Manitobans headed the wrong way on commuting, public-transit use

Opinion

The proportion of people using a car, truck or van to get to work continues to decline in Canada since the COVID-19 pandemic, while transit use across the country is on a slow but steady recovery.

But not in Manitoba, one of the few provinces bucking the national trend, according to Statistics Canada data released this week. That’s bad news for the province’s greenhouse-gas emissions and for infrastructure costs.

More Canadians are commuting to work this year compared with 2023, according to StatCan. That’s driven largely by employment growth and by the continued trend of fewer people working from home since the pandemic. But it’s how people are getting to work that should be of concern in Manitoba.

Nationally, 81.5 per cent of people commuted to work by car, truck, or van in May. That’s down from 82.6 per cent for the same month last year and 84.2 per cent in May 2022. It’s not a significant drop but it is a decline nonetheless.

Public transit use across the country is also recovering. While it is not back to pre-pandemic levels, it’s been growing steadily since 2021. In May, 11.4 per cent of Canadians used public transit to get to work, up from 10.1 per cent for the same month last year, 8.5 per cent in May 2022, and 7.8 per cent in May 2021.

However, the opposite is happening in Manitoba. The percentage of Manitobans using a car, truck or van to commute to work increased to 86.5 per cent in May, up from 83.6 per cent for the same month last year. It fell in May 2022 from the same month the previous year, but it’s now going in the wrong direction.

So is public transit use in Manitoba. The percentage of people in Manitoba taking public transit to work in May fell to 6.4 per cent from 7.4 per cent in May 2023. It was up slightly from May 2022 (six per cent) and May 2021 (5.9 per cent). But it’s still well below what it was in May 2016 at 9.7 per cent. It, too, is headed in the wrong direction.

Manitoba is not doing a good enough job promoting the use of public transit, or ensuring it’s an attractive and reliable enough option. That’s especially true in Winnipeg, where buses are not seen as a viable alternative to taking a vehicle to work.

While Winnipeg Transit is overhauling its system and is expected to deliver a more reliable service in 2025 with more consistent routes across the city, it’s likely not enough to entice a significant number of motorists to get out of their cars and into buses. Far more needs to be done to improve transit in Winnipeg. It needs to be faster, more frequent and more reliable.

Considering transportation is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions, the trend of more people in Manitoba using cars, trucks and vans to get to work is also cause for alarm. If we are truly concerned about climate change, that has to change.

It also increases infrastructure costs for municipalities and the provincial government. More people using their vehicles to get to work means more wear and tear on roads and bridges and greater pressure to expand roadways to accommodate higher traffic volumes.

It’s also a quality-of-life issue.

“Commuting is a fact of life for many Canadians,” the StatCan report says. “However, it has financial costs, and for those with long commutes, it can be associated with negative health outcomes and challenges maintaining work-life balance.”

So what to do? Employers could encourage and allow more of their employees to work from home. The same StatCan report shows Winnipeg, at 15.1 per cent, has the second-lowest percentage of people who usually work from home among Canada’s 15 largest-census metropolitan areas. Only St. Catharines-Niagara in Ontario has a lower percentage at 13.2 per cent. Ottawa-Gatineau has the highest at 34.2 per cent and Oshawa is second at 25.6 per cent.

Not everyone can work from home. But the more people who do — even for part of the work week — the fewer vehicles there would be on the road, which would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and limit wear and tear on roadway infrastructure.

It, too, is a quality-of-life issue.

“For people who work from home, time saved from commuting allows them to spend more time with their children, and on leisure activities, sleep and household chores,” the StatCan report says.

There are still far too many Canadians using cars, trucks and vans to commute to work and not enough using public transit. With Manitoba lagging behind the national average on both, far more has to be done to reverse that trend.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.

Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

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