THE CITY OF COMMUTERS
The number of Hamiltonians who commute for work is higher than the provincial average. Compounding this grind, commutes are taking longer as the population of the GTA booms
VINCE GUGLIELMO WANTS you to know he’s fine. Really.
Many of us wouldn’t be, if we were in his shoes. Guglielmo is one of the tens of thousands of Hamiltonians who spend more than two hours of their day commuting to and from work.
To many people, his daily journey sounds exhausting. From his home near Rymal Road and Upper Gage Avenue on the east Mountain, he takes the Linc to the Red Hill expressway, then the QEW over the Skyway. Then it’s the 407 from its start in Burlington to the Winston Churchill Boulevard exit in Mississauga, then the 403 to the 401 near Pearson airport, down the 427 to the Burnhamthorpe Road exit.
If he’s lucky, that will take him 70 minutes or so. “But I’ve been in the car as much as three hours on the way in,” Guglielmo said.
And then it’s the same trip in reverse to get home at the end of the day. And the brief interludes on the 407 toll highway come straight out of his own pocket, a total of $20 a day.
“For 12 minutes of sanity in an insane drive,” Guglielmo said. “Because on the Queen E., it’s insane and on the 403 it’s insane going through Mississauga. “It’s a little bit of a break.”
Guglielmo has been making this commute for nearly 18 years. He used to work at HECFI, the former city-run agency that ran facilities such as the convention centre, and now works for a non-profit automotive association near Highway 427.
“I can’t find my job in Hamilton. It doesn’t exist.” VINCE GUGLIELMO
Daily commuter to Toronto
“I
CAN’T FIND my job in Hamilton,” he said. “It doesn’t exist.”
Guglielmo is far from alone. Hamilton has become a city of commuters. The proportion of Hamilton workers who commute outside their city for work is significantly higher than the provincial rate.
About 27 per cent of Hamilton workers commute outside the city, compared to 20 per cent of workers across Ontario. For male workers, the rate is even higher: 30 per cent of Hamilton’s working men commute outside the city, compared to 22 per cent provincially.
COMMUTES
ARE ALSO taking longer, which isn’t surprising given the population boom in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.
For about four in 10 Hamilton workers, the one-way commute takes more than 30 minutes. For more than 28,000 Hamilton workers — almost one in eight — the one-way commute is more than an hour.
In fact, the Hamilton census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has the sixth-longest average commute time in Canada — 28.4 minutes each way. That’s behind Toronto (34 minutes), Oshawa (33.5), Barrie (30.7), Montreal (30) and Vancouver (29.7).
“It’s not good for family life and it’s not good for the environment,” said Sara Mayo, a social planner with the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton.
In one study, she looked at Toronto, Hamilton and Waterloo and compared the number of jobs in each city versus the number of workers.
“We had more workers than jobs in Hamilton, Toronto had way more jobs than workers and Waterloo had about the same number of workers and jobs,” she said.
For Guglielmo, there’s really no good public transit option. “It would be more than two hours over four public transit systems,” he said. “While it’s stupid, driving is more efficient.”
Guglielmo is 54 and figures he’ll be making the drive to and from Toronto for another six years or so. He praises his wife, a teacher, for shouldering much of the load around the house until he gets home.
“It would be a disaster if two parents worked in Toronto because then there’s no predictability in getting home,” he said.
And what advice would he give someone in Hamilton who discovers they have to drive to Toronto for work each day?
“Make sure you’re of the right personality or mindset,” he said. “If you’re one of these aggressive people, you won’t last.
“You’ll either be a road rager or you’ll be offended by the road ragers.
“I guess I’m just more placid,” he said. “It doesn’t bug me. I guess those who have done it for many years , they’re that same personality.
“Perhaps it’s a disorder.”