A Guide to Public Transport in Ontario

The most important (and expensive) part of booking a trip from the Caribbean is the plane ticket. After crossing that hurdle, your next thought should be how do I affordably maximize the time between departure and my return ticket home. The cheapest way to get around will always be via public transport. Taking public transport in a foreign country can feel daunting, but it’s completely doable. So, here’s my guide to public transport in Ontario, Canada and the pros and cons of taking public transportation overseas.

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What’s Inside

1. Pros & Cons of Public Transport
2. A Beginner’s Guide to GO Transit
3. Getting Around Specific Cities

Pros & Cons of Public Transport

I’m a huge fan of public transport once it’s clean, safe and efficient. It’s a great way to get to know a place, and observe the culture of its people. It’s usually state-funded and therefore, the cheapest way to get around in any part of the world. It’s a lot less hassle than figuring out how to drive in a foreign country, especially if they drive on the other side of the road from which you are familiar. Instead, you can sit back and enjoy the changing scenery. Lastly, it’s great for the environment. Public transport produces less greenhouse gas emissions, and contributes less to air pollution and smog than if each passenger were to drive their own vehicle.

However, there are downsides. Some of the cons of public transport are:

• They may not be readily available or safe to use at night
• Less convenient than cars, especially in remote areas
• Can get crowded which increases the risk of catching an infectious disease
• May be unreliable and have long wait times.

Of course, walking and cycling (if possible) are great environmentally safe transport options too! In Canada, I used public transport to get around the Golden Horseshoe which stretches from Niagara Falls to Toronto and hugs Lake Ontario, as well as to get to and from Kingston, one of Ontario’s southeastern cities. I found their transport to be pretty on-time for the most part, save for a few delays from traffic and a bus issue. Public transport in first world countries tends to be super efficient and beginner friendly. I appreciate that a lot.

“Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that shows you civilization up close.”

– Chris Gethard

A Beginner’s Guide to GO Transit

The GO Bus

GO Transit is a division of Metrolinx, an agency of the Ontario Government, and serves as the regional public transport for Canada’s Golden Horseshoe. GO Transit is comprised of both buses and trains, and on an average weekday, GO runs 322 train trips and 2,386 bus trips. It’s cool to note that most GO Transit commuters own private vehicles but choose to take GO Transit instead for the convenience, as the system is super efficient and very easy to understand, even for beginners. With its main hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit’s green-and-white trains and buses serve a total area of over 11,000 square kilometres.

To find out which GO you need, visit their website and enter your current city, destination, date and time. They’ll tell you the exact bus and/or train you need, cost, as well as the platform number. If you use Google Maps instead, they’ll give you similar information with a link to the GO Transit website. GO transit are SUPER on-time so you have to arrive early. If the train leaves at 0800hr, and you arrive at 0801hr, you’ll miss your train. Thus, if you have only 5-10 minutes between connecting vehicles at a station, you’ve got to hurry and make it to correct platform. Anyway, not to worry as most routes have frequent trips and Canadians are super friendly and will help you get around, once you ask questions– or even if you don’t ask, but appear lost or confused. Also, GO Transit stations have amenities like elevators, bathrooms, pay phones, vending machines, cafes, ticket sale kiosks, ATMs and even parking lots. So yes, you can park and ride.

The next important thing for GO Transit beginners to know is: how to pay. You can purchase e-tickets and passes online, activating them 5 minutes prior to boarding GO using your smartphone only. Or, you can pay at the Presto card readers by scanning your debit, credit or Presto cards. All GO stations and GO buses have Presto card readers. For the train, you scan as you get on and off at the station. For the bus, you scan as you get on the bus and before you exit the bus. I stress the AND because it’s important to scan as you get on and off so that you pay the correct fare. If you forget to scan off, you will be billed for the entire length of the route even if you came off early. I’m super happy to have family in Canada who STRESSED this point to me, or I maybe would have wasted quite a bit of money. Another thing to note is that each passenger must have their own card. So, if you’re traveling as a couple, you must have 2 separate Debit/credit/Presto cards. Children under 12 ride free.

Where to scan once you get off a GO train; look out for them.

A bit more on the Presto card; this is a smart card which allows passengers to load money onto a reloadable card. You get a discounted fare using the Presto card, and can even get additional savings at some attractions like the CN Tower in Downtown, Toronto. You can purchase physical Presto cards for CA$4 at several locations; find one here. If you’ll be taking public transport for several days, it may be worth getting one.

Finally, it’s important to note that some GO stations are shared with other companies, most notably:

• the Union Pearson Express which goes from Toronto’s Union Station to the Pearson International Airport in Mississauga
• Via Rail, Canada’s national passenger rail services
• Amtrak, which offers passenger train service to the United States
• Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), which operates the subway and
• several long-distance intercity bus services such as the Megabus and United States-bound Greyhound Lines.

Getting Around Specific Cities

Transport services like GO and Megabus operate from station to station across major cities, but getting around within the city requires understanding the local transit of that city. This may involve local buses which often have a website + share updated schedules with Google Maps, as well as taxis and ridesharing apps like Uber. In Niagara Falls, there’s a Niagara Region Transit which costs $3CADpp each trip. Cash was accepted. In Kingston, there was the Kingston Transit which costed $3.25CAD per trip and while cash was accepted, you HAD to pay in coins only. This, as you can imagine, was extremely inconvenient and forced me to purchase multiride bus passes at a local pharmacy. I recommend you look up the cost of local transit for your city of choice and weigh the options.

Note: There’s a WEGO system which facilitates day trips to and from Niagara Falls in connection with Via Rail, GO and Coach Canada but I didn’t use it, so I’m not familiar with it.

Wrap Up

Do you feel empowered to explore Canada via public transport now? I sure do hope so! And, for past or regular users of public transport in Canada, what other bits of advice would you have for first timers? Share them in the comments section below! The day Jamaica’s public transport gets this organized, perhaps I’ll ditch my car. I’ll continue to wait patiently. P.S. This guide is also to jog my memory on my next trip to Canada, ha!

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:

• Public Transport in Kingston, Jamaica
• 48 Hours in Niagara Falls
• A Day in Downtown, Toronto
• My guide to Machu Picchu in Peru

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