Latest Metro Vancouver Mode Share Maps

Following up to my last post about travel patterns in Metro Vancouver, I thought I’d post two maps that show which municipalities people travel between in our region. As I noted last week, the vast majority of trip that people make don’t even leave their home municipality.

2011 Transit Trips between Municipalities. Source: 2011 Metro Vancouver Regional Trip Diary Survey - Analysis Report. Click Image to Enlarge.

Looking at the transit mode trip pair volumes map, it becomes obvious that transit captures a large amount of trips that head towards Vancouver along rapid transit lines. Most trips between municipalities in the South of Fraser are by car, and transit doesn’t even register on this map. The current South of the Fraser Area Transit Plan recognizes that the transit system in the South of Fraser is setup to get people to Vancouver, and lays out the steps needed to change the system to service local needs better. Of course the lack of transit funding has limited the ability of TransLink to full implement the plan.

The next map shows the auto mode trip pair volumes in our region. It is interesting to note that the Province and TransLink has spent billions of dollars on bridges that doesn’t serve the clear majority of trip in our region that are intra-municipal, and don't even serve the majority of inter-municipal trips. It seems that Richmond/Vancouver/Burnaby is one strong cluster of inter-municipal auto trips, and Delta/Surrey/Langley is another cluster of inter-municipal auto trips.

2011 Auto Driver Trips between Municipalities. Source: 2011 Metro Vancouver Regional Trip Diary Survey - Analysis Report. Click Image to Enlarge.

At the end of the day, it seems what would help people the most would be to invest in transportation infrastructure that helps people get to places within their communities and within their sub-regions. If we consider that there is very limited space to expand roads in municipalities and that building freeway would not meet the sustainability objectives of our region, it would seem that the best bet would be to invest in walking, cycling, and transit in our communities. Unfortunately, it seems that the Provinces isn’t paying attention to this data or the region’s goals for transportation.