Long commutes getting more common
A recent report says very long commutes are becoming more common in Canada, and this item mentions folks driving into town daily from Joliette or Granby. But there’s no mention of public transit and of how easy it is to spend an hour or more getting somewhere in town if it’s any distance from a metro line.
Ian 09:18 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
I live in Mile-End and it takes my wife more than an hour and 15 at best to get to her office in the fruit district of VSL, a 20 minute drive by car.
Brett 11:41 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
That’s by public transit or by foot?
Ian 12:05 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
I know, right? The bus basically has to circle through the old garment district then wend its way slowly to the other side fo Acadie. That’s long enough by itself, but the 55 also regularly misses its schedule so you could be waiting for half an hour just for a bus to show up – at rush hour.
Spi 12:18 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
Why not take a combination of the 80 and the 179?
Blork 15:12 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
What’s embiggening my commute is Metro outages. There seems to be an uptick recently. Last week I commuted to work three times and all three times I had significant delays. Two were in the morning; in one case the Green line was down, but it only delayed me by about 15 minutes.
Next time both Green and Orange were down; Green was longer, but Orange was off-and-on (this was rush hour). It had me running back and forth between them (On! Off! On! Off!) and I finally ended up on the Orange line. Delay was about 20 minutes.
The worst was the next day when the Yellow line went down around 5:00 PM (this is rare). When I arrived at Berri-UQAM at 5:20 the tunnel to the Yellow line platform was backed up almost to the escalators. That’s 100 meters of tunnel jammed with people. Literally thousands of people stuck in a tunnel.
I don’t know how long it took to clear because I just left. I took the opportunity to renew my card at the Grand Bib and walked around a bit. Came back a little after 6:00 and it was functioning normally. But I’ll not soon forget that crush of humanity in that seemingly endless tunnel.
Bert 21:03 on 2019-02-26 Permalink
I work downtown and currently commute on the DM train line. I used to do the car-Metro run and switched to car-train 3-4 years aog. I am not looking forward to being obliged back to the Metro due to the REM work.
Ian 15:00 on 2019-02-27 Permalink
Spi it would actually be 80>179>54 where she is, which is the longest of all the routes suggested by google maps. Also worth noting Google maps says that will take 58 minutes – this is of course assuming that all buses are actually on schedule and not, as in the case of the 55, randomly not showing up on a regular.
Ian 15:07 on 2019-02-27 Permalink
…also worth noting almost all of Google Map’s travel times are a very optimistic prediction, especially when taking walking times into consideration. Being at a stop light at the wrong time could mean you have to wait for another bus… I like to look at it not as an estimate as to how long they think it will take you to walk but how long you have, so move it, buddy 🙂
Meezly 14:57 on 2019-02-28 Permalink
Random buses missing scheduled stops during rush hour? Shocking! Also live in Mile End, and it can take me an hour to get to/from work in Old Montreal/Griffintown by bus during rush hour, esp. now that Ste-Catherine is under construction. The bus route planning is seriously flawed, as it assumes that every bus commuter wants to end up at a metro stop, thus many bus routes end in the downtown area, so you make multiple transfers if you want to cross more than two boroughs. I live on the Plateau – why do I have to do bus1-metro-bus2, or bus1-walk-bus2 to get to Griffintown or beyond? Seriously, it can be faster taking mass transit from outside the island. Can’t wait to get back on the bike.