Last week the Globe and Mail reported on a Statistics Canada study showing that “the vast majority of commuters remain reluctant to use public transit, despite public campaigns encouraging people of its environmental and cost benefits.”
The study goes on to state that “commuters who used public transit took considerably longer to get to work than those who lived an equivalent distance from their place of work and went by car.”
Canada-wide, transit users spent 44 minutes traveling to work compared to drivers who only took 24 minutes.
See the problem here?
Note the wording in the very first sentence of the article (quoted above): “commuters remain reluctant to use public transit, despite public campaigns encouraging people of its environmental and cost benefits.”
This suggests, of course, that transit agencies and governments in Canada honestly believed the way to get people to use transit is to advertise to them; that it is a problem of awareness and education.
Have you ever known someone to use the subway based solely on the fact that they saw an advertisement? Me neither.
Here’s a thought: Maybe the reason Canadians aren’t taking public transit more is because it takes double the amount of time as it would to drive. No amount of advertising or “encouraging” is going to change that until the time gap between the car and public transit is narrowed.
Treat the disease, not the symptom.
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