CLAYTON CHMELIK AND HIS WIFE were poster children for
the car-shunning millennial generation for most of their 20s. They
lived in south Vancouver's Marpole neighbourhood and both took
buses almost everywhere—•rst to university, then to their practi-
cums and jobs. They didn't own a car and didn't feel deprived.
Now 33, Chmelik, a health manager at a Richmond company, has
two cars in his family. He commutes 40 minutes a day each way in
his Mazda 3 from his townhouse in Surrey, while his wife has her
own car, a Mazda 5, that she'll be using to commute to her counsel-
ling job when her maternity leave for their second child ends later
this year. He estimates it costs them at least $700 a month to run
both vehicles, not counting the $10,000 apiece the cars cost to buy.
He knows it's a lot. "If I had a choice, I wouldn't do it."
JUNE 2013 BCBusiness 37
WHY
THE
CAR IS STILL
KING
T H E C O M M U T I N G I S S U E
commuting is a fact of life for just about anybody who works
for a living. it's also a key factor in the economic, environmental
and emotional health of a community. we look at the true cost of
commuting, how residents and businesses are reorienting
themselves to face the new reality (including taking a rowboat
to work!)—and what, if anything, transportation planners can
do to get us out of our cars
B Y F R A N C E S B U L A P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y P A U L J O S E P H
