What American Transit Could Learn From Canada
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- čas přidán 10. 03. 2023
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Canada is like the United States in a lot of ways - we have big roads, highways, and suburbs. But Canadian transit is often more like that in Europe based on ridership and mode share numbers. So how can the US learn from its frosty neighbour to the north?
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
Canadian living in the US. I'm a professor so I have lived and visited a lot of "college towns". What baffles me is that universities here often run their own bus networks that aim to serve the students with routes and bus loops centering around the campus. They are often much more frequent than the city buses on weekdays. Why can't universities and cities work together here to design comprehensive networks that benefit everyone from the downtown cores to campus?
Where Canada horribly lacks is INTERCITY service, and I think this is what most people think about. I have found local transit to be quite comparable in European cities of similar populations.
Ever look outside and then realize everything is surrounded with cars and suddenly you cry
Even a car centric heck hole like here in Edmonton we are building/expanding LRT and trams with a plan and roll out for years to come. It's just a given you can live car free in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal that is a big chunk of our population that can drive the trend and expectations for everyone else forward. I am just so excited for everyone in Canada going forward.
I'm British, but have visited Ontario 14 times. IMO: Transit within Canadian cities is quite good. Toronto could benefit from further TTC expansion and increased speeds and frequencies on the GO network (but that's happening anyway soon). The biggest weakness is with regional rail and intercity/HSR services. Getting between Windsor and Quebec city via Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal by rail needs to become a lot faster, more frequent and CHEAPER. The ViaRail service is woeful. Also regional rail needs to extend out of Toronto much further than it does right now. Currently I visit Brantford/Paris a lot and while there's a rail line, the ViaRail service only comes a few times a day and costs like $200 CAD (ridiculous) and Paris doesn't even have a station. If that was anywhere in the UK or Europe, it would have a station with at least a half hourly service and a return ticket would cost about $50-60 CAD. And don't tell me Canada doesn't have the population density to support it. It absolutely does in Southern Ontario.
I've never appreciated what I had in Canada regarding public transport until it was taken away. I've stayed with my father in the Washington state for several months and while there, I was a prisoner because I couldn't drive without a registered driver cause I was only a learner (not that I want to drive because it's a death trap) and he was working all the time meaning I was stuck in the house. Now that I'm back in British Columbia with my mother and grandma I take transit on a nearly daily basis. I go to the mall, travel to the massive public library in downtown Vancouver and heck can even take the ferry to the island by taking the SkyTrain and Canada Line to Bridgeport station and then taking the 620 bus (which has the new double decker buses) to Tsawwassen Bay ferry terminal. Contrary to what some car-brained Americans believe, I feel more free when there's decent public transport than when it's a car-depended hellscape like when I was stuck in the house back in the US. Plus, I like sitting at the front of the fully automated SkyTrain and enjoy the views as they pass by.
American living in Vancouver here. Canadian zoning has also long been less strict and draconian than American zoning, and this has really helped Vancouver achieve the density needed for frequent transit service. Duplexes have long been legal (first de facto and now de jure) in “single family” areas, and now laneway houses are legal, too, making many homes effectively 3-plexes. My mostly “single family” residential neighbourhood has an average population density of 6800/sq km (17600/sq mi). Seattle is only starting to get serious about legalizing the sort of organic, small-scale densification that has long been standard in Vancouver.
US transit systems also have to contend with our country’s many downstream societal failures. 🫤
As the Toronto Mayoral candidates announce, may you please begin to cover their policy approaches towards transit? A lot of people don't vote in municipal elections and I feel like this is because it's often hard to find information on the candidates.
I’m stunned by the photos of all the tall buildings that have shot up in downtown Toronto in the 21st century. I can only recognize that it’s Toronto by the fabulous CN Tower that I always liked seeing at night … and that was the original lights in the decade in which it was built. When I rode the red British built trains toward downtown in the early morning the cars were filled with office people dressed in their best. It’s a frozen memory how much makeup the women wore. Nobody, nobody looked poor, and trains were jammed packed standing room only. Very crowded, as it should be in s sensible city. I have family on the outskirts of Atlanta. The loop is 12 lanes wide and very slow during peak rush hour. When Atlanta decided to have rail there was immovable opposition to stations in many areas because they didn’t want “those people” to have easy access to their neighborhoods. Lots of racial and economic class fear. The result is minimized practicality and limitations on usage. Getting around requires a car. I tried to describe to my sister and brother in law what living with meaningful transit is like, but they can’t imagine it. Having lived with it for only a little over a year I would never want to live in s big crowded urban area that didn’t have very substantial transit service with little edit time. It changes what life can be. I had to ride transit, but in my mind I didn’t use it just because I needed it. I enjoyed it. On non working days I quite often rode transit to explore areas of the city I was unfamiliar with. I learned the city so well from riding surface transit that I was able to give precise directions to natives. I was only there 14 adventurous months, but my heart has never left Toronto. I saw the second ever IMAX film a few months after I arrived, and I looked over a plastic model of the Eaton Center to be built before I left. That sort of nails the time period. One of these days I need to come back to find out what has happened in my absence. I still have a lot of emotional attraction to Toronto I’ve never felt for any American City. A significant reason, among many, that I felt connected to the city was sharing transiting around town with other riders. Just being with people if I never exchanged a word had a value for me that isolation in metal boxes on rubber tires by myself never does. I loved looking at rush hour transit in memorable locations, such as streetcars on Queen St in front of City Hall St dusk or underground Eglinton station full of buses, or half a dozen buses in one block full of people headed home. The robustness of the service, to me, made American cities seem so far behind. I think really busy transit neighborhoods together, making a more lively city. And so much more livable. I wish to travel worldwide some day, but without having done that yet I’ve always been convinced that Toronto is one of the greatest cities on the planet and transit has played a very big role in making it that. The fighting city and provincial leaders have been very wise supporting the growth of transit, although in fits and starts. But the three latest group of plans that have developed is astoundingly good, despite themselves. It’s good to see it going in a good direction fast. Maybe the tweaks that could improve the experience more will happen over time, because there’s always room for improvement as perfection never exists although it’s a good mark to aim for. I’m encouraged by the big projects. I hope the daily little things that are big things get upgraded over time as well. Thumbs up to great transit and Toronto’s progress and the 3/4 century since heavy rail first started to be implemented. Go Toronto Transit!
Your point about culture is important.
I think a big part is attitude. The US tends to look at a bus like it's a little part of the ghetto that wandered away. Canadians see buses and trains for what they are -- a way to avoid paying for parking! :D
I appreciate you making this video. I was literally comparing the ridership between US and Canadian cities yesterday and wanted to understand the significant difference.
It was a great piece. When we had our snow storms, those of us that take transit regularly were able to get to work
I moved to NJ about a year ago, originally from Toronto. There are a lot of buses here, but they primarily exist to serve the train system into NYC etc. Some only run during rush hour. One other major issue imo is the pay system also just really sucks. You have to buy tickets specific to each bus route. If you buy in bulk to get a lower price, there's a short expiration date. They're pretty close to having a strong bus system and just decided to cripple it because people here just cannot fathom the idea of taking the bus anywhere except to work.
I remember when I was a teenager living in Comox, there was a bus that would reliably come every 15 minutes at peak and every 30 minutes off peak, and would connect me directly with Driftwood Centre, where I could take the bus to Vanier highschool (because highland sucks) and the trip would maybe be around half an hour. This was true for basically every area of the Comox valley from Cumberland, to Royston, to Courtenay. The entire "metro area" which was just a collection of towns close to one another had a population of about 50,000 people at the time. It was vastly superior transit service to the majority of American cities.
I agree frequencies are important, but scheduling is also super important as well. Personal anecdote: I wanted to go to a concert by bus. It’s a 40 min bus ride (vs 20 min by car) which is fine. But then it’s only every 20 min and it stops running at 11PM. Those two factors combined made me want to drive to avoid a potentially expensive Uber from a missed bus.
In Toronto city councillors and transit executives are highly likely to take public transit to work because it is fast and convenient. When the people responsible for funding services do not personally use them the priority goes down. It is similar with public education. Most politicians in Canada send their kids to public schools, so they ensure that those schools are adequately funded. In the US and UK politicians almost never send their kids to public or council schools.
It's great to see that cities that invest into transit get into an "upward spiral": if they manage to increase ridership, the more the public recognizes its value which leads to an increased political will to invest, which again increases ridership.
In US cities my American friend told me only low income people use public transit, but in Toronto you see middle class and rich millionaires/ CEOs taking subway together everyday.