[LNahid2000]

From personal experience biking between Bloor and Finch on Yonge everyday, afternoon rush hour is always has more traffic!

In other news, my commute is going to decrease from a 35 minute bike ride to a 10 minute walk/5 minute bike ride starting next week. I'm going to miss my morning workouts, but at least I can get up later.

 

[James]

I always thought morning rush hour was worse because while everyone is going to work between 7-9am, people leave work and head home anytime between 3-9pm spreading the demand over longer time.

Although intuitively this makes sense, I always seem to notice the opposite. I think you are correct in that the morning commute is more consistent in volume, I believe people do leave work in more scattered times. What I think is causing the afternoon/evening traffic to build right back up again is what TOareaFan says below: People are moving around much more, all over the city, thus adding right back (and then some) to the afternoon congestion.

There is also a lot more non work traffic in the evening...people going out after work, people just "moving around"....there is less of that in the morning and people driving at 8 a.m. are likely just commuting to school or work.

^ This sounds like a very plausible reason to me. Thanks for enlightening me.

 

[James]

In terms of traffic volume, it is. Look at the peak load numbers for most links, and the AM peak is normally higher than the reverse direction in the PM.

The same holds true in transit, where the peak hour for most routes is in the AM, not the PM - which is why most routes normally have more vehicles running in AM peak than PM peak.

There are some locations where this doesn't hold for various reasons - perhaps where shopping trips are significantly greater than work trips. Or perhaps leading to a sorts stadium with a lot of 7 pm games.

It does often seem worse in the PM though. Not sure why ... more people stopping for errands on way? More time for the whole thing to break down which manages to reset itself overnight? Maybe everyone just has more desire to go home, than go to work, and therefore a lot of it is perception? Not sure.

From personal experience biking between Bloor and Finch on Yonge everyday, afternoon rush hour is always has more traffic!

In other news, my commute is going to decrease from a 35 minute bike ride to a 10 minute walk/5 minute bike ride starting next week. I'm going to miss my morning workouts, but at least I can get up later.

I suspect for those of us who live in the city, because of the people moving "out and about" within the city after work, going to various places of interest instead of going straight home, this might be the reason why the commute in the afternoon/evening is heavier than in the morning. I don't know, to be honest, I'm just hypothesizing.

 

[ehlow]

That's a pretty good commute as it is. I'd like to think that the Crosstown will yield positive results for both drivers and public transit commuters. I'm not a big fan of traversing Eglinton unless I absolutely have to so I'm welcoming the Crosstown at this point!

It's not as big of a deal for those who are take the bus for 5 min or less, but for those taking longer trips the higher speed of the LRT should make a big difference. The bus service is amazingly frequent though. You'll see 3-5 buses in a row, all full of people, so it would be more efficient if they were in one long train being driven by one driver (and underground).

 

[Admiral Beez]

It's going to get nastier until the Pam/Para Am Games are over.

 

[James]

It's going to get nastier until the Pam/Para Am Games are over.

I keep telling myself that it won't have a dramatic effect on my commute but who am I kidding, it's probably going to be totally shot, but I'd rather not think about it until the time comes. I have 2 vastly different routes of more or less equal travel time to get to my office so if one is backed up, I usually have the other. Now if both are backed up due to the Pan Am Games, then I'm definitely screwed so that's all the more reason for me not to stress about it now since I won't be able to do anything about it anyway!

 

[mdrejhon]

I'm waiting for the moment during the 2040 Olympics when the police pulls over a self-driving car caught driving in the carpool lane ---

-- and it only has 3 mannequins in it, no human. (Cue perplexed police scratching their heads)

 

[James]

School's out! For me, my regular commute has been very fluid.

 

[ehlow]

So I went from a 15 min walk commute to a 40 min walk-subway-walk trip (20 min on subway).

So far the 40 min trip isn't too bad. I head downtown often anyways so now I can do things after work easily. I work sightly after rush hour and the subway southbound on Yonge isn't crowded at all (I can usually sit). So far no major problems, but I'm sure it'll happen.

The 15 min walk was great 95% of the year, although during the extreme cold days (colder than -10) it was pretty brutal.

 

[James]

So I went from a 15 min walk commute to a 40 min walk-subway-walk trip (20 min on subway).

So far the 40 min trip isn't too bad. I head downtown often anyways so now I can do things after work easily. I work sightly after rush hour and the subway southbound on Yonge isn't crowded at all (I can usually sit). So far no major problems, but I'm sure it'll happen.

The 15 min walk was great 95% of the year, although during the extreme cold days (colder than -10) it was pretty brutal.

Apologies if I missed a previous post but why did your commute go from a 15-min walk to a 40-min walk/subway mix? Relocation to a different office? Schedule change?

 

[ksun]

7 years ago: 15 minutes on foot.
Past five years: 7 minutes on foot (almost 100% PATH if I choose to).
Simply don't want the TTC to reduce my QoL.

 

[ehlow]

Time-wise 40 min is probably around average for Toronto (door to door). Lots of people have shorter commutes who just walk, bike or drive quickly. However lots of people also have longer commutes, commuting North York or Scarborough to downtown by TTC, or taking GO would probably give 1-1.5 hour commutes. If you're doing midtown (Yonge-Eg), Bloor West or Danforth to downtown by TTC it should be around 30-50 min. Places by streetcar to downtown probably take a around the same too if you take walking and waiting into account. Talking to people a 40-45 min commute is very common within Toronto.

However so far for me it seems OK because half of that 40 minutes is walking in walkable areas, which I find enjoyable. I prefer that to spending the full 40 min on the subway, or driving on the highway, although winter might be a different story. I could try to shorten the last 10-15 min walk by taking bike share from the subway, but it doesn't really seem worth it so far over walking.

Most financial jobs (or jobs where you need to wear a suit, which to me seems insane for Toronto's hot & humid summers), seem to be around King-Bay down to Union area, which seems very convenient in terms of GO, TTC being directly connected through PATH. However I'd say a big cluster of jobs is west of there from University and Spadina in the entertainment district. Commuting to there from the subway you'd always have a 8-15 min walk tacked on to the end, and the streetcars don't really speed it up much.

Often in other areas like Bloor West the office is still 10-15 min walk away from the closest subway station.

In terms of why a commute would change, the most common reason would be job changes. Many young professionals switch jobs every few years (or even more often). Some people do major switches like Markham to downtown, but even switches within Toronto like Yonge-Dundas to Yonge-Eglinton or Dundas-West/Bloor to King-Spadina can cause commute time changes. Obviously, you can move along with the job, but sometimes people do or don't for various reasons.

 

[jaboober]

I went from living at Y&E and working at Dufferin and Steeles to working at First Canadian Place. My old commute took me from Eglinton station to the 60 Steeles bus. It took anywhere from 45-65 mins to get to work depending on if the subway decided to crawl along through Lawrence and York Mills randomly stopping a dozen or so times with no announcements or apology from the TTC. I'd then be at the mercy of 60F (express) drivers who sometimes chose to remain in the right lane completely defeating the purpose of the express as we'd stop whenever another Steeles or Viva bus stopped. Coming home was another disaster as all too often there'd be no bus for 15-20 minutes (with maybe 1 bus too full to stop or let anyone on come by in the meantime) followed by a parade of 7-8 mostly empty buses. There were also issues with the express bus stopping at the wrong side of the intersection, filling up with passengers then skipping the proper express stop completely cause it was too full. I wish I didn't pay attention to this stuff cause it made me furious how poorly run and inconsistent the TTC is on the same route on a day to day basis.

Now I just sandwich myself onto the train and in 15-20 mins arrive at King station from Eglinton where it's a short walk down the path (or outside if I feel like it) to the office. 1000x better.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Coming home was another disaster as all too often there'd be no bus for 15-20 minutes (with maybe 1 bus too full to stop or let anyone on come by in the meantime) followed by a parade of 7-8 mostly empty buses.

That is absolute truth.

Our TTC bus system is one of the best in North America, but there is room for improvement and that right there explains both what needs to be improved and why.

 

[Towered]

I ride my bike to and from work downtown, which takes 18 minutes each way. It is glorious.