ON THE COVER
Despite increase use of public transit in region, recent survey shows more than 90 per cent still drive to work.
Despite a recent uptick in public transit use in the region, recent statistics show the car is still king for more than 90 per cent of people commuting to work.
The latest figures from the National Household Survey show out of 69,845 people who commute to work every day, 61,195 drive to work, while another 2,865 ride in a car as passengers. That means 91.7 per cent of people who go to work do so in a car, while public transit users make up only 3,015 of the total, or 4.3 per cent.
The median time it took people to get to work was 25.6 minutes.
While the figures come as no surprise, they’re still discouraging, said Guy Pilon, the mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion, a member of the board of directors for the Agence métropolitaine de Transport and the president of the transit commission for the Montre Metropolitan Community.
“It’s not surprising, becaus there’s not a lot of populatio density in the area, and peop have very tight schedules,” h said.
Pincourt Mayor Yvan Ca dinal said public transit seem to be popular among student but not among adults commu ing to Montreal for work.
Pilon said constant tra fic jams on the Trans-Canad Highway, and mechanical fai ures and delays on the trai have exacerbated the problem
“The train or the bus is pe fect when it works, but if yo try it, and it doesn’t go well, yo don’t go back.”
He said he believes people i the region would like to try pu lic transit, but they also need to be reliable.
In the next few weeks, how ever, bus users will benefit fro a reserved lane on the shoulde of the Trans-Canada Highwa eastbound f rom St-Charle
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it wm er ay es Blvd. in Kirkland to Côte-Vertu Blvd., expected to be put in place this fall. The measure falls short of a dedicated lane on the highway for buses, which transit advocates had requested. And buses won’t be able to use the lane to speed. The fastest they’ll be able to go is 20 kilometres per hour faster than the moving traffic, and when traffic is at a standstill, they’ll be limited to 50 kilometres per hour.
Manon Charest, general manager of the Conseil intermunicipal de transport for the Presqu’île area, said while train ridership on the Vaudreuil-Hudson line hasn’t seen remarkable growth, bus service continues to grow steadily.
She said, however, the time to get to a final destination is the biggest obstacle.
“The train takes at least an hour and five minutes to get downtown, but first you have to drive there,” she said.
“You don’t really save a lot of time.”
She added buses can be a big time saver, because they can get to the Côte-Vertu métro station in 30 to 35 minutes (plus another 20 minutes to get downtown by métro). However, the problem is they often run into traffic.
“If we could get a true reserved lane, that would really make a big difference in the time it takes.”
Charest said all bus lines are seeing growing ridership.
“And we’re still pretty new,” Charest said. “We think people are still just getting into the habit of using public transit.”
Charest said she would like to see express trains put in place, whereby the train would skip several stops along the line. She said that could save 15 minutes per trip for users getting on at Vaudreuil-Dorion.