All at Once

The other day I got a late start for work. It was a rainy day, so the bus was more full than usual with folks who, I assume, usually walk or bike. It occurred to me that the concept of flextime has not really reached Montreal in a significant way.

For anyone not from DC, flextime is a US federal personnel policy that allows government drones to select their work schedule from a rather wide window of acceptable hours. In practice, this means that workers start trickling in from West Virginia at 5:30 AM or even earlier. After their eight or nine hour day, they head out just as early. Similarly, sleepy in-towners like me will saunter in at 9 AM or so, and not leave until 6:30 or 7 PM, locking up and turning out the lights as we go.

Here in Montreal, I notice that there seems to be a strong bias for the traditional 8:30-5 schedule. In some ways, this is good. These hours are quite civilized. With everybody clearing out of the office at 5 PM, there isn't much peer pressure to log late hours at work. According to this paper, "the average Canadian worker worked 34.6 hours per week, while the average US worker worked 37.9 hours."

The downside of rigid work hours, at least from my selfish perspective, is that there is a huge surge of humanity in cars, buses, bikes and on foot converging on downtown. If you head to work between 8 and 8:30, you will be crammed into a metro car, a bus or stuck in a traffic jam. (The picture for this blog entry is from the PM rush.) From the economist's point of view, we find ourselves with an overcrowded commons.

Perhaps this partially explains all the bicycle commuters. Perhaps this partially explains why I have a cold. Congestion pricing, anyone? It seems to be working for the Swedes.