Getting around Vancouver without a car is getting easier these days for our family of four. We have our car share memberships – Modo and Evo – to fall back on, but generally our lifestyles remain happily car lite. We have good access to the city’s network of cycleways and we live near a couple of express bus corridors, and two of the main light rail lines in Vancouver.
It also helps that our kids are growing up and becoming more independent.
But sometimes if you want to venture further afield into Metro Vancouver, transit is limited and it seems the only way to go is by car.
Our kids play soccer which means we have to travel to places that we would never normally visit and where daily travel revolves around the car. There is some transit, but typically you need a car to get places in any reasonable time frame.
The cost of using car share for these trips can add up, but unless you are prepared to devote an extra hour or two of your day to using the transit system there’s little option but to drive.
For example, my eldest son has a game coming up in Langley.
Google maps tells me that to drive to the field in Langley from our house, in the Fairview neighbourhood of Vancouver, on a Saturday morning, it will take around 40 minutes to cover the 42 km – if traffic is running smoothly on roads and bridge-crossings.
To go by transit, the journey time is 1 hr 50 minutes. That’s just one way. I note that a bus on the final section of the trip takes 46 minutes and has 24 stops to go 16km. You then have to walk 1km to the field.
On the plus side, transit is cheap. My son has a monthly pass so there’s no added cost for him and it’s $2.60 for me one-way with a compass card.
Drive, drive and drive
The big caveat to driving is that the highways to the Fraser valley are usually congested, particularly roads coming into the city. Vancouver is infamous for its world-leading bad traffic, which has grown worse since the provincial government lifted tolls on the bridges.
The return trip into Vancouver is so unpredictable. When I’m planning the trip, Google estimates it will take “typically 40 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes”, which sounds about right based on my past experience.
Driving a Modo car from Vancouver to Langley will cost around $64 on an open return. For those who don’t know Modo, an open return booking allows you to block off a 24 hour segment for a car for an additional $3, but pay only for the time that you drive it (i.e. it ends when you end your booking). The other type of booking is a “set return” where you designate your start and end time for your trip.
We’d need to leave Vancouver at 10am to get there at 11.15am (coach wants the team to warm up before the noon kick-off). I’m assuming the game will be finished and we’ll be starting the drive back by 2pm, to get back to Vancouver at 3pm. An hour is around about the mid-point of Google’s estimated trip time. It’d also take about 5 minutes to walk to a car near us.
Ride ‘n’ Drive
There is a third way.
As Modo’s car share network has grown (it now has over 1,000 vehicles), you often find another option is to combine transit, car share, and other forms of micro-mobility like bikes and e-scooters.
Vancouver has a good light rail line, Skytrain, that covers a good chunk of the journey. A half hour Skytrain ride takes us across the Fraser river to Surrey Central, the station before the line terminates at King George.
You can often find a Modo around a station and Surrey Central station has two budget cars: a 2023 Toyota Corolla hatchback and a 2024 Toyota Corolla hybrid. This location also has a 2022 Ford Escape (slightly more expensive hybrid in Modo’s “Large and Loadable” price tier) and a cargo van.
Using a combination of bikes, Skytrain and carshare we can make the journey in around the same amount of time as driving all the way and end up paying less.
The return trip back into Vancouver will also be more predictable in terms of time, as we will be blissfully unaware of any potential snarl-ups on the roads and bridges. Skytrain occasionally has service stoppages, but they are not common.
Multi-modal trip breakdown
It takes a little over 6 minutes to get to the station by bike at Main Street/Science World station from our house. We’d lock up the bikes by the station (they’re junkers, noone will steal them). We then get the train to Surrey Central Station which takes 32 minutes.
We pick up the Modo car outside Surrey Central station and drive 17km to the game field at Willoughby Community Park. If roads are clear it is an 18 minute drive. If traffic is bad, it can take as long as 40 minutes, according to Google.
Our Modo part of the trip starts at 10.30am and ends at 2.45pm, when we return the vehicle at Surrey Central station, about an hour after the game ends. That should give us more than enough time to gather things and travel the 17km back to the station where we leave the car and jump back on the train.
From there we should be home in 40 minutes.
After including the round-trip transit fee, the estimated total multi-modal trip cost is $44. This compares to around $64 for a round-trip solely by car. So you save $20, while not risking congestion on the highway.
I’ll report back after completing the journey on whether it works out.
Here’s my calculations for now. You can check these on Modo’s Trip Calculator, although it doesn’t include the $3 open return fee and obviously the cost of transit:
Modo, bike and transit trip
Innovation fee = $1.50
34km @ $0.35 p/km = $11.90
4.25 hours at $5 p/hr = $21.25
PST & GST = $4.16
Total Modo = $38.81
Transit = $5.20 ($2.60 each way)
TOTAL = $44.01
MODO car-only trip
Innovation fee = $1.50
78km @ $0.35 p/km = $27.30
5 hours at $5 p/hr = $25
Open return booking = $3
PST & GST = $6.82
TOTAL = $63.62
Esimated Times
Modo, bike and transit
Dep home: 9.50am
Arrive Surrey Central: 10.30am
Arrive Willoughby turf, Langley: 11am
Dep Willoughby turf, Langley: 2pm
Arrive Surrey Central: 2.30pm
Arrive home in Vancouver: 3.10pm
Car only
Dep home: 9.55am to walk to car
Arrive Willoughby turf, Langley around 11am
Dep Willoughby turf, Langley: 2pm
Arrive Vancouver: 3pm
Arrive home (after walk from car home): 3.05pm