Why is Canada’s Public Transit so Much Cheaper — and Better — Than the United States’?

Why does Canada’s public transit cost so much less to build and get so many more passengers than transit lines in the United States? In an article for The McGill International Review, George Wu attempts to answer this question. 

Wu points to some illuminating examples of this discrepancy: Montreal’s REM light rail system gets over 1.1 million passengers a day. Chicago, a city with a million more residents, records 200,000 fewer daily trips across its entire bus and rail system.

For Wu, the purpose of U.S. transit systems is one culprit. “Most US transit systems were designed with one specific goal in mind: funnelling commuters from the suburbs into downtown business districts, even though, in practice, the most common form of commute in North America has become suburb-to-suburb.” The gap in connections and frequency means commuters who have to switch lines often see their trips extended. 

Another reason that Canadian transit is better-funded and more successful, Wu notes, is political will. While Canadian provincial governments such as Quebec’s offer strong backing to transit projects, “many public transport projects conceived in the United States go through long phases of political turmoil and remain in limbo for years before they are ultimately approved for construction and funding, if ever.” 

Wu concludes, “It is striking how much a transit agency and a municipal government can accomplish when they work together toward a common goal—and how rarely that happens in the United States.”