Access to public transport by distance in Canada

Data on the location of public transportation stops were shared directly with Statistics Canada or provided through websites of municipalities or local transit authorities. For the purposes and the scope of this project, public transportation is considered a regularly scheduled transport service with assigned physical stop locations and excludes on-demand or on-call services like taxis, taxi buses and Uber.

Sustainable Development Goals

Statistics Canada uses road network data to calculate the walking distance to a public transit stop.

Following the recommendations and suggestions of the United Nations, the estimates of the population living within convenient access to a public transit stop were disaggregated by the following dimensions:

- transportation mode that could be used to reach public transport (walking and cycling). A cycling distance of 2 kilometres is an alternative metric of spatial access relevant to today's city infrastructure. A cycling distance of 2 kilometres was used to estimate spatial access to high-capacity transit stops only;

- type of public transport system (low-capacity and high-capacity systems);

- location (urban and rural);

- gender (women+ and men+);

- age group (0 to 14 years; 15 to 64 years, including 15 to 19 years and 20 to 24 years; and 65 years and older);

- other socio-economic characteristics.

Data sources, methodology and limitations

The summary data presented in table 23-10-0314-01 rely on the census metropolitan area (CMA) and census agglomeration (CA) concepts (see 2021 Census of Population Dictionary for the full definitions).

For reference year 2023, the spatial access estimates include 1,113 municipalities, collectively covering 889 census subdivisions (CSDs) in all 41 CMAs and 70 of the 111 CAs, as well as 224 of the 4,154 CSDs outside CMAs and CAs. Based on the 2021 Census of Population counts, the coverage rate is estimated at 97.1% of the population of CMAs and CAs and 83.9% of the total population of Canada.

For reference year 2024, the spatial access estimates include 1,110 municipalities, collectively covering 866 CSDs in all 41 CMAs and 68 of the 111 CAs, as well as 244 of the 4,154 CSDs outside CMAs and CAs. Based on the 2021 Census of Population counts, the coverage rate is estimated at 96.5% of the population of CMAs and CAs and 83.3% of the total population of Canada.

For reference year 2025, the spatial access estimates include 1,269 municipalities, collectively covering 893 CSDs in all 41 CMAs and 75 of the 111 CAs, as well as 376 of the 4,154 CSDs outside CMAs and CAs. Based on the 2021 Census of Population counts, the coverage rate is estimated at 97.3% of the population of CMAs and CAs and 85.1% of the total population of Canada.

The method used to estimate the percentage of Canadians living within convenient access to a public transport access point was as follows:

1. Locations of public transport stops of all kinds (e.g., bus, trolley, surface and underground rail, ferry) were obtained from the municipalities' or the local transit authorities' websites or directly provided to Statistics Canada. Complete data coverage was achieved for the municipalities constituting the 41 CMAs. Other municipalities inside CAs and outside of CMAs and CAs were included when regularly scheduled public transit service was identified and the geospatial data were available.

2. Public transit stop locations and the Road Network File data were used to create service areas dependent on distance and public transit carrying capacity.

3. Service area boundaries were used to estimate the population counts based on 2021 Census data at the blockface geographic level.

4. Counts at the blockface level were aggregated to the municipal; CSD, CMA and CA; provincial and territorial; and national levels.

5. The proportion of the population within a service area for each geographic unit in scope was calculated by dividing the estimated counts by the geographic unit's total population.

6. Note that the provincial and territorial and the national aggregate totals are calculated based on the sum of values of the geographies within the scope of analysis.

7. Statistics Canada data confidentiality and rounding rules were applied to all estimates.

Data considerations:

1. For the areas not covered by the data on public transportation, either the data were not readily available in a standard geospatial format, or such data did not exist due to the lack of public transit service. Therefore, the resulting estimates could overestimate convenient access to public transportation at the higher levels of aggregation (national, provincial and territorial levels). The results of CMAs and CAs are not affected.

2. The count of public transit stop locations is based on the scope of public transit geospatial data available in a reference year. A stop may be served by multiple transit systems, resulting in duplication of some stop locations across datasets. A stop location is considered duplicate if both of its coordinates, latitude and longitude, are an exact match with another stop's coordinates. Duplicate public transit stop locations were removed to minimize the likelihood of overcounting.

3. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11.2.1 metadata places ferries under high-capacity public transit systems. The scope of the project includes only publicly operated ferries and excludes private ferries and water taxi services. In Canada, there are cable ferries and small capacity water vessel operators that do not have large infrastructure or capacity matching the United Nations definition for high-capacity transit system. Cable ferries, even if allowing passenger boarding, serve primarily as a connection between segments of a road network, rather than as a dedicated passenger transportation system. For that reason, cable ferry terminal locations were excluded from the scope of the project. Further, a threshold of 50 passengers maximum carrying capacity was introduced to differentiate between small operation ferry services and large operation and infrastructure ferry services. Terminal locations served by vessels with maximum capacity up to 50 passengers were classified as the low-capacity category, and above 50 passengers as the high-capacity category. In the case of multiple vessels serving the same terminal, the maximum capacity vessel identified the terminal capacity category.