If you live in Langley Township, there’s a good chance you commute to work and you get there by driving or ride-sharing rather than taking public transit.
There’s almost no chance you’re taking the bus.
A Township staff analysis of recently-released figures from the Statistics Canada census in 2011 shows 86 per cent of workers in the Township drive their own vehicles rather than take the bus to work.
Only 3.5 per cent take public transit, the lowest percentage in Metro Vancouver.
The report to council by the community development division calls the figures “disturbing” and suggests it is the result of “our large land mass and a lack of appropriate and timely public transit options.”
Most Township commuters were traveling to Surrey — 9,510 every work day. The City of Langley is the second most popular destination at 4,405, and Abbotsford third at 2,530.
At the time of the federal census, there were 104,177 people living in the Township.
The federal figures show Township residents were more likely to be working than their counterparts in other Metro Vancouver municipalities, thanks to the third-lowest unemployment rate in the region. Only North Vancouver District and Lions Bay reported lower jobless rates.
In 2011, 6.1 per cent of the Township work force was unemployed, compared to the B.C. and Canadian average of 7.8 per cent.
The work force was an educated one, with 84 per cent possessing a high school diploma or better, and 53 per cent having either university degrees, college diplomas or trades certificates.
The Township analysis said the largest segment of the Langley labour force works in the retail trade (11.5 per cent), followed in order by construction, health care and manufacturing.
The 2011 census was the first year that Canadians could legally refuse to fill out the detailed “long form” census used to create detailed reports about jobs, income, education, citizenship and more.
Critics and some researchers have expressed concern that the results from the new voluntary long form survey will be less accurate.
About a third of the 4.5 million households who were asked to fill one out in 2011 refused.