Search for "transportation"

The Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) is a non-profit association that provides a neutral forum for discussing technical issues related to road and highway infrastructure and urban transportation. It brings together governments, private companies, academic institutions and other organizations in Canada. The non-partisan association’s mission is “to work together to share ideas, build knowledge, promote best practices, foster leadership, and encourage bold transportation solutions.”

A causeway is a raised path, railway or road across an expanse of low ground, wetlands or water. It is different from a bridge in that it has little or no opening underneath. Instead, it consists of a crest with embankments on either side. It is typically made of compacted earth, sand and rocks. In most cases, causeways are made by humans to connect different dry land areas to each other. Such connections can also be made up of a combination of causeway and bridge segments. Sometimes, a causeway can serve several purposes simultaneously. In addition to the passage it provides, the bulk of its structure may be intended to function as a dam or dike.

Canada’s deadliest road accident to date was a single-vehicle bus crash near Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, in the Quebec municipality of Les Éboulements, on Thanksgiving Day, 13 October 1997.

Joseph-Armand Bombardier, entrepreneur, inventor of the snowmobile and Ski-Doo (born 16 April 1907 in Valcourt, QC; died 18 February 1964 in Sherbrooke, QC). While Bombardier’s many inventions demonstrate his mechanical skills, his ability not only to respond to transportation needs but to create them gave rise to his namesake corporation’s record of innovation.

The Trans-Canada Highway is a continuous road that allows vehicle travel across Canada. The highway runs through each of Canada’s 10 provinces, from Victoria, British Columbia, to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. At 7,821 km, it is the fourth-longest highway — and second-longest national highway — in the world.

The importance of transportation to a trading nation as vast as Canada cannot be underestimated. The great distances between mines, farms, forests and urban centres make efficient transport systems essential to the economy so that natural and manufactured goods can move freely through domestic and international markets. Transportation has and will continue to play an important role in the social and political unity of Canada.

A human settlement is a place where people live. Settlement patterns describe the ways in which villages, towns, cities and First Nation reserves are distributed, as well as the factors that influence this arrangement. Throughout Canadian history, climate, natural resources, transportation methods and government policy have affected human settlement in the country. Today, the majority of Canadians live in cities in the southern portion of the country. (See also Human Geography and Canada.)

A snowmobile is an automotive vehicle for travel on snow. It is steered by skis at the front and propelled by a belt of track at the back. Québécois mechanic Joseph-Armand Bombardier made the first snowmobile in 1935. Today, there are more than 600,000 registered snowmobiles in Canada. They are used for transportation, recreation, hunting and trapping, especially in rural areas and the North.

One of Canada’s most high-profile highway tragedies occurred on 6 April 2018, when a bus carrying 28 members of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team collided with a transport truck at a highway intersection near Tisdale, Saskatchewan. The crash killed 16 team members: 10 players and 6 staff. It also led to new truck-driver training and licensing regulations and increased awareness about the availability and use of seat belts among bus passengers.

The Montreal metro opened on 14 October 1966. The second Canadian subway system after Toronto’s, which opened in 1954, the Montreal metro was the first subway in North America to run on rubber tires instead of metal wheels. Extensions to the Montreal metro were built on Montreal Island over the two decades after it opened, and then to the city of Laval, on the island of Île Jésus, during the 2000s. The system runs entirely underground, and each station has a distinct architecture and design. The Montreal metro consists of four lines running a total of 71 km and serving 68 stations. In 2018, its passengers made more than 383 million trips.

A collision between a school bus and a freight train on 7 October 1966 killed 19 students from Cité-des-Jeunes secondary school near Vaudreuil, Quebec, and their bus driver. The crash is among the worst road disasters in Canadian history.

Resource towns are small, isolated communities built around resource-based industries and transportation. They include mining towns, mill towns, railway towns and fishing villages. Resource development has long been a key factor in shaping the settlement and growth of communities. Some scholars have argued that all Canadian urban growth depends on the production of natural resources. (See also Staple Thesis.) Resource towns have been important agents in this production process. Because they depend on single industries, the economies of resource towns are often unstable.

The York boat, named for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s York Factory, was one of three types of inland boats (the others being scows and sturgeon-heads) used by the HBC in the fur trade. It was the company’s most suitable boat for lake travel, although it also plied rivers. For about a century beginning the 1820s, this freight-carrying boat was the main mode of transportation between York Factory on Hudson Bay and inland trading posts.

Hay River, Northwest Territories, incorporated as a town in 1963, population 3,528 (2016 census), 3,606 (2011 census). The town of Hay River is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake at the mouth of the Hay River, about 200 air km southwest of Yellowknife.

Bombardier Inc. is a manufacturer of private airplanes that was once among the world’s largest manufacturers of trains and commercial airplanes. Headquartered in Montreal, the company was originally incorporated as L’Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée in 1942. Its founder, Joseph-Armand Bombardier, was a Québécois mechanical engineer who invented one of the first commercially viable snowmobiles. Bombardier Inc. grew considerably from its beginnings as a snowmobile manufacturer into an iconic Canadian company, known for its public transportation vehicles and jetliners. Facing financial troubles in the 21st century, however, it began to sell off parts of its business. In 2020, it made deals to sell the last of its assets outside its private-jet business, including its commercial plane and rail divisions.

Ewing Hunter Harrison III, president and CEO of Canadian National Railway Company 2003–09, CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway Limited 2012–17 (born 7 November 1944 in Memphis, Tennessee; died 16 December 2017 in Wellington, Florida). Best known as the leading proponent of Precision Scheduled Railroading, Hunter Harrison ran four publicly traded, Class 1 railroads during his more than half century in the industry. His leadership of Canada’s two largest railway companies greatly improved the efficiency and profitability of both businesses.

Click here for definitions of key terms used in this article.

Inuit and subarctic Indigenous peoples have traversed the North since time immemorial. Indigenous knowledge and modes of transportation helped early European explorers and traders travel and survive on these expanses. Later settlement depended to an extraordinary degree on the development of transportation systems. Today, the transportation connections of northern communities vary from place to place. While the most remote settlements are often only accessible by air, some have road, rail and marine connections. These are often tied to industrial projects such as mines.

In Canada, bush flying refers to aviation in sparsely populated northern areas. Flight in the Arctic and the “bush” of the Canadian Shield developed between the world wars. Early bush pilots faced the challenges of cold weather and vast distances between communities. Given the rarity of airstrips, their planes were often equipped with skis or floats so that they could take off and land on water or snow. This type of aviation was key to developing services and industries in the North. While the romantic image of the bush pilot is associated with the past, bush flying continues to serve remote communities in Canada.