I am a new user here, and I am not good in English, too.
So, I will be really sorry if I mislead you.
Here are some of the problem that I found.
You can see them as a reference.
Wish you good luck. =)
the general public would definitely use it to get to work and to avoid the morning peak hour rush.
I'm not sure but in my opinion it is "avoiding ". Sentence will have different meanings when mistake the use of it.
people would not have to walk a longer distance to get to work.
To me, "long" is enough to represent what you want to talk.