A new annual report from Statistics Canada shows that those living in the Hamilton area continue to have some of the longest commute times in the country, with an average commute of 29.1 minutes.
It should be noted that the local data is for the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), which also includes the City of Burlington, with a population of approximately 187,000 people, and the Town of Grimsby, with a population of approximately 29,000 people.
Out of all the CMAs in Canada, only six, including Hamilton, have commute times above the national average of 26.7 minutes.
Hamilton recorded the fifth-highest average commute time after Toronto, Barrie, Vancouver, and Oshawa.
Toronto’s average was measured at 34.9 minutes, Barrie at 31.6, Vancouver at 31.1, and Oshawa at 30.8.
The Toronto CMA includes the regional municipalities of Durham, Peel, and York, as well as part of Halton, in addition to the City of Toronto.
Other nearby CMAs in the report include Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, which has an average commute time of 24.3 minutes, and St. Catharines-Niagara, which has a commute of 22.4 minutes.
Although those in the Hamilton area continue to have some of the longest commutes in the country, the commute time is actually down from 30.6 minutes calculated in the 2024 report.
The report also attempts to measure how commuters get to work.
Hamilton area data indicates that 84.5 per cent of commuters travel by car, truck or van.
Meanwhile, it also says that 9.8 per cent use public transit and 5.1 per cent travel by active transportation (walking or cycling), although it notes to view those numbers “with caution” due to sample sizes.
A number of factors could positively influence future numbers in Hamilton, including the opening of Confederation GO Station this fall, Premier Doug Ford’s promise to widen the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) between Burlington and St. Catharines, the potential widening of the Red Hill Valley Parkway and Lincoln Alexander Parkway in the coming years, the city’s continued investments in their HSR transit strategy, and the pending Hamilton LRT.
On a negative note, LRT construction is expected to snarl traffic within the city for a number of years.
While the Statistics Canada report was released at the end of August, the data was recorded in May 2025.
Statistics Canada says that the number does not include those “who work most of their hours at home,” as it is meant to specifically be a measure of the time that commuters face.
The report also says that the percentage of commuters across the country rose for the fourth year in a row to reach 82.6 per cent.
That percentage is up from the low of 75.7 per cent recorded in May 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nationally, the proportion of commuters taking public transit or active transportation to work was 18.2 per cent, which is up from 17.5 per cent in May 2024, but still below the pre-pandemic level of 19.4 per cent from 2016.
The report adds that workers whose main mode of commuting was public transit had the longest average commute time at 44.1 minutes.
The average car commute time is 24.7 minutes, while those taking active transit had an average commute time of 15 minutes.
Statistics Canada says that they measure changes in commuting patterns in order to “plan commuting and transit infrastructure, and to better understand urbanization and changing business practices.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
