Public transport

- Subway, metro, trams, buses

The public transportation is partly a bit dated, but effective and fairly cheap. It is operated Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).

In Toronto you will find a lot of trams, buses and a subway system. In 1954 Canada´s first subway line opened. It is the largest in Canada in term of stations, 2nd largest in track length (after Vancouver) and 2nd busiest (after Montreal). About 1 million passengers use the TTC subway each weekday. The subway has 4 lines, a 5th is under construction. Some lines are missing, for example you can't go to the beach with the subway. There is a strange system when you pay at the subway, that is a bit hard to figure out for visitors. When you pay for a ticket at the counter, you sometimes have to put the rest of the coins in a box, if you do it wrong you will loose it!

PATH is an extensive tunnel system with restaurants, stores and other services that connect the subway with malls, departments stores and other sights underground. With 27km of tunnels it is the largest underground shopping complex in the world!

The red and white trams (streetcars), also operated by TTC, are significant for Toronto. They drive both downtown and in the outskirts. It is the largest and busiest lighrail system in North America! Some of them may look a little bit outdated, but very modern new trams have started to replace them. The drive along the whole Queen Street (a very long street that goes through almost the whole Toronto), Dundas St, King St and other mayor streets, mostly in West-East direction. The first trams, driven by horses, begun service in Toronto already in 1861. Unlike many North American cities that replaced streetcars with buses after WWII, the trams of Toronto continued serves even after 1945, afte heavy protests. The public buses are red and white and are of typical old fashioned North American models.

GO Transit are double decked commuter trains to the suburbs, that leaves from Union Station and other places. One of them takes you to Pearson International Airport.

Despite the quite good public transport system, Toronto is mostly a car oriented city. There are huge highways with 3-6 lanes, millions of cars and massive traffic jams, only comparable with LA. Sometimes you can see a few people taking the bike, but that is not always easy. There are only a few biking lanes, the former mayor decided to close down many of the bike lanes! However, there are plans to open new bike lanes again.