We live in a smaller city. The bus system is very good - albeit usually with a transfer needed because some idiot decided the journey from the shops at one side of town to the same shops at the other "took too long", completely ignoring the fact that people don't want to go from one shop to the same shop but do want to travel between two points on that route and now mostly have to change buses to do that - and as the city is relatively compact taxis are really not expensive.

We get by on foot, bicycle, bus and taxi. There's a train to Halifax one way and Montreal the other and we have a pretty good airport just out of town.

There are other buses (coaches) that will get us to the beach and a couple of other places, but if you are 4 or 5 (group not age, ) a taxi is only a little more and will be door to door, so to speak.

We surely can't be unique, it can't only be here and Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Of course there are times when it would be nice to just get in a car and go for a drive, find your own beach, see some of the touristy places that buses don't go to, do a coastal drive, not rely on a timetable etc

Of course there are times when it would be nice to just get in a car and go for a drive, find your own beach, see some of the touristy places that buses don't go to, do a coastal drive, not rely on a timetable etc

Now this may come as a surprise but I believe Canada including Moncton have now entered the 20th century and have these things called rental or share cars.
I don't think this concept will catch on over here there again I could be wrong

They can work out quite expensive sometimes unless there is a deal on. I'm basing this on the vancouver care share schemes which I use.

I have got to the point where I would like my own vehicle for weekends and trips but it's the insurance that will put me off. I do miss having my own car though

Sounds better then what we have, our system is too time consuming, you can walk just about anywhere in less time then the bus. The routes are basically one circle and the bus only goes one way, so to get downtown for example from middle of town, you have to take a scenic route to just about anywhere, and then it doesn't cover the entire town, and doesn't even cover one of the largest employers and tourist attractions which is silly, but the province won't fund it, although I think the town has decided to fund it for the summer, but doubt it will be long term since the town doesn't have the money to fund it 100% on it's own.

Hard to grow transit when the provincial government has no interest in it unless the city name is Vancouver and translink.

Looking at car share prices, and I find them a rip off, I can 99% of the time get a rental car cheaper, although it requires a trip to YVR, but those rates the car shares wan't, total rip off.

Of course smaller city's in Canada may not even have a car share option, and heck may not even have a car rental option.

As far as I know we have no car shares in this town, although we have Enterprise M-F but they are closed weekends and holidays and are a little pricey, sometimes as high as 70-90 per day for a rental.

Let's see...zero experience of driving and no driving licence. What are my chances of being able to rent one and then get on the road without crashing?

Sometimes I wonder if it's just harder because a lot of people aren't interested - sometimes justifiably, other times not.

We just had a Monday to Friday of completely free buses. Environment week or something.
The daytime travel I did by bus I can't say I was aware of an increase in passengers at all. On Friday night we went downtown to a World Cup promotional thing that included fireworks.

Now I'm not normally downtown on a Friday night so I can't really compare passenger numbers. But for the number of people leaving the venue when it was all done, I was a bit concerned at the bus being packed out. So we decided to walk to where we'd need to transfer to the bus away from downtown and home. Half way there, we saw the bus with plenty of room so we got on it for the last few stops and then changed to another bus with plenty of room.

We have plenty of car rental options. A few years ago, my wife's parents came to visit. We didn't want them driving between here and Montreal but when we went for a car rental we couldn't get one because the rental place insisted on the credit card name matching that of the drivers licence. He had a licence but no credit card and I had the reverse. What difference does it make?

It's a catch 22 when it comes to transit, government won't fund it if ridership isn't high enough, people won't ride it because its not funded well and the schedule is not conducive to people who work, time consuming, and so those who can drive stick with their cars because transit wastes too much time to get anywhere.

Then they just decide to cut even popular well used service by jacking the price so high people no longer find it an affordable option, and then proclaim the service isn't working, despite very high ridership before they purposely jacked up the fares so ridership would drop so they could then drop it.

Dirty tricks the politicians play.

Halifax Region has a good bus service, and that includes Dartmouth and the ferry across the harbour.

But it is difficult to get to other places in NS by bus .............

Greyhound does not apparently operate east of Montreal (???)

Maritime Bus and Acadian Bus Lines operate long distance service.

The daughter of a friend living in Halifax went to Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB. When she first started there 4 years ago, the Halifax - Montreal train stopped at Sackville both ways. So she could take the train to and from home as long as she wanted to travel on the days that the train ran. However, in her 2nd year, the train schedule was changed and the train no longer stopped at Sackville in either direction. The following year, Sackville was made a Flag Stop, with 24 hours notice.

End result?? Momma had to drive daughter to and from university every time she wanted to go home for a visit or beginning and end of term.

Thanks all for the useful info so far It's interesting to see how it seems to vary quite a bit from place to place.

Yea, it's one of the things I'm now kicking myself for doing before I left the UK or starting when I got here in NZ. Sadly I think even if I passed here in NZ it wouldn't be able to be transferred into Canada's system as it'd be under the two years required for the full licence (at least, for the area I've looked at the rules for so far). Though I see what you mean about getting the experience, apparently driving in NZ is interesting due to the roads here. I'm certainly going to look into learning here in NZ though, I've got a little time before anything can happen with a move.

I did think about biking/mopeds and the like. Not sure how risky it is there with regards to getting knocked off, that's my main worry about those.

Hamilton/Burlington also have good transit systems.

I don't drive, have lived her for 13 years and have never felt the need for a vehicle.

it costs us more and takes almost as long to fly from Vancouver to Halifax, as it does to fly from Vancouver to Manchester or London ... and that includes searching for the cheapest tickets

Plus you don't get fed on the planes, even though it is 5+ hours to Toronto

I live not far from a major road - by Moncton standards - as do most people here. The buses from here go downtown via another busy road - in terms of commerce. On the route there are three buses and from one end (shopping malls) to the other end (downtown) with all the offices, banks etc and taking in all the big box stores and restaurants and residential areas along the way, it's 15 minutes. It's about 10 minutes between buses and you can see on your phone or computer where the bus is and time your walk to the stop accordingly.

What could be more convenient than that?

A big Harley that makes a lot of noise might be noticed more by cars, but those ebikes are almost silent. Canada is not bike friendly (motorized or not).

you're so lucky!!!

I can spend long intervals waiting for buses here in Vancouver

I live about a block from a bus route, I try to time my walk to the bus stop according to the estimated time it was due to arrive at the stop 20 blocks away (the closest one to me that is in the timetable, paper or on line). The buses are supposed to be between 10 and 12 minutes apart in the day time (about 15 minutes after 7 pm). On many occasions, I have been standing there for over 20 minutes before a bus appears, and there is no bus shelter. It's especially annoying if I am only intending to take the bus the 6 stops to the terminus ........ OH walks that distance in 20 minutes. I can't.

The route is from the terminus about 6 stops away from here to downtown and then back again. It takes about 30-35 minutes to get to downtown and at least the same time to get back from downtown to here. It all depends on the traffic, of course.


I used to work at the same university as my OH. He would drive in early in the morning, taking about 15-20 minutes along one side of a triangle. I would leave about an hour later, and have to take 2 buses which would go along the other 2 sides. One of the buses, at that time, was an express bus that ran every 15-20 minutes. Somehow the timetable was so constructed that my first bus always arrived 1 minute after the second bus had left

It would take me between 45 and 75 minutes to get out to the same place.

No wonder I came home in the car with him!