The growth of large urban areas means that transportation systems must be in place both to allow goods and people to move around, and to allow people to travel between them and the other regions of the country. Getting to work in large urban areas presents a special challenge. The extensive use of automobiles in concentrated areas causes problems of congestion and environmental impact, which are of particular concern. As Figure 2-9 shows, an automobile driven by one person is the most common means of transportation used by Canadians to get to work, no matter where they live. Seventy-three per cent of Canadians drive their own vehicles to work.
Public transit is used mostly in the large centres.
Fifteen per cent of people living in Census Metropolitan Areas used public transit, and the usage rises only in the very large centres such as Toronto and Montreal, where 22 and 20 per cent of workers, respectively, used it to get to work in 1996. Seven per cent walked to work, while about two per cent used other means such as bicycle, motorcycle or taxi. The median distance that Canadians travelled to get to work was seven kilometres in 1996. People living in the largest centres travel the farthest, as the median commuting distance was 9.3 kilometres in Toronto and 8.2 kilometres in Montreal. As Figure 2-10 shows, in general there is a negative relation between where people live and how far they travel to work.