NEWS 1130 Worst Commute winner travels two hours by car, SkyTrain, bus, on foot

METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Andy Pon is the latest winner in our Vancouver’s Worst Commute contest.

His journey starts in Aldergrove and ends on Broadway in Vancouver, south of Science World. It takes him about two hours and includes several different modes of transportation.

“I live out in Aldergrove, just about as far east as one can possibly go and still be within Metro Vancouver and subject to the Metro Vancouver gas tax. I leave home at 7am, catching the NEWS 1130 weather guarantee at 7:11, and drive north to the Trans-Canada highway.

“I then drive east to Walnut Grove, although drive may not quite be the right description. At this time in the morning, the highway is always packed and regularly stop and go in places. This includes the active construction zone between 232nd and 216th, which is unlikely to go away any time soon.

“I get off the highway at 200th to go to the Carvolth Exchange, where I park and get on the 555 express to go to Lougheed station. This involves getting back on the highway and being slowed by the usual congestion past the Port Mann bridge. Things were particularly bad last year when the Port Mann tolls were removed and there seemed to be an accident every other day

“I also get motion sick trying to read on a bus, so I can’t even use the 20 minute ride to read anything. Coming back through this route, the bus service drops to once every 30 minutes later in the evening, which makes staying later at work a major problem when it occurs.

“At Lougheed station, I get on the Millennium line to head towards the downtown. The train is always packed by Lougheed and I always end up standing elbow to elbow with other passengers. I take this train right to its terminus station at VCC-Clark, but most everybody else gets off at the second last station, Commercial-Broadway, so I get about 15 seconds to sit down at the end of the trip before I have to leave the train again.

“At VCC-Clark, I take the 84 bus to continue going west, but this is also a UBC bus, so it is regularly full of university students. In the morning, I have a 50-50 shot of getting a seat, but on the way back home, about half the buses don’t even stop as they are too full, which is a giant pain with buses only coming once every 8 minutes.

“I finally squeeze my way off the bus a few blocks west of Science World and then have to walk ten minutes south to my work. In the winter, this entire trip basically takes place in the dark and this last walk can often be in the rain.”

Andy admits his co-workers wonder why he does it every day.

“They think it’s pretty crazy, to be quite honest. I usually have to start telling them where Aldergrove is. It’s so far away, they don’t even realize where it is.”

He says he’d live in Vancouver, if it weren’t for the sky-high housing prices. “We thought about renting, but starting a family, we wanted to actually own a condo. That was as close as we could get.”

Andy gets $500 for his pain, thanks to our partners at Toyo Tires. If you think you should be our next winner, click here for details on how to enter.

 – With files from Sonia Aslam

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