btimmis wrote:
A big part of the problem though is the mindset of people who rather than accepting a job that pays slightly less, and living in a house slightly smaller, such that they can live near their work; we have way too many people commuting stupid long distances (Barrie to Mississauga, St. Catharines to Toronto, Burlington to Markham), resulting in massive traffic congestion. If all those people had reasonable commute lengths that would solve the whole problem right there. And yes I know people with those exact commutes, and know that there are many more just like them. In theory you would think the crazy congestion would make people accept this reality and not work and live so far apart, but it seems people just leave at 6 am instead. Crazy the amount of people who leave home at 6 am, and don't get home until 8 pm. Not much of a life if you ask me, but as long as you have the big house with fancy cars I guess it doesn't matter.
This isn't a good argument. The commute times in the GTA are not caused by people coming from Barrie or St. Catherines. They care caused by people living in Milton and driving to Mississauga. People living in Brampton and driving to Mississauga. People in Mississauga driving to Etobicoke. People in Ajax driving to Scarborough.
This isn't about long distance commuters. It's about local commuting. A population of 250,000 all hopping in one per car to go to work. Most of the traffic is caused by people driving less than 20km a day. THOSE people need to be provided a better alternative to driving. THEY are the ones needing the rapid, cheap and efficient transit options. It bothers me when people talk about the distance commuters. Have you ever commuted from Barrie?
I moved from Brampton to Simcoe and commute daily to North York. My commute is BEAUT-I-FUL right up the point I hit Rutherford/400. Before that, I can do 160km/h if I wanted to. Traffic flows great. It's not us clogging up the traffic, its the shear volume of people getting onto the 400 at Rutherford, Major Mackenzie, Finch, etc. I usually just get off and then take the 407 since I work in North North York. My commute times (pending accidents or long weekend Fridays) are consistently in the 35-40 minute range. This is a 55km commute.
For your information, I used the 410 in Brampton to head south every day for years. My entire commute now is shorter than just taking the 410 12-km. Likewise, my commute is also shorter than the Milton to Mississauga commute along the 401.
As more and more people move my way, congestion will increase. It's about the sheer population, not distance commuters. They need to bring in better local rapid transit solutions that make it worth while to take transit instead of driving 15-20km a day. We are nowhere near that now. A GO train would add 1 hour to my commute.
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