Commuting to work from the suburbs each day is expensive. So expensive, in fact, that the costs of commuting often erase the savings achieved from buying a cheaper house outside a city’s downtown core.
That is the conclusion of a new report issued by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) that looked at the cost of the daily commute in the Greater Toronto Area. The study found that the added cost of a long commute outweighs the savings from cheaper housing in the suburbs surrounding Toronto.
According to CMHC, commuting costs ranged from an average of $200 a month in the City of Toronto, to more than $800 a month in suburbs such as Halton Hills to the northwest, Georgina to the north and Clarington to the east. For closer suburbs such as Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham, the cost of commuting was estimated at $399 a month.
And that’s the cost of if there's only one person commuting in a household. The cost is much higher if more than one person per household commutes to work each day, said CMHC in a written news release.
About 67% of commuters who live in suburban regions of Toronto come into the city by car. Even within the city limits, 49% of commuters use a car, the study found. About 600,000 of Toronto's 2.6 million commuters drove or rode transit for about 45 minutes, but 377,000 said it took more than an hour to get to work.
While housing is more affordable in places such as Clarington, Oshawa and Pickering, there has been pressure on housing costs in those areas as more people decide that living in Toronto is not affordable and seek a home outside the city in suburban communities.
