Commuters rethinking the return to office as gas prices hit record highs

Interest is growing in cycling and other options to cut down on commuting costs as high gas prices coincide with the return to in-person work.

The high price of gas and gradual return to work after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic has some commuters reconsidering how — and if — they will head into the office again.

Provinces across Canada have moved towards lifting COVID-19 restrictions in recent months, some doing away with mask and vaccination mandates entirely as case counts dip.

That has some employers ramping up plans to bring workers back to the office, including Scotiabank, which began welcome employees back on-site Monday as part of a phased return plan. The transition’s also started at Kinaxis, an Ottawa-based company that makes software to manage supply chains.

Greg Quirk, a product marketing manager at the company, went to the office last week for a trial run.

Quirk, who only joined Kinaxis in January and worked remotely for the past two years at his previous job, told Global News the transition to in-person was “a little bit like going back to Kindergarten” as he familiarized himself with a new routine, workplace and coworkers.

The office is a short drive from his Ottawa home, but he says that he kept an eye on his odometer while commuting the past week and timed out in his head what it would be like to cycle instead.

Among the factors pushing him to switch up his commute are the soaring prices at the pump — an average of $1.77 per litre nationally, as of Monday — and the chance to stretch his legs more often than he would at home.

“It’s not only in terms of being able to save money, because gas prices are quite high and my car uses premium gas, but just from the activity aspect of it,” he says.