Delayed commute extending rush hour later into the morning
Posted May 30, 2012 6:26 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
LOWER MAINLAND (NEWS1130) – Some drivers like to say it’s always rush hour in the Lower Mainland, and the truth may not be far off. We are seeing signs every day that your drive to work is extending later into the morning.
After 9 a.m. yesterday, we were still seeing line-ups to the Alex Fraser Bridge going back to 64th Avenue. The queue to the Massey Tunnel was backed up past the 91 late into the morning, as well.
Gordon Price with SFU’s The City Program believes one reason this is happening is that technology allows people to get a lot of work done from home, which means many have the luxury of going into the office later.
“People will take advantage of free road space if they’ve got the chance to do it and what they find is that a lot of other people have decided to do to the same thing at the same time,” he explains.
“So, the advantage that they may have had initially [disappears] as more people catch on and are more flexible… hence, the roads are more crowded,” he adds.
Oddly enough, Price points out this comes at the same time car use is supposed to be going down; numbers from the City of Vancouver’s Transportation 2040 plan aim for 50 per cent car use by 2020. That’s down from 58 per cent in 2008 and 70 per cent in 1992.
