METRO VANCOUVER - On a good day, Paul Sparrow can make it to work in an hour.

If he’s driving, that is.

On public transit, it would take Sparrow closer to two-and-a-half hours to make the trip from his Newton home to his job in North Vancouver — and likely longer on the way home.

“Obviously it’s not even close to being efficient,” Sparrow said. “I would give up my car if it was more convenient.”

Despite a decade of big investment in public transit, most Metro Vancouver residents are clinging to their vehicles as the top commuting choice, according to Statistics Canada’s latest National Household survey, which replaces the long-form census.

Of the estimated 1.2 million Metro Vancouver residents who commute to and from work each day, the 2011 survey suggests about 66 per cent still get behind the wheel each morning and every night, compared with 20 per cent who take transit. And many, like Sparrow, are driving alone.

The reason?

“It takes half the time,” said Prof. Larry Frank of the University of B.C.’s School of Community and Regional Planning. “Right now, as it stands, we still have a ways to go to make transit travel times faster and more convenient.”

Indeed, even with relentless gridlock on most routes during rush hour, the survey suggests Metro Vancouver commuters in private vehicles can get to work in an average 26.4 minutes, compared with 40.9 minutes for public transit and 23.8 minutes by bicycle.

But it all depends on where a person lives. Residents of Maple Ridge and Port Coquitlam, for instance, endure the longest commutes, at about 35 minutes each way, while those on the North Shore and in Richmond and Vancouver can get to work within 24 to 26 minutes.

Ken Peacock, chief economist and vice-president of the Business Council of B.C., said he hasn’t crunched the numbers but noted the car is highly convenient for two-parent working families, or those working later shifts in retail.

And as the traffic patterns continue to change, from a traditional east-west line to a spider web across the region, there aren’t always the proper transit connections to get people where they want to go, such as between Maple Ridge and White Rock.

Vancouver commuters, for instance, spend on average just five minutes less on the road than those in areas like Surrey and Langley.

“There are people going in all directions in the Lower Mainland; it’s no longer the suburbs going into the downtown core,” Peacock said. “People are coming from downtown Vancouver into places like Burnaby and that makes it more difficult for the transit system to deal with.

“In a lot of instances it’s still faster even if there’s congestion and gridlock.”

Langley’s Jeannine Bornais can attest to that.

She starts her day at the crack of dawn, winding her way from Langley to Richmond — where she drops off her husband — to Vancouver. She can usually get to work or back home within an hour and a half, she said, but notes something as simple as a stalled car on the highway can trap her in traffic.