Metro Vancouver Trip Survey - Part Two

Today, I want to look at the mode share per trip type in Metro Vancouver as part of my review of 2008 Metro Vancouver Trip Survey.

To Work/Post Secondary
Auto Driver 64.5%
Auto Passenger 5.4%
Transit 22.5%
Bike 2.4%
Walk 4.7%
Other 0.4%

From Work/Post Secondary
Auto Driver 65.2%
Auto Passenger 5.6%
Transit 21.6%
Bike 2.4%
Walk 4.9%
Other 0.4%

During Work
Auto Driver 83.0%
Auto Passenger 5.8%
Transit 6.9%
Bike 0.6%
Walk 3.1%
Other 0.7%

To Grade School
Auto Driver 2.6%
Auto Passenger 50.5%
Transit 7.0%
Bike 1.6%
Walk 33.1%
Other 5.1%

From Grade School
Auto Driver 2.7%
Auto Passenger 43.4%
Transit 9.0%
Bike 1.6%
Walking 38.0%
Other 5.3%

Recreation/Dining/Shopping
Auto Driver 56.1%
Auto Passenger 24.3%
Transit 8.4%
Biking 0.9%
Walking 9.6%
Other 0.8%

Personal Business
Auto Driver 67.4%
Auto Passenger 14.2%
Transit 6.1%
Biking 0.7%
Walking 10.5%
Other 1.1%

One of the first things that I noticed is that transit does best with getting people to/from work and post secondary school. Improvements to transit should focus on getting people to their workplaces. Of course this also ties into our build form as it is much easier to service higher-density business centres and transit corridor. If the South of Fraser wants to improve transit mode share, we need to move away from building business parks full stop. Also interesting is that HOV lanes are completely pointless. The original goal of the HOV lane was to encourage carpooling to work. When you look at the 5% mode share for carpooler, you have to wonder if it’s worth the cost of all the HOV lanes we are building.

Business relay almost exclusively on driving. Given the fact that commercial traffic is important to the economic lifeblood of the region and only represents 2% of all trips. Commercial traffic should be given priority.

When it comes to our personal trips, we could do more to improve walking. As I talked about yesterday, this is entirely dependent on our build form. People don’t want to travel great lengths to run errands and go shopping if at all possible. By building walkable neighbourhoods that are linked by high-quality transit, we would be able to increase both modes.

Cycling is almost completely missing from the picture in Metro Vancouver and that is no surprise given the lack of cycling infrastructure. It is good to see South of Fraser communities investing in cycling, but at the current rate of investment it is going to take at least a decade before cycling become a viable transportation choice for many.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at average trip length.