Commuting

How Canadians get to work, and how long it takes by city and by mode

How Canadians get to work influences their daily life and the experience of the city. The car dominates almost everywhere, but the largest metros carry many of their commuters on public transit and have higher walking shares. (2021 Census; the pandemic depressed transit use that year, so treat the levels as a recent snapshot rather than a long-run norm.)

How people commute, by city

How long the commute takes

These are one-way times, so a round trip is roughly double. How long that trip takes is longest across the Greater Toronto Area, where many travel between the suburbs and the core. Commuting times dipped when the pandemic kept people home in 2021 and have climbed back since, so these most recent figures Statistics Canada publishes sit above that low. The maroon bar marks the national average.

How long the commute takes, by mode

That all-modes average blends very different journeys. Public transit riders spend far longer getting to work than drivers. In Toronto, the commute is about 48 minutes each way versus 28 by car. People who walk or cycle have the shortest trips of all. Use the selector to switch between modes; the maroon bar is the national figure for each. (By-mode commute times are measured by city only in the 2021 Census, so these are one-way 2021 figures; the gap between modes is structural and changes little year to year.)

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