A new report claims the average Torontonian will spend well over a year of their life using public transit to travel to and from work — but one expert believes it doesn’t have to be this lengthy.
The new findings come from the developers of Moovit, an app that helps users navigate public transit in 50 cities around the globe, including Toronto.
Compiling data from millions of trip requests, the company’s 2024 Global Public Transport Report revealed that transit riders in Toronto had the second-longest one-way commutes in North America, at an average of 55 minutes — behind only Vancouver, at 60 minutes.
Developers concluded that Torontonians spend one year and seven months riding transit in their lifetime, over a 30-year period of work.
The study also found that 60 per cent of the city’s transit users experience a one-way commute of 30 minutes or less, while 30 per cent of residents endure between one and two hours of travel. It takes two hours or longer for the remaining 10 per cent to reach their destination, according to Moovit.
Stuart Green, a senior communications specialist with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), told TorontoToday in an email that Moovit’s findings don’t show numbers pertaining to distance travelled or ridership, making comparisons to other cities with more robust transit systems difficult.
“More than half of TTC customers rely on the bus network which would be slower than rapid transit, for example,” he wrote. “Comparing to a city that has a robust rail network like London, Paris or New York City is difficult.”
According to Moovit, average transit wait times in Toronto were among the shortest in the world at 14 minutes — tied with New York, Boston and Chicago
Murtaza Haider, a Toronto Metropolitan University professor with a Ph.D in transportation engineering, argued the city’s transit times could improve drastically with one solution: dedicated bus lanes.
“Running buses on dedicated, exclusive lanes — and running express buses that wouldn’t be required to stop at every stop — is something we haven’t done in a major way,” he told TorontoToday. “This would allow us to have more efficient transit service and competitive travel times.”
According to Haider, roughly 60 per cent of all transit trips in Toronto involve buses — making it the most common, but traditionally slowest mode of travel in the city.
He points to a proven method of reducing travel times being implemented in Ottawa and in other cities around the world: Bus Rapid Transit (BRS). These transit networks include dedicated bus lanes, express buses and designated right of way options that have been proven to reduce travel time.
“Most people who are on a subway in Toronto start their journey on a bus or a streetcar,” Haider said. “You can have the world’s best subway system, but without good buses, it won’t function.”
Prior to the pandemic, the TTC — in collaboration with the city — developed the Surface Transit Network Plan. Also known as RapidTO, the initiative included implementing reserved lanes as part of its goal to improve transit reliability and travel times.
A proposal to explore priority bus-only lanes on five of the busiest routes was outlined in the TTC’s five-year service plan. Eglinton East was the first roadway to be studied for these priority measures, and in October 2020, High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes were converted to RapidTO bus lanes. Curbside general-purpose lanes on Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue were also converted.
The TTC claimed that customers experienced faster and more reliable trips as a result of these changes, saving commuters an estimated five minutes of travel time during peak periods, with minimal impacts to general traffic.
But despite the transit commission’s ongoing efforts to improve travel times, Haider argues Toronto still has a long way to go in preventing commuters from spending more than 18 months of their lives on a bus, streetcar or subway.
“There are inherent limitations in the way transit is designed,” Haider said. “Buses operate on schedules, fixed stops and maximum speeds. Without [dedicated bus lanes], we will have longer commute times by public transit — that’s the reality.”
