The Odds of Being Late in Canada

Whether it’s for work, an interview, meeting friends and family, a date, or any other plans you might have, there’s nothing worse than when something out of your control, like traffic, means you’re running behind. With traffic congestion on the rise, the team at OntarioBets.com has  analyzed Numbeo data to determine which U.S. and Canadian cities had the longest travel times in 2022, as well as forecasted what this may look like by 2030.

Curious if it really does just take forever to travel around where you live or if it’s just the big cities? Just keep on reading to discover the odds of being late in cities across the U.S and Canada. 

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North American Cities with the Longest Current Travel Time

Topping the travel time chart is an American city that is almost as famous for its traffic problems as it is for making movies: Los Angeles. Traffic in the City of Angels has surged after taking a brief dip during the height of the pandemic, and research into the average time taken to travel across the city shows L.A. clocking in at 61.07 minutes, making it the most likely city in America to make you late.

Coming in just under 10 minutes behind L.A. is San Francisco, where an antiquated road network built to serve the city’s old industrial facilities now causes havoc to users every day, with the average travel time an agonizing 51.33 minutes. 

Detroit’s roads are the subject of constant debate across the city, and anyone looking for evidence in favor of upgrading them can point to an average travel time of 45.09 minutes — the third highest in North America.

While Detroit’s congestion problem is growing very slowly, the issue is unfolding more rapidly in Boston, where travel times have increased by 6.8% between 2015 and 2022, with Bostonians now facing a 44.98-minute average travel time to get across their increasingly busy city.

Completing North America’s top five highest travel times is Toronto, where an average journey across the city takes 44.92 minutes. The city’s road system was built for the 1960s and, like those of many of the cities mentioned here, residents are bearing the brunt of outdated infrastructure.

Cities Predicted To Have Longest Travel Time By 2030

Unless L.A.’s transportation infrastructure changes, getting around the City of Angels doesn’t look to get any better, with travel times estimated to hit 90.82 minutes by 2030. This is up by 48.7% from last year and is a whopping increase of 132.9% compared to 2015’s journey time of 39 minutes. 

Those travelling through San Francisco will have an additional 20 minutes added to their journey by 2030, with travel times predicted to reach 70.53 minutes, up by 37.4%. Comparing this to the time it took to get through the city in 2015 (39 minutes), this would be a significant increase of 80.8%.

Taking Detroit’s third position by 2030 is Boston, where traffic is worsening and if things carry on as they are, the travel times could rise by 10.4%, from 44.98 minutes in 2022 to 49.65 by 2030. Looking at 2015, Boston’s travel time was 42.1 minutes, which means by 2030 this will have increased by 17.9%.

Meanwhile, Detroit’s current travel time of 45.09 minutes is expected to rise by just 1.4% to 45.71 by 2030 which works out at less than an additional minute. Taking this even further by comparing the 2015 time of 45 minutes, this is still only a slight rise of 1.6%.

Which Canadian Cities have the Longest Travel Times?

So, we’ve already revealed the cities with the longest current travel time as well as those expected to by 2030, but in which Canadian cities do you have the greatest odds of being late?

Toronto, Ontario

With average travel times being 44.92 minutes, Toronto in Ontario currently has the fifth longest travel times. However, the city does move up a place (to fourth) when it comes to predicted travel times for 2030 and residents of Toronto could end up spending 48.03 minutes travelling in just one direction. 

Montreal, Quebec

In 15th is Montreal, Quebec, where it currently takes around 39.39 minutes to travel through the city, although this is a decrease of 13% compared to 2015, when travel times were just over 45 minutes. In fact, by 2030 travel times could go down again to just 34.6 minutes.

Mississauga, Ontario

Another Ontario city just makes the top 20, with Mississauga in 19th – where a one-way journey takes 38.06 minutes. Unlike Montreal, Mississauga moves higher in the rankings when it comes to the future with a forecasted travel time of 44.57 minutes by 2030.

Methodology

To find out where you have the greatest chance of being late, we analyzed Numbeo’s time index figures, which highlighted the average one-way time needed to transport through the city (in minutes). In order to predict figures for 2023, historical travel data was run through a linear forecast regression model, which calculated future values.

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