traffic," and drivers simply adapted,
switching to other modes or routes. 

Similar predictions of gridlock also failed to materialize when the city
tore down the Embarcadero Freeway, which carried 100,000 cars a day before
it was damaged in a 1989 earthquake. Both examples are cited in debates
about other urban expressways - such as Toronto's waterfront Gardiner - and
by traffic planners who argue that building or widening roads simply
attracts more cars.

PAY UP FOR PARKING

Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California
at Los Angeles, studied the effects of free or cheap curbside parking on one
15-block district in L.A. 

He concluded that drivers cruising for curbside parking spaces accounted for
an average of 68 per cent of all traffic in the area. Over a year, the
distance travelled by cruisers equalled 38 trips around the world. 

His solution? Charge "market prices" for curbside parking - enough to ensure
that demand doesn't outstrip supply - so drivers won't circle the block
endlessly for a free spot. 

Jeff Gray

*****
A long way to work
The longest daily trips to work (each way) were in Ontario.
Median commute, kilometres
Oshawa: 11.0
Toronto: 9.4
Barrie: 9.0
Hamilton: 8.3
Calgary: 8.2
Montreal: 8.1
Ottawa; Gatineau: 8.1
% commuting 25 km or more
Barrie: 35.3%
Oshawa: 32.6%
Abbotsford: 24.4%
SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 10:33:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gloria Boxen <gboxen at rogers.com>
Subject: Re: [getsmart-l] The numbers also show gains for public
	transit,	carpooling and cycling.
To: John O'Gorman <jcogorman at sympatico.ca>, getsmart-l at list.web.net
Message-ID: <358694.19364.qm at web88212.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

The change is so slight as to be statistically insignificantly, but are
encouraging.   Even more encouraging is the increase of transit and active
modes of transportation by young adults.

The increase in commuting distance is of course a consequence of the
urbanization of the exurbs, people commuting across the 905, e.g. from
Durham (lower emploment opportunities)  & Markham to Brampton and
Mississauga and visa versa.  

Gloria Boxen

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/04/02/commute-statscan.html

           Commuters still love cars, but bikes, buses gaining favour:
StatsCan  Last Updated:   Wednesday, April  2, 2008 | 12:23 PM ET
Comments35Recommend30   CBC News        
               More and more Canadians are climbing aboard their bikes and
boarding buses and subways to make their way to work, according to 2006
census data released by Statistics Canada Wednesday.
     Proportion of commuters who use public transit - 2006    Region & age
group  2001 (%)  2006 (%)      Canada  10.5  11    N.L.  1.7  1.9    P.E.I.
0.2  0.5    N.S.  4.8  5.9    N.B.  1.8  2.0    Que.  12.8  12.8    Ont.
12.7  12.9    Man.  9.1  8.9    Sask.  2.4  2.2    Alta.  7.9  9.2    B.C.
7.5  10.3    Yukon  3.0  2.6    N.W.T.  0.9  0.7    Nunavut  0.5  0.2
15-24  15.8  16.6    25-34  11.9  13.5    35-44  8.8  9.5    45-54  8.5  8.6
55-64  8.3  8.4    65 and older  7.7  7.2      The federal agency also
suggested there has been a modest uptick in the number of Canadians who walk
to work, and that younger workers are more likely to choose greener modes of
transport than their older counterparts.
  "As might be expected, given the large increase in employment in Canada
between 2001 and 2006, the number of people having to commute to work ? has
risen considerably over the past five years," the report said.
  "While the car is still the most frequently used mode of transportation
for getting to work, there was a decrease in the proportion of drivers in
the past five years, from 73.8 per cent of workers in 2001 to 72.3 per cent
in 2006."
  The report found that the median distance Canadians are travelling to work
has increased to 7.6 kilometres in 2006, an increase of 8.6 per cent over
the past decade. Commuters in Ontario (8.7 km), Nova Scotia (8.4 km) and
Quebec (7.8 km) travelled the farthest to get to work, while workers in
Nunavut (2.1 km), the Northwest Territories (2.9 km) and the Yukon (3.9 km)
lived closest to their workplace.
  More commuters carpooling, taking bikes to work  Despite the increase in
distance to the workplace, growing numbers of Canadians are turning to
alternative forms of transportation. In 2006, 11 per cent of workers used
public transit to get to work, compared with 10.5 per cent in 2001.
  More Canadians are also carpooling, with 7.7 per cent of workers reporting
they travelled to work as a passenger in a car in 2006 ? up from 6.9 per
cent in 2001. Statistics Canada suggested the addition of new carpool lanes,
a desire to be kinder to the environment and high prices at the pumps could
account for the gain.
  A modest 6.4 per cent of workers reported walking to work in 2006, a
decrease from 6.6 per cent in 2001. But growing numbers of Canadians
reported riding their bikes to work ? particularly among commuters between
the ages of 45 and 54, the federal agency said. The census showed that 1.3
per cent of workers reported taking their bikes to work, up from 1.2 per
cent in 2001.
  Fewer people are working from their homes, said Statistics Canada, noting
the decline was linked to a drop in the number of people working on farms.
In 2006, 7.7 per cent of workers said they worked out of their home as
compared with eight per cent in 2001 and 8.2 per cent in 1996.
  Young people aged 25 to 34 were more likely to use green modes of
transportation such as transit, bikes or walking compared with their older
counterparts, the report said.
  For example, 32.9 per cent of workers between the 25 to 34 age bracket
reported using sustainable modes of transportation ? up from 29.5 per cent
in 2001. In contrast, 23.1 per cent of workers between 35 and 44 said they
used the greener forms of transportation, down from 23.2 per cent in 2001.
  Leana Garrison, a green transportation advocate for the Halifax-based
Ecology Action Centre, says money may play a large role in determining how
young commuters travel.
  "People under 25 tend to be making less money than people who are older,
on average," she said. "People are choosing to use transit or active modes
because they can't afford a vehicle."
           


John O'Gorman <jcogorman at sympatico.ca> wrote:        
 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080403.wcensuswork03/BN
Story/National/
  Reversing century-long trend, fewer people  driving cars to work
  JEFF GRAY From Thursday's Globe and Mail  April 3, 2008 at 4:00 AM EDT

  In what some observers believe could be a turning point  for the country,
Statistics Canada says that for the first time since it started  studying
how Canadians get to work in 1996, a smaller percentage of us were  making
the trip behind the wheel.
 It may appear to be a small decline. But the 2006 census  data yesterday
showing the percentage of Canadians who drive to work at 72.3 per  cent,
down from 73.8 per cent in 2001, is a departure from a century-long trend
of increasing automobile use. The numbers also show gains for public
transit,  carpooling and cycling.
 "


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