In the fifth year that I have been following and mapping Canada’s intercity transportation links, the network (if you could call it that) remains in flux. Spring 2026 brings several new routes, particularly in Western Canada, that restore some former Greyhound services. Unfortunately, regional and commuter services in Ontario and Alberta are coming to an end. Wednesday, April 30 was the last day for the LTW Route 42 between Leamington and Windsor. In Alberta’s On-It is winding down its commuter buses between Calgary and Cochrane and Okatoks.
However, Flixbus continues to expand, taking over more former Greyhound routes. Unlike Greyhound or most other intercity transport companies, Flixbus is not a bus company per se, as it does not own or operate the services; instead it uses smaller contracted operators while coordinating branding, schedules, and ticketing. But starting in May, it will operate three-four days a week between Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg, with stops in cities that have long been without service, such as Moose Jaw and Swift Current. Another route will connect Calgary with Drumheller, including a stop at the famous Royal Tyrrell Museum.
Despite the recent loss of TOK’s Southampton route and last year’s cutback of Grey County’s GTR services, there is hope for new connections in Midwestern Ontario. Grey County, together with neighbouring Bruce, Dufferin, and Wellington Counties, is studying a regional system to augment and replace the limited existing services. Hopefully, it will include regular service to fast-growing Saugeen Shores, which recently lost that TOK service. In Centre Wellington, a new local service connecting Elora and Fergus will soon start operations.
One of the major issues continually faces is the lack of intramodality and useful connections. A viable passenger rail system — be it a classic corridor service such as the Quebec-Windsor VIA train or a high-speed line such as the planned ALTO project — is much more useful to many more passengers when there are easy connections at stations. Through-ticketing and schedule coordination should be implemented whenever possible. Furthermore, though the Upper Ottawa Valley (towns and cites such as Renfrew and Pembroke) has a daily Ontario Northland bus, it arrives in Ottawa late in the evening and leaves early in the morning, limiting its usefulness to areas closer to Ottawa that could benefit from a commuter connection or onward trips to Montreal, Toronto, or Kingston. Despite more gaps seemingly filled, other gaps remain.
There are buses to more destinations in 2024, but a few major gaps persist
NOTE: Previous versions of the Ontario and Canada maps are retired; please see the new Canada Intercity Transport Map, launched March 30, 2025. This will now be the only interactive map that I will update.
Unfortunately, outside of Ontario, there not that many updates to make. On Vancouver Island, at least, there is now daily service all the way to Port Hardy in the north and Tofino and Ucluelet to the west, with additional runs between Comox, Nanaimo, and Victoria. There are more buses between Vancouver and Seattle; FlixBus is now operating on the busy Calgary-Edmonton and Calgary-Banff routes. There is also a new twice-weekly Edmonton-Camrose service, thanks to work by the University of Alberta’s student union; it partnered with FlixBus to provide the service.
Also new to the map is Mountain Man Mike’s bus service between Vancouver, Nelson, Kaslo BC, and Calgary, as well as Mobilité Charlevoix, a regional service that connects several towns east of Québec City including Baie-Saint-Paul, La Malbaie, and Clermont.
Unfortunately, several wide gaps remain. Despite plenty of competition on the busiest routes in Southern Ontario and Alberta, there is no bus service between Calgary and Regina, leaving cities like Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw without intercity connections, apart from airport shuttle services, despite once-frequent Greyhound service. Between Winnipeg and Regina, it is still just one bus a week. Maritime Bus, for whatever reason, still has not restored service across the New Brunswick-Québec provincial line.
Without comprehensive government-led coordination and support, these gaps are likely to remain unfilled.
A busy GO Transit Route 88C bus loads passengers in front of the Peterborough Bus Terminal in the city’s downtown core
Peterborough, Ontario, a city of 84,000 people, is about a 90-minute drive from Downtown Toronto, without heavy traffic. A regional centre for central-east Ontario, Peterborough is home to Trent University, a mid-sized liberal arts institution with about 10,000 full time students, and Fleming College, which has over 6,000 full time students and 10,000 part time students.
Given its relative importance and its proximity to the Greater Toronto Area, especially Durham Region, one might expect to find good transit links from Peterborough to not only Toronto, but elsewhere in Ontario. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Greyhound Canada’s remaining service in Ontario and Quebec, there were four daily Greyhound buses between Peterborough and Toronto (three on Saturdays and Sundays), with one of those daily runs continuing east on Highway 7 to Ottawa, with stops in towns such as Havelock, Madoc, and Perth.
The scheduled time between the old Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets and Downtown Peterborough was between one hour and 45 minutes (making only an intermediate stop at Scarborough Centre Station) and two hours, 15 minutes (making local stops in Ajax, Oshawa, and Orono).
2019 Greyhound timetable for Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto service. Note the overnight 5757/5790 runs that also followed Highway 7, but only stopped at Madoc for a rest break.
In September 2009, GO Transit first started a bus service between Oshawa GO Station, Downtown Peterborough, and Trent University, following the success of other bus services to universities and colleges in the region. Before 2020, that route made only four stops between Oshawa Station and Downtown Peterborough; all were park-and-ride lots adjacent to Highway 35/115; the bus would take just over an hour between the station and Downtown Oshawa.
Despite GO Transit’s competition, the Greyhound service remained popular, as it offered a direct, faster, one-seat ride between Downtown Toronto and Downtown Peterborough, with most buses only stopping at Scarborough Town Centre along the way. Three days a week, there were connections to Bancroft and Pembroke. GO Transit’s advantage was a slightly cheaper fare, connections to local transit and other GO services, and a more convenient service for passengers travelling between Durham Region and Peterborough. Unlike Greyhound, GO Transit continued to Trent University. Apart from the Newcastle (Hwy 2 at Hwy 35/115) park-and-ride, where passengers could connect to GO Transit routes 90/91 to Newcastle, Bowmanville, Courtice, and Downtown Oshawa, the park-and-ride stops were little-used.
GO Transit Route 88 map, January 2020. There were only four stops between Oshawa GO Station and Peterborough Bus Terminal
In mid-2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing major reductions in bus and rail ridership, GO Transit cut and consolidated several services, particularly in areas where local transit agencies operate. Route 90 was reduced to early morning and late-night service between Union Station and Oshawa GO when trains were not operating. The remainder of Route 90 through Courtice, Bowmanville, and Newcastle was cut entirely. Route 91 was merged into Route 88, which added new stops in Courtice and Bowmanville.
Route 88B, which includes stops at park-and-ride lots at proposed new GO Stations in central Oshawa and Courtice, takes up to 120 minutes to get from Trent University to Oshawa Station. The regular 88 bus takes 105 to 115 minutes to complete the trip. That is a very long time to sit on a bus, especially one not equipped with a lavatory.
GO Transit’s Route 88 bus timetable, including connecting train service from Toronto Union Station (click for larger size)
On Thursdays and Fridays, during regular school days between September and April, there are several express 88C buses, that only stop at Trent University, Peterborough Bus Terminal, and Oshawa GO. They make the complete trip in 1 hour 20 minutes; from Union Station to Downtown Peterborough is 2 hours, 20 minutes, not much slower than the slowest Greyhound bus.
The Route 88 route map in September 2023
Granted, for anyone living in Bowmanville and headed to Peterborough, the route is an improvement, with a new one-seat-ride now possible. While travelling to Peterborough earlier in September, I noted several passengers getting on in Downtown Bowmanville. But for through passengers, the backtrack to get to the Clarington Boulevard Park & Ride (the proposed location for the Bowmanville GO Station) and then the local stops to Newcastle are a bit annoying. Once on the highway, the bus has to get off at the Highway 35/115 split near Pontypool, and again at County Road 10 near Cavan and Millbrook, despite the very occasional time a passenger wants to get on or off (which has never happened when I rode Route 88). These diversions add 2-3 minutes each to the trip.
Pulling up to a deserted GO bus stop at County Road 10 near Cavan
These carpool stops might be useful if there were connecting transit services, rather than just a parking lot and a bus shelter. The 35/115 lot near Pontypool is 34 kilometres to Lindsay, a town of nearly 20,000 people, but whose only transit connection is a 3 day/week TOK coach bus between Haliburton and Toronto. A shuttle connection to Lindsay (which has a local transit service) would provide new links to Toronto, Durham Region, and Peterborough. Meanwhile, the Highway 2 carpool lot does not have direct Durham Region Transit service either.
Since Greyhound Canada’s withdrawal from the Canadian market, GO was the only intercity operator serving Peterborough until earlier this year, when Rider Express and Flixbus resumed service on the Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa route. Both companies offer express, one-seat rides to downtown Toronto, but they have two major disadvantages over GO or even the old Greyhound service: frequency and in-town connections.
Flixbus offers one daily round trip, leaving the Union Station Bus Terminal at 11:00 AM and arriving at a Tim Hortons parking lot (at 1200 Lansdowne Street West, on the southwest side of Peterborough), at 1:05 PM, with stops near Scarborough Town Centre and at Thickson Road and Highway 401 in Whitby. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 9:05 PM, arriving in Toronto at 11:05 PM.
Boarding a Flixbus coach in a parking lot behind a Tim Horton’s in Peterborough’s suburbs
Rider Express runs on the same route four days a week, leaving Union Station at 12:00 PM, arriving at a different Tim Horton’s parking lot (on Ashburnham Road, on the southeast side of Peterborough) at 1:45 PM, making one stop in Scarborough. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 10:05 PM and arrives in Toronto at 11:35 PM. The map below shows where GO, Flixbus, and Rider Express stop in Peterborough.
While GO stops at Trent University, Downtown Peterborough, and a park-and-ride lot on the south end of the city, Flixbus and Rider Express only stop at locations close to the main highway on the south side of Peterborough, pulling into parking lots with nowhere to sit and no real amenities, unless waiting passengers had a car to wait in or paid for a coffee or snack at the Tim Horton’s. The old Greyhound terminal, which was located on the same block as the downtown transit terminal, has since been sold, and is now converted for local community services. Though they offer a much faster ride to downtown Toronto, the private operators are neither frequent enough nor convenient enough to compete with GO.
One day, Peterborough may get intercity rail service again thanks to the federal High Frequency Rail project, still in the early procurement phase, which would provide the speedy, frequent intercity service Peterborough needs. Until then, Metrolinx should revise the entire Peterborough bus service, including working with Durham Region and the City of Kawartha Lakes to make the service more useful for more riders, with a mix of daily express buses and enhanced local connections. The Selwyn Link bus service, which connects GO and Peterborough Transit with Selwyn Township and Curve Lake First Nation at Trent University, is great example to build upon.
I have updated the Ontario Intercity Transport Map for September 2023 with new and revised routes right across the province. The notable losses include Prescott-Russell’s abandonment of its rural on-demand service, the closure of Grey Transit Route’s service between Walkerton and Flesherton, and Trailways’ stop in Chatham. The London-to-St. Thomas gap remains unfilled, and there’s a clear gap in Huron and Bruce Counties, especially with the loss of service to Walkerton. For the most part, it is good to see most regional transit services continuing, with mostly minor adjustments.
I look forward to sharing my Canada Intercity Transit Map, based on work I recently completed for Infrastructure Canada, in the near future.
Flixbus is one of many intercity coach operators in Ontario right now
With university and college campuses reopening for in-class instruction, white-collar workers slowly returning to the office, and pandemic restrictions receding, there are more intercity transport options in Ontario than at any time prior to March 2020.
New operators, including Germany’s Flixbus, have arrived in Ontario (with routes between Toronto, Guelph/Kitchener, Niagara, and Ottawa), while Greyhound, which pulled out of Canada two years ago, restarted cross-border runs from Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. In Southern Ontario, intercommunity bus and van operations continued through the pandemic, with notable service improvements in Simcoe and Grey Counties, new routes in Eastern Ontario, as well as the expansion of “on-demand” services in rural communities and smaller urban centres, including parts of Niagara Region, as the regional government there slowly assumes responsibility for all municipal transit services.
Despite these advances, there are still many gaps in Ontario that need to be filled. The deregulation of Ontario’s motor coach industry has opened the highways up to more operators, but they are all chasing the same customers, rather than attracting new riders.
For getting between Toronto and Ottawa, passengers have a plethora of choices. They may fly — the fastest, but most expensive option — on Air Canada, WestJet or Porter. They may choose VIA Rail, which is comfortable, but slower. Or they may choose to book a ticket on a Megabus, Rider Express, or Flixbus coach, the slowest, cheapest, and least frequent option. (As of May 2022, only Megabus will begin operating daily buses between Toronto and Ottawa.)
Between London and Toronto, passengers can choose between a four-hour GO Transit train ride that departs at 5:33 AM, one of several daily VIA trains (approximately 2 hours), one of three daily Onex buses (2 hours, 35 minutes) or one of three daily non-stop Megabus trips (2 hours, 10 minutes).
Not all bus operators serve the same locations, either, creating new disconnections. In Toronto, GO Transit, Megabus, Rider Express TOK Coach, and Greyhound USA use the new Union Station Bus Terminal, which is directly connected to VIA and GO trains at Union Station and the TTC subway and streetcar system.
Flixbus stops at a curbside layby on York Street south of the Gardiner Expressway
To save on terminal fees, Onex stops beside the Royal York Hotel on York Street, across the street from Union Station, sharing the layby with the Toronto Island Airport shuttle. Flixbus uses a different coach bus layby on York Street south of the Gardiner Expressway, in the Harbourfront area. Neither curbside stop is marked for either company. Though Ontario Northland still sends some buses downtown to Union Station, some of its buses to and from Sudbury and North Bay now terminate at the Yorkdale Bus Terminal in North York.
The layby next to Royal York Hotel serves the Toronto Island Airport shuttle (which has a sign) and Onex bus (which has no bus stop sign)
In Ottawa, Ontario Northland and Orleans Express use the VIA Rail station (which is on the O-Train LRT system), while Megabus terminates at the St. Laurent O-Train station. Autobus Maheux and Flixbus use curbside stops in Downtown Ottawa. The London-Toronto Megabus route bypasses Downtown London on its route from Western University, while Onex Bus and VIA Rail stop right downtown, along with Strathroy-Caradoc’s intercommunity route.
Another issue is that apart from the Toronto-Kitchener-London, Toronto-Niagara, Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa, Toronto-Kingston-Montreal and Ottawa-Montreal corridors, there is still little choice in price, operator, or schedule.
Rider Express suspended service to Windsor last year, so that the three or four VIA rail trains to London and Toronto (or a flight from Windsor airport) are the only option available for anyone travelling without a car. (Transit Windsor’s Tunnel Bus to Detroit remains suspended, despite the continued loosening of border crossing restrictions.) Peterborough, once a major destination for Greyhound Canada on its Toronto-Ottawa corridor, now only has a nearly two-hour-long GO bus connection to Oshawa GO Station.
Gaps that I wrote about several years ago still remain on the map, which are only more evident as new intercommunity services start up and new carriers emerge. The City of St. Thomas and Elgin County remain the most visible of these gaps; St. Thomas is the only urban transit system in Ontario completely disconnected to any other community, despite its short distance to London. Haldimand County, despite its proximity to Brantford and Hamilton has also chosen to remain off the map. While neighbouring Perth, Lambton, Middlesex, and Grey Counties have developed useful transit connections, Huron and Bruce Counties have very limited links to the rest of the province.
Finally, the gaps between Hamilton and Brantford to the south and Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo to the north remain to be filled despite the growing population and multiple post-secondary institutions in each urban area. Though the Hamilton-Guelph-Kitchener triangle should be a natural expansion for GO Transit, it has yet to announce its intentions. Meanwhile, no private coach operator has filled this obvious need.
The labour-backed Link the Watershed proposal would connect Guelph, Kitchener, Cambridge, and Brantford, but that plan requires the support of local government, but it still leaves the Hamilton corridor wide open.
As more students return to school full time, and more workers return to the office, the need for reliable and attractive transportation options across Ontario will only continue to grow. As housing prices to continue to increase higher than the already-high inflation rate, intercity transport will be one way to ensure students can stay at home while going to school, and workers don’t have to move or endure long and expensive highway commuting.
Hopefully by autumn, these gaps will finally close for good.
Sean Marshall 