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.
Since 2020, I have maintained an interactive map of bus and rail services in Ontario. Without a central repository of transit information, my maps have become one of the few comprehensive resources available. I am pleased to keep the resource going, and I appreciate the messages of support, as well as additions and corrections that you submit.
There are a few updates for April 2024:
Middlesex County Connect launched a new route between Dorchester, White Oaks Mall in London, and St. Thomas. This route operates six days a week, with four round trips Mondays through Saturdays.
A new FlixBus route, operating six days a week, now runs between Downtown Toronto, Pearson Airport, and Sudbury, competing with Ontario’s Northland bus service.
Ourbus became the latest company to operate a coach service between Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa. There are now five coach operators competing on the same route.
Grey Transit Route announced that they will be ending weekend services on most of its routes starting May 1.
Though the gap between London and St. Thomas is now filled, there remains several other parts of the province without intercity transport links, even in Southwestern Ontario. For example, service in Huron and Bruce Counties is limited to a three day/week TOK coach service and a three day/week minibus service between Goderich and Grand Bend. There are still no links from Haldimand County and Six Nations to nearby large urban centres like Brantford, Hamilton, and Toronto.
I plan to update this Ontario map again in July. At that time, I will also update my Canada-wide transportation map to reflect changes in the intercity transport industry.
If you like my maps and you would like to help out with my online mapping and webhosting costs, consider buying me a coffee.Thank you!
Intercity Bus minibus on York Street at Royal York Hotel, February 13, 2024
In late 2023, yet another intercity bus operator started serving the busy Toronto-London corridor, operating between Toronto and London. With the rather unimaginative name of “Intercity Bus,” this new company operates up to four trips a day between Toronto and London. It has since added a route between London and Sarnia; it also plans to run the much-needed link between London and St. Thomas.
There are now five bus companies on the Toronto-London route: Intercity Bus, Onex Bus, Trailways, and Megabus (in a partnership with local coach operator Badder Bus). Those five companies compete with VIA Rail, which operates up to six daily trips between the two cities, with up to 28 round trips daily between them.
Onex Bus departing Downtown Toronto, photo kindly provided by Chris Whitfield
VIA Rail remains the fastest and most comfortable option, with full-service staffed stations in Downtown London and Downtown Toronto, but its fares are typically the most expensive. The private coach companies offer cheaper fares, and several of them directly serve Western University and/or Fanshawe College. Megabus has partnered with Trailways; its booking website includes both the Toronto-London-Detroit Trailways trips and the Toronto-London trips operated by Badder Bus. Otherwise, one must go to the individual companies’ websites to figure out the complete schedule and where each service stops at.
The schedule below, saved as a PDF, includes all regular weekday trips between Toronto and London along with intermediate stops.
In Toronto, Flixbus, Trailways and Megabus/Badder call at the Union Station Bus Terminal, where connections can be made to other Flixbus and Megabus services, along with GO Transit and VIA Rail in the adjacent railway hub. Onex and Intercity Bus make use of a curbside stop on York Street next to the Royal York Hotel, which is shared with the Toronto Island Airport shuttle. These three stops are all within a few minutes’ walk from each other. Some Flixbus runs to London begin and end in Scarborough, and many buses also make a stop at Pearson Airport.
In London, every bus carrier makes a curbside stop at Western University, the terminus of all bus trips from Toronto except Trailways, which continues to Windsor and Detroit. All carriers except Badder/Megabus also serve Downtown London. However, each has a different stopping location, with Flixbus and Trailways opting for a curbside stop on York Street near CitiPlaza (London’s downtown mall), and Onex utilizing the driveway at the VIA Rail station.
Curbside stops are convenient for bus operators, as they’re easy to pull up to and depart from, there’s no rent, staffing, or maintenance costs. With smartphones and online ticketing, there is no need for a ticket agent, and passengers can be notified by text and/or email of any delays or changes. But curbside stops have no shelter and no washrooms.
Interestingly, Intercity Bus has taken over the old Greyhound terminal in Downtown London. At its peak, London’s terminal had dozens of daily departures to cities and towns all over Southwestern Ontario, serving multiple carriers at a time when intercity carriers acted more like a unified network.
The old London Greyhound terminal
The terminal offers seating, washrooms, and is staffed by an agent, a rarity in the post-Greyhound world. The washrooms are especially essential if — as on my recent trip — the bus does not have an on-board lavatory. These new smaller carriers save fuel and labour costs by operating smaller vehicles and matching capacity with demand. They often operate older coaches and minibuses.
Inside the Intercity Bus terminal
I recently took Intercity Bus from Toronto to London to try out Ontario’s newest carrier. Though the 12:10 departure from Toronto was on a minibus similar to those used by rural transit operators (there were only 10 passengers on that Tuesday afternoon run), the ride was comfortable enough, with cloth bucket seats. It was a fast trip: it skipped stops in Woodstock and Fanshawe College, and the driver made very good time on Highway 401, at times exceeding the posted speed limit by 25 or 30 kilometres per hour. Even with a stop for fuel (the driver asked if it was okay), we arrived 15 minutes early at the London terminal.
At its peak in the 1980s, there were over two dozen daily departures from the London bus terminal. There were frequent Greyhound routes to Toronto via Kitchener and via Brantford and Hamilton as well as to Chatham, Windsor, and Detroit; there were also daily Greyhound routes to Niagara Falls via St. Thomas, Simcoe, and Welland and to Strathroy, Sarnia and into Michigan. Regional coach operators also ran from the Greyhound terminal to Stratford, Goderich, Rodney, Walkerton, Leamington, and Port Stanley. Today, there are just four — three to Toronto and one to Sarnia.
Detail from 1990-1991 Ontario Intercity Transportation Guide, showing bus routes from London to points throughout Southwestern Ontario
My hope for the next year is for more stability in the intercity bus industry, perhaps even mergers between some of the smaller players. Onex and Intercity Bus, which compete on the Toronto-London route and offer a similar service, could be beneficial, especially if it results in a network of routes radiating out of London, starting with Intercity Bus’s London-Sarnia service, its planned St. Thomas route, and Onex’s London-Stratford-Kitchener run.
I updated my map of Ontario’s intercity transport services for March 2024, including the new Onex Bus and Intercity Bus routes in Southwestern Ontario. There are new services in East Zorra-Tavistock, connecting to Stratford and Woodstock, and in North Grenville. Unfortunately, Lindsay and Haliburton lost their TOK coach service, Prescott & Russell ended its on-demand service, and gaps remain in Bruce, Elgin, and Haldimand Counties.
GO Transit bus on the Gardiner Expressway. Route 21 will se major changes with the new schedules
On Saturday, April 8, GO Transit will introduce big changes to its rail and bus services. Brampton and Waterloo Region will see the biggest benefits, while a major gap in Ontario’s intercity bus network will finally get filled.
However, major construction work on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines will require the bustitution of most trains on those two corridors for at least a few months. Most buses serving the Milton Line will no longer operate to or from Union Station, but instead connect with the Lakeshore West Line. Finally, one of GO Transit’s oldest bus routes will finally disappear for good.
Though the scale of these service changes is truly impressive, there are some drawbacks that hopefully will be addressed in the near future.
As part of the April 2023 changes, GO Transit will finally introduce hourly weekend service on the Kitchener Line between Union Station and Mount Pleasant GO in northwest Brampton. Most Route 31 “train-bus” trips will be cancelled, while Route 33 (Guelph-Brampton-North York) takes over the Guelph via Highway 7 service completely.
With the exception of weekday counter-peak periods, early mornings, and late evenings (when Route 31 will still operate), Brampton finally has the all-way, two-way, every day train service it has been requesting for decades. Because of schedule constraints, and limited track space, weekend trains will not be stopping at Etobicoke North.
Route 30, the Bramalea-Kitchener-Waterloo bus, will also operate 7 days a week, with an easy transfer at Bramalea GO Station. This is the fastest and most frequent service between Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo (private intercity bus service to Kitchener are limited, and they only stop at Sportsworld, near Highway 401), and should help build ridership for future train service expansion.
Unfortunately, there remains no quick GO bus service between Toronto, Brampton, and Guelph; passengers must still endure the Route 33 milk run on Highway 7 through Georgetown, Acton, and Rockwood. Weekend service on Route 48, the Guelph-Bramalea-Highway 407 route, timed to connect to Kitchener Line trains, could provide this useful link until track capacity is improved west of Bramalea and through Halton Region and Wellington County.
The introduction of GO Transit Route 17 between Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, and Hamilton is, in my view, even more significant than the new weekend train service on the Kitchener Line.
This new bus route is the first time a GO Transit service has gone against its 55-year-old business model of a Toronto-centric system, where all train services converge on Union Station, and all bus services supplement the train corridors or connect to a suburban Toronto terminal. This might even be the most significant GO Transit service change since the first Highway 407/York University bus service began in September 2000. The 407 Corridor, originally a single bus route connecting Oakville, Mississauga Square One, Bramalea, York University, and Markham, has expanded into a multi-branched 24-hour/7-day corridor that now extends to Oshawa, Guelph, and Hamilton.
Route 17, which will run hourly on weekdays, directly serves four university campuses (University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Guelph, and McMaster University), a record for any single bus route in Canada (only the TTC Yonge-University Subway serves as many university campuses in a one-seat ride). It also provides a direct Guelph-Kitchener-Waterloo link (which was only provided by infrequent Greyhound buses before 2020) and replaces former Coach Canada/Megabus routes abandoned prior to or during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though Route 17 finally fills several gaps in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, it is, at best, a first good step.
For one thing, Route 17 is too slow to effectively serve as a great Kitchener-Waterloo/Hamilton connection. The travel time from University of Waterloo to Downtown Hamilton is between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and thirty minutes. The typical driving time is about one hour. It is more competitive between Guelph and Hamilton, though the route diverts to Aldershot GO Station to connect with the GO Transit Lakeshore West corridor, adding 15-20 minutes of travel time over a direct McMaster/Downtown Toronto routing.
Finally, there is no weekend service offered at this point, and the new route misses Downtown Kitchener, diverting via the Conestoga Parkway, though a stop at Victoria and Frederick Streets east of downtown provides connections to several GRT bus routes. There is also a need for better connections between Cambridge and Guelph, something that GRT, Wellington County, and Guelph should work together to fix.
I am hopeful that the new hourly weekday service is attractive to students and commuters, and that ridership grows to a point that GO considers weekend service and either express runs, or a restructuring of the corridor to provide more direct services.
Route 21, the Milton GO bus corridor, provides Milton-Mississauga-Toronto service at all times except the weekday peak period direction, when GO operates seven trains between Milton and Union Station. Unfortunately, the busy Milton Corridor is Canadian Pacific’s mainline between Toronto and Chicago. Unlike CN (whose mainline is used by GO’s Kitchener Line between Bramalea and Georgetown), CP has been less amiable to GO service expansion outside the peak period window.
Because of passenger demand in central Mississauga, Route 21 has traditionally been one of GO Transit’s most complex routes, with ten distinct branches, with service to each station every 15-30 minutes at most times. With increasing traffic into and within Downtown Toronto, especially on summer weekends, Route 21 can be very slow and unreliable, with GO Transit forced to divert its buses on Route 21 and 31 away from its Union Station Bus Terminal to Port Credit GO.
Though weekend train service on the Kitchener Line solves the problem for Route 31, without access to CP’s tracks, Milton Line passengers must ride buses, which have to go somewhere.
The solution, then, was to permanently divert Milton Line buses to the Lakeshore West rail corridor. Route 21A will operate between Milton GO Station and Oakville GO Station, serving Sheridan College’s Oakville campus and the 407 Corridor at Trafalgar Road (allowing for new transfers from Milton to Hamilton/McMaster and Mississauga/Pearson Airport). Route 21B will run from Lisgar GO, serving Meadowvale GO, Streetsville GO, and Erin Mills Transitway Station before connecting to trains at Clarkson GO. Route 21C runs between Erindale GO, Square One, Cooksville GO, and Port Credit GO. Only during early mornings and late evenings will Route 21 serve Union Station, making all stops to and from Milton.
Dixie Station also loses its weekday Route 21 service. The station is not well connected with local transit nor is it in a walkable area, so it is completely dependent on drive-up traffic. That should be fine for commuters who can rely on the regular train schedules, and who don’t need to leave Toronto early or late, but it worth pointing out.
These changes simplify Route 21, and provide a reliable and predictable, albeit slower, connection to Downtown Toronto. They provide new connections to the busy Highway 407 bus corridor, and allow GO to divert buses and drivers to other services.
One thing GO can do to improve the utility of its realigned bus service is operate the new branches at all time periods to maximize ridership. For example, Route 21A, while providing new useful links between Milton, the Highway 407 corridor, and Sheridan College, does not run in the peak direction when the Milton Line trains are running, with no southbound buses from Milton to Oakville between 5:03 AM and 9:28 AM. A similar gap exists northbound in the late afternoon on weekdays.
Other changes
The Stouffville Line, which enjoys hourly train service seven days a week, goes down to just peak period rail service starting April 8. Work to double-track the corridor through Scarborough has been continuing, albeit slowly, so hopefully the suspension of off-peak trains will help speed up construction. Work to expand the Lakeshore East/Stouffville corridor through Toronto’s east end has also forced train service reductions between Toronto and Oshawa.
Route 81, one of the older bus routes in GO Transit’s network, will finally disappear. The bus route, connecting Whitby GO Station, Port Perry, and Beaverton, has seen low ridership, with alternative service provided by Durham Region Transit’s Route 905 to Port Perry and DRT’s rural on-demand service.
Finally, though they are not amongst the major upcoming changes, GO Transit’s services to Orangeville and Peterborough remain inadequate. Route 37, between Brampton and Orangeville, still does not operate on weekends, nor is there a morning northbound bus from Brampton. Ironically, there is better service leading north from Orangeville towards Shelburne, Dundalk, and Owen Sound operated by Grey County’s rural bus system.
Meanwhile, Route 88, which connects Oshawa GO Station with Peterborough and Trent University, was diverted several years ago to serve Bowmanville, replacing since-cancelled Route 90. Unfortunately, this results in a long, nearly two-hour bus ride between Oshawa and Trent University, or four hours between Toronto Union Station and Trent. The drive, with moderate traffic, is less than half that. Though Rider Express now operates a bus from Toronto to Ottawa via Peterborough, it only runs once a day, four days a week.
It would be great if GO Transit could speed up Route 88 to make it a viable and attractive option between Toronto, Durham Region, and Peterborough.
Finally
On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised by GO Transit’s April service changes. Weekend service on Route 30 and the new Route 17 between Hamilton, Guelph, and Kitchener-Waterloo close some major gaps in that part of the province. The Route 21 changes make a lot of sense and open up new connections, though many bus passengers will not be happy with the new forced transfer to get to or from Downtown Toronto. Though bustitutions on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines are not ideal, they will allow for important work to improve rail service on those two corridors. Finally, attention to bringing faster and fuller service on some bus routes – like 21A, 37, and 88 will help build a complete transit network across the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
In January 2023, while visiting the site of the now-demolished Sarnia Eaton Centre, I took advantage of two new rural transit services serving Southwestern Ontario: Strathroy-Caradoc Transit and Huron Shores Area Transit. While both services connect London and Sarnia, they operate as separate services with different fares; they also have different terminals.
Strathroy-Caradoc Inter-Community Transit bus at Lambton Mall in Sarnia
Strathroy-Caradoc Transit offers the most direct service between London and Sarnia, with stops at London International Airport, Downtown London (on York Street near the VIA Station), Komoka, Mount Brydges, Strathroy, Lambton Mall, and Downtown Sarnia.
The regular cash fare between London and Sarnia is $20, though from London or Sarnia to Strathroy, the fare is $10. On my westbound trip on Sunday, January 29, the schedule allowed for a quick washroom and coffee break in Downtown Strathroy, a necessity given the long ride on a small minibus.
Returning the next day from Sarnia, I opted to ride Huron Shores Area Transit (HSAT) back to London. HSAT, which is also contracted to Voyago, connects several communities in Lambton, Huron, and Middlesex Counties. All four HSAT routes converge in the summer resort town of Grand Bend. Two routes operate seven days a week (Route 1, connecting Sarnia, Forest, Thedford, and Kettle Point & Stoney Point First Nation, and Route 2, serving Exeter, Lucan, Centralia, and London). There are two additional routes operating two days a week from Grand Bend to Goderich and to Parkhill and Strathroy.
Unlike Strathroy-Caradoc, HSAT operates on a flat $5 cash fare. Even though I was traveling the long way between Sarnia and London, with an hour-long layover in Grand Bend, I was offered a slip of paper marked by the driver that allowed me to board the second bus without a second fare. Huron Shores buses have bike racks, though the operator recommends calling ahead to ensure their availability.
While Strathroy-Caradoc Transit serves downtown London and Sarnia, HSAT’s buses go only as far as the first major destination in both cities. The Sarnia stops for Route 1 are at Lambton College and nearby Lambton Mall, while the London stops on Route 2 are on London’s north end, near Masonville Place and at the University Hospital on the Western University campus. Getting downtown requires a transfer to Sarnia or London Transit.
Huron Shores Area Transit bus at London’s University Hospital. Note the bike rack.
Though VIA Rail still operates one daily train between Toronto, London, and Sarnia, it is not on a convenient schedule for most passengers (it leaves Sarnia early in the morning and arrives late in the evening), so the new bus services fill a key role in providing mobility options. Though it is more expensive, the Strathroy-Caradoc route is the direct and the fastest connection. But Huron Shores trip is the more scenic and cheaper ride.
I updated my Ontario intercity transportation map for April 2023 to include the major GO Transit service changes, the gradual resumption of some Ottawa commuter bus routes, the start of Travelways bus service between Detroit, London, and Toronto, and minor route and service changes elsewhere in the province.
The hour-long layover in Grand Bend gave me a chance to wander the town. On the main street, almost every business was closed for the season. There was very little traffic on Main Street, so it had a bit of a ghost town feel. On Highway 21 and to the east, however, typical chain stores like Tim Hortons, Sobey’s, and Shoppers Drug Mart serve the year-round population.
Grand Bend’s famous beach — in JanuaryHello Sunshine
A Red Arrow coach lays over at a Harvey’s restaurant in Kingston on the way to Ottawa
On December 7, I took a trip out to Kingston to ride the newest coach operator to arrive in Ontario: Red Arrow. A division of Pacific Western, Red Arrow is the latest carrier to stake a claim to the busy Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa route, which is now served by five private companies.
Between Toronto and Ottawa, five intercity coach carriers–Megabus, Rider Express, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, and Red Arrow–compete for the same passengers, along with VIA Rail and three airlines (Air Canada, WestJet, and Porter).
There is also fierce competition for the Toronto-London route. Passengers have the choice of taking Megabus, Rider Express, Onex, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, VIA Rail, or a very slow weekday-only GO train. Along with VIA, Flixbus also continues west, to Windsor (where the Tunnel Bus connection to Detroit has finally been restored). The Toronto-St. Catharines-Niagara route is also served by multiple bus and rail services.
Red Arrow coach seating
Despite new intercity coach players like Red Arrow (which provides a high-end coach service, with comfortable seating in a 2+1 arrangement, along with complimentary soft drinks and light snacks) and Book-A-Ride (which operates like a charter airline, with schedules that change frequently based on demand), many other routes still have limited or no service. Flixbus quietly dropped its Kitchener-Hamilton-Niagara route earlier this year, eliminating service on a corridor that once had frequent Canada Coach Lines buses; that route had been sold in 1990 to Trentway-Wagar/Coach Canada. Flixbus also ended service to Guelph, instead concentrating on its other corridors. Early next year, Megabus will end its route between Toronto, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
The deregulation of motor coach services within the Province of Ontario may have made some sense. The old bargain of providing exclusive franchises for busy, profitable routes made sense when operators would use those cash cows to help subsidize less-trafficked rural services. But as Greyhound, Stagecoach, and other large companies bought up smaller carriers (such as Gray Coach, Canada Coach Lines, and PMCL) in the 1980s and 1990s, they were allowed to slowly abandon the smaller routes. Greyhound itself divested most of its network before disappearing altogether. As the franchising scheme didn’t work, there was no point keeping it.
But now, there’s the absurd situation where there are up to 25 daily buses and trains between Toronto and Ottawa (see table below). In contrast, there is not a single daily bus service connecting Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo–two urban centres of over 500,000 people each, just an hour apart, with three large universities (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier, and McMaster) and two major colleges (Conestoga and Mohawk) between them.
Available trips from Toronto to Ottawa, December 2022, with times for Kingston and Peterborough. Bus and rail tips to Montreal via Kingston are not included. A PDF version can be found here.
Elsewhere, where GO Transit and government-subsidized regional connections have filled gaps, the services are often slower and less direct than the old coach bus service. PMCL used to operate daily bus service between Owen Sound and Toronto via Collingwood and Barrie. Today, the same trip is possible via Grey Transit Route, Colltrans, Simcoe County Linx, and GO Transit, but the trip will take the better part of a day. Meanwhile, other gaps remain. Elgin County (Aylmer and St. Thomas) and Haldimand County (Caledonia, Dunnville, Hagersville, and Jarvis) are left without any outside connections.
Such is the state of the intercity transportation network (if you can call it that) in Ontario.
Though I enjoyed the trip on Red Arrow to Kingston (especially as I took advantage of a special $25 fare), I wondered how well the service will do here in Ontario. Its base price is over $100 one-way to Ottawa, more expensive than other coach operators and priced more like VIA Rail, which itself is slightly faster (as long as CN freight trains do not get in the way). Red Arrow uses the same locations in Ottawa (the VIA Rail Station itself) and Toronto (Union Station Bus Terminal) as the train. Red Arrow does well in Alberta, where there is no useful passenger rail service (Pacific Western also offers a no-frills coach bus service on the same Calgary-Edmonton route).
The latest version of my interactive intercity transit map is below:
On Saturday, my spouse and I decided to take advantage of the GO Transit weekend day pass and take the train to Hamilton for a short excursion. We did some shopping on James Street North in Downtown Hamilton and on Ottawa Street in the city’s east end, where there’s a great cluster of fabric, decor, and antique shops, as well as cafes and restaurants.
The new weekend passes, which cost $10 for one day and $15 for two days, have been a major contributor to GO Transit’s ridership recovery. Though weekend ridership has recovered to 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels (despite lower service levels on many routes), weekday ridership is only half of what it was in 2019.
On our return trip to Toronto, we decided to take the Route 16 express bus, departing from Hamilton GO Centre at 3:30. As the train between Union and Hamilton’s West Harbour Stations runs only every hour, it seemed that the express bus to Union Station would be the fastest and most convenient option. How wrong we were.
A line of GO buses attempting to turn left from Lake Shore Boulevard to Yonge Street
As we were among the first to board the double-decker bus, we had front row seats to Toronto’s Carmageddon.
Despite it being a beautiful afternoon on the long weekend, the ride on Highway 403, the Queen Elizabeth Way, and the Gardiner Expressway was uneventful, with only a few spots where traffic moved slowly. Until the bus got off the York-Bay-Yonge ramp, we were making decent time. That is when we were confronted with a long line of cars and trucks, all trying to turn north on York, Bay, and Yonge Streets.
The new Union Station Bus Terminal, located on the north side of the westbound Lake Shore Boulevard lanes, requires buses coming from the west to turn left on to Yonge Street from eastbound Lake Shore, and then turn left again onto westbound Lakeshore before turning right into the terminal itself.
After finally turning north from eastbound Lake Shore Boulevard, private vehicles, a Rider Express bus, and GO Transit buses attempt to turn left onto a gridlocked westbound Lake Shore Boulevard
But with construction obstructing two westbound lanes of Lake Shore at Bay Street, drivers leaving the first of two Blue Jays games that afternoon (a rare doubleheader hosting the Tampa Bay Rays), and other drivers arriving for the evening Jays game, an Eric Church concert at Scotiabank Arena, along with the usual weekend traffic, traffic could not move, creating literal gridlock. Police or traffic wardens that could monitor and manage the gridlock were nowhere to be seen.
Motorists jam the intersection of Lake Shore Boulevard West and Yonge StreetOne driver expresses his frustration with the traffic
At 5:50, 2 hours and 20 minutes after the bus departed Hamilton GO Centre, we were let out on the curb outside the terminal entrance. In response to the backlog of buses attempting to enter and exit the Union Station terminal, GO cut back the Route 16, meeting the half-hourly Lakeshore West train service at Aldershot Station (one stop short of West Harbour). Several Route 16, 21, and 31 trips were cancelled due to the traffic in the downtown core, requiring some customers in places like Milton and Georgetown to wait an entire hour for the next bus.
After similar gridlock conditions on Sunday, July 3, Route 21 (Milton Corridor) and Route 31 (Kitchener Corridor) buses were rerouted to Port Credit GO, requiring a transfer to trains there.
Route 21 and 31 GO buses will begin and end at Port Credit GO due to heavy traffic into Toronto. Regular LSW train service will run between Port Credit and Union. Click https://t.co/QEMf9GRLsf for more into.
The new terminal’s location is excellent for consolidating all intercity bus and rail services and is much safer than the old Union Station Terminal or the dilapidated Metro Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets. Direct, indoor connections can be made with the subway, several hotels, Scotiabank Arena, and to the vast PATH system of underground walkways. Its major failure, however, is the lack of dedicated bus lanes to speed highway coaches in and out of the facility.
On Lake Shore Boulevard. The bus entrance to the Union Station terminal is at right
There is an exceptionally wide sidewalk on the north side of Lake Shore approaching the bus entrance to the terminal, and an extremely short bus lane in front of the terminal’s entrance and exit. It is no wonder why some private coach operators, such as FlixBus and Onex, opt for on-street stops, rather than the terminal used by GO, Megabus, Rider Express, TOK, and Ontario Northland.
Toronto’s shortest and least-effective bus lane, in front of the Union Station Bus Terminal. Note the sign reading “be patient – drive with care” above.
A dedicated bus lane for the entire distance between Yonge and Bay Streets would undoubtedly improve operations. A dedicated left turn lane from Yonge to westbound Lakeshore would also allow easier access to the terminal from the west, where the majority of GO and intercity coach buses arrive from. Similar dedicated left turn lanes at Queen Street and Central Park Drive in Brampton allow Brampton Transit buses to quickly enter and exit the Bramalea Terminal. Better traffic management, including police enforcement, would help ensure a clear path for transit and coach buses.
The gridlock continued west of Bay Street, as motorists lined up to get to the Gardiner Expressway or go west on Lake Shore Boulevard
GO Transit’s reaction, to reroute buses to the already-crowded Lakeshore West Train, is not a sustainable solution, though it is the only effective tool it has at the moment. Though Route 16 passengers are not taken far out of their way with a transfer at Aldershot GO, the detour is more onerous for some Route 21 and all Route 31 passengers forced to backtrack to Port Credit GO for a forced transfer there.
Stouffville and Barrie Corridor passengers were spared the hassles with the return of weekend train service earlier this year. Unfortunately, Canadian Pacific’s control of almost the entirety of the Milton Corridor precludes midday, evening, and weekend train service, but there’s an opportunity to finally bring limited weekend train service to the Kitchener Corridor. GO Transit already offers an hourly midday and evening weekday train service to Mount Pleasant Station in Brampton, despite CN’s control of the corridor west of Bramalea Station.
Track improvements completed nearly 20 years ago (an additional track between Bramalea and Mount Pleasant and a second platform at Brampton GO Station) provides the capacity for hourly GO trains and CN’s freight operations. Weekend Route 30 bus service between Kitchener and Bramalea can provide a reasonable and reliable bus link until corridor improvements, such as new passing tracks, are completed between Georgetown and Kitchener.
As I was sitting in traffic for an hour, I found myself aggravated once again by Blue Jays CEO Mark Shapiro lobbying the city to end the Sunday closure of Lake Shore Boulevard West to allow for the city’s (much-diminished) Active TO program. In a letter addressed to Mayor John Tory, General Manager of Transportation Services Barbara Gray, and the city clerk, Shapiro argued that “removing one of the only ways into and out of the downtown core would be extremely challenging to our fans” claiming that “on the days when Active TO has been in effect on Lake Shore, our local fans have experienced significant transit delays because traffic is grinded to a halt on all downtown routes.” (It is worth noting that the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The mayor of Toronto, a former Rogers executive, remains involved with the Rogers family trust.)
The Lake Shore closure allowed cyclists and runners to bypass the overcrowded Martin Goodman Trail along Toronto’s Western Beaches, on a section of roadway paralleled by GO Transit’s Lakeshore Corridor. The traffic congestion last weekend was completely unrelated to ActiveTO (which is now suspended on Lake Shore Boulevard, partly due to Shaprio’s lobbying) and transit riders, who make up a large percentage of the Blue Jays’ fanbase, were left in the mess that motorists made.
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.
Following Greyhound Canada’s inevitable final departure, several other companies have begun to take over Greyhound’s busiest routes in Ontario and Quebec.
In May, Megabus Canada began service between Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa, operating out of the new Union Station Bus Terminal. Megabus’ terminal in Ottawa is the St. Laurent Shopping Centre, with easy connections to Ottawa’s O-Train LRT and several bus routes.
In June, Rider Express, a new intercity carrier based out of Western Canada (where it picked up many of Greyhound’s abandoned routes there), began operating its own Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa route, in competition with Megabus.
Québec-based Orleans Express took over Greyhound’s former Ottawa-Montréal route, joining Ontario Northland and Rider Express at the Ottawa VIA Station. The VIA Station, like St. Laurent, offers a safe, enclosed waiting area, passenger amenities, and easy connections to the O-Train LRT.
While Ottawa has many options for getting to and from Toronto: VIA Rail, Megabus, Rider Express, and two frequent airlines, connections to other cities and towns are limited at best. Ontario Northland’s single daily bus from Sudbury and North Bay through Renfrew County arrives in Ottawa in the late evening, a time not convenient for most passengers. Commuter routes to nearby communities such as Perth, Carleton Place, and Cornwall remain suspended during the ongoing pandemic.
But at least there’s some bus service again, providing new capacity on some of Canada’s busiest intercity routes.
On Thursday, July 15, intercity coach service returns to Southwestern Ontario, with a new Toronto-London service operated through a partnership between Megabus and St. Thomas-based Badder Bus. The route will run non-stop twice daily between the Flying J Truck Stop at Highway 401 and Highbury Avenue and the Union Station Bus Terminal in Downtown Toronto.
Unfortunately, the Flying J truck stop, while convenient for truckers and other motorists, is a terrible place for a bus stop. The map below illustrates the truck stop’s location, on the southeastern outskirts of London.
The truck stop was likely chosen for its proximity to Badder Bus’ operations centre in nearby St. Thomas, and for the space available to park and load a bus in the RV/trailer parking area. The truck stop operates 24 hours, with an on-site convenience store, washrooms, and restaurant, so there are amenities for bus drivers and waiting passengers.
Unfortunately, Megabus and Badder Bus could not pick a less accessible place to catch a bus. The truck stop is surrounded by warehouses, light industry, and agricultural lands. Highbury Avenue is a high-speed highway connecting Highway 401 and central London, with a 100 km/h speed limit. Pedestrians and cyclists are prohibited from using Highbury Avenue (which, until the 1990s, was provincial Highway 126). There are no sidewalks leading south to Wilton Grove Road.
Looking north on Highbury Avenue towards Highway 401, with the Flying J truck stop on the right. Note no sidewalks — pedestrians and cyclists are prohibited from Highbury Avenue at and north of the 401. (Google Streetview – April 2021)
The only transit route within walking distance is London Transit Route 30, a rush-hour only service that serves the industrial area south of Highway 401. Downtown London is easily a 45 minute bus ride (when route 30 is operating), and Western University — a major market for Greyhound when it operated — is over an hour away by bus or a $50 taxi ride. Ironically, the northern outskirts of St. Thomas — that city remains disconnected to nearby London — are closer to the Flying J than Western University.
The Greyhound Terminal in downtown London, two blocks from the VIA Station. At its peak in the 1980s, the terminal served Greyhound, Gray Coach, Erie Coach, and Cha-Co Coach, with buses departing for Toronto, Detroit, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and cities and towns throughout Southwestern Ontario. (Google Streetview – January 2021)
Greyhound Canada operated out of a terminal in Downtown London, two blocks west of the VIA Rail station. Greyhound shared its building with other carriers in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including Gray Coach, Cha-Co Trails, and Erie Coach Lines. From Downtown London, there were direct buses to Toronto, Detroit, Niagara and Buffalo, and cities and towns throughout Western Ontario. The terminal was a short walk to nearly all of London Transit’s bus routes, making connections to Western University, Fanshawe College, and the major hospitals easy.
Choosing a truck stop at the far edge of town, nearly inaccessible by public transit reminds me of the final years of Greyhound’s operations in Western Canada. Greyhound abandoned downtown terminals in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina, and Saskatoon in favour of new stops in outlying area.
In Edmonton, the downtown Greyhound terminal was expropriated for a new hockey arena, but Greyhound moved for the VIA station in the city’s northwest, which had no public transit access. (Red Arrow, a competing coach operator, maintained a downtown office and stop). In Regina, Greyhound moved from the downtown STC terminal to the airport, which has no public transit connection, and in Saskatoon, Greyhound moved to a truck stop — similar to London’s Flying J — in the northern outskirts of that city. It was clear that Greyhound Canada had no interest in attracting customers and was planning for an eventual withdrawal.
Given Greyhound’s experience, why would a new carrier choose such a poor location for an intercity bus stop, especially in a city as large and important as London? The terminal need not even be in Downtown London to be a major improvement; a stop at White Oaks Mall, just one interchange to the west at Wellington Street, would provide good local transit connections to Downtown London and even Western University while remaining close to the highway.
For now, Ontario’s newest bus stop might also be its worst bus stop.
Barry’s Bay, on Greyhound’s Peterborough-Pembroke route, is one of many smaller towns and villages that permanently lost all intercity bus connections since the COVID-19 pandemic
On Thursday, May 13, Greyhound Canada announced that it was permanently ceasing operations. This should not have come as a shock to anyone following the intercity transport industry: for over three decades, intercity bus carriers in this country were privatized (Gray Coach and Canada Coach Lines in Ontario, shut down (Saskatchewan Transportation Corporation), or strangled by continued cutbacks and poor customer service (Greyhound). In 2018, Greyhound Canada ended all its remaining services between Vancouver and Sudbury. The loss of commuter and student traffic — Greyhound’s bread-and-butter in Ontario and Quebec — due to the pandemic led to a temporary, then permanent shutdown.
The next day, on Friday, May 14, Megabus — operated by Coach Canada, a subsidiary of UK-based Stagecoach — announced that it would begin service on the Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Kingston routes abandoned by Greyhound. Two buses a day will soon operate between Toronto, Scarborough Town Centre, Kingston, and Ottawa, daily except Tuesdays and Wednesdays, terminating at St-Laurent Shopping Centre, a stop on Ottawa’s new LRT. Though this provides a new option for travelers between the big three cities (VIA Rail continues to serve this route), it does not fill the gaps left by years of decline by private intercity bus operators.
Before Greyhound’s website disappeared, I downloaded the PDF schedules for Ontario and Quebec. In 2019, Greyhound operated three routes between Toronto and Ottawa: an express bus, with stops only in Scarborough, Belleville, Peterborough, Madoc, and/or Kanata, a local bus, making stops in cities and towns along Highway 7 between Peterborough and Carleton Place, and a Kingston-Ottawa bus via Smiths Falls. You can view and download the schedules below:
Peterborough loses two buses a day to and from Ottawa and express bus service to Downtown Toronto (which made the trip in less than two hours off-peak.) Though Peterborough is still connected to Toronto via GO Transit bus Route 88, it can take nearly three hours to go between Union Station and Downtown Peterborough, including a train connection at Oshawa, and many local stops in Clarington and along Highway 115. Other towns, such as Norwood, Marmora, Madoc, Perth, and Carleton Place, lose all bus services, except for a commuter-oriented weekday run between Ottawa and Carleton Place.
Greyhound has chosen to become irrelevant to most Canadians long before the final shutdown announcement. Northern Ontario, at least, still has Ontario Northland (which has expanded its reach), and the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area has GO Transit (though gaps continue to exist in that network). If your rural community is lucky, your local or regional municipality launched a new, subsidized bus or microtransit service. There is also VIA Rail, which serves most larger communities that lost Greyhound services in 2020-2021 (Windsor, Chatham, Belleville, Ottawa, etc.), though it is typically more expensive.
Despite these continued and emerging services, there remains a need for government support of those crucial links left behind by Megabus, VIA, and GO Transit.
T:GO inter-community transit van at Woodstock VIA Rail station, September 2020
October 2021
I made several changes to the interactive map, including a complete update of the GO Transit bus and rail network, including the most recent rail corridor extensions to Bloomington and London, and a new weekday bus route to Brock University in St. Catharines.
Over the summer, Quinte Transit added a new route between Trenton and Belleville, Simcoe County Linx added a new route between Midland and Orillia, serving Tay Shores and Coldwater, and a new service launched between Brockville, Prescott, and Cardinal in Eastern Ontario.
June 29, 2021/July 6, 2021: Beginning Monday, June 28, Rider Express, an intercity coach company based in Western Canada (which picked up several routes formerly operated by Greyhound Canada and the Saskatchewan Transportation Company), began service in Ontario. Rider Express is looking to fill some of the gaps left by the recent announcement that Greyhound will cease all domestic routes in Eastern Canada.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that its first route in Ontario, connecting Toronto Station, Kingston, and Ottawa, replicates Megabus’ new route (which I have also added) and competes against VIA Rail’s Corridor rail service. Several of Greyhound’s daily Toronto-Ottawa buses ran through Peterborough and along Highway 7 through Eastern Ontario, leaving towns such as Norwood, Havelock, and Perth off the map. Though Peterborough is connected to Toronto by GO Transit, it is a long train and bus ride, while Greyhound offered a direct, express service to Downtown Toronto.
Two steps forward, one step back.
I made additional changes to the interactive map to show new GO Transit, Can-Ar Coach, Megabus, and Ontario Northland routings to the new Union Station Bus Terminal, which replaces the old GO bus terminal and the Toronto Coach Terminal on Bay Street. Meanwhile Ontario Northland moved from the now-closed Ottawa Central Bus Station to the VIA Station on Tremblay Road.
Meanwhile, starting July 8, Orléans Express will expand into Ontario, with a new Gatineau-Ottawa-Montréal route, operating twice daily. It will join Rider Express and Ontario Northland at the VIA Rail Station in Ottawa.
May 2, 2021: On Monday, May 3, “The Link” begins operations on two routes in Selwyn Township and Curve Lake First Nation, connecting several communities with Peterborough Transit and GO Transit at Trent University. The service, which is operated by Peterborough Transit, will run on weekdays, with five trips in each direction on both routes. Fares on “The Link” buses include a free transfer to and from Peterborough city bus routes at Trent, with direct service to downtown, major shopping centres, the hospital and Sir Stanford Fleming College.
February 15, 2021: A few small updates, including the addition of two community routes in Muskoka District Municipality, a bus connection between North Bay and northern Quebec, and a revised bus stop location for Ontario Northland in Orillia.
December 14, 2020: I made several updates to the interactive map, including the addition of Huron Shores Area Transit, which launches today. I made a few changes suggested by one of my readers, and added Niagara Region Transit’s on-demand service in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which replaces a fixed route that was cancelled earlier this year.
November 9, 2020: I made several updates to the interactive map, including the addition of PC Connect in Perth County, which launches next Monday. I mapped Port Hope’s transit connection to Cobourg, as suggested by one of the readers, and corrected a few minor errors.
October 15, 2020
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, several new inter-community transit services launched in Ontario during the last few months.
Last August, T:GO began service on four routes radiating from Tillsonburg, where there was already an in-town circulator service. Mondays through Fridays, twenty-seater vans operate between Tillsonburg, Norwich, Woodstock, Ingersoll, and other communities, offering connections to Woodstock Transit, the hospital, and the VIA Rail Station.
In September, the City of Owen Sound, Grey County, Middlesex County, the town of Strathroy-Caradoc, and Prince Edward County all launched their own services, connecting rural communities and small towns to larger centres such as London, Guelph, and Belleville. In addition, Simcoe County expanded its Linx bus service to serve Alliston and Beeton, and other services, suspended during the early days of the pandemic, resumed operations. Also this year, Niagara and Durham Regions expanded their rural on-demand transit services.
GOST minibus at Owen Sound Transit Terminal
All these new services help to fill the gaps left behind by private coach companies; these have become especially vital as Greyhound Canada suspended all operations in Ontario and Quebec this year (after abandoning Western Canada in 2018), and Coach Canada (operating as Megabus) cut service on some of its routes.
While these new intercommunity routes help to serve local needs, there is a wide variety of service provided in rural and small town Ontario. But without provincial coordination, it is nearly impossible to keep track of them all, never mind plan a trip.
So I went ahead and mapped them all the best I could. Clicking on each route brings up a pop-up window containing further information, including a link to each agency’s website, where available.
Sean Marshall 