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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.”

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 shrewd business and innovation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The development of steam-powered railways in the 19th century revolutionized transportation in Canada and was integral to the very act of nation building. Railways played an integral role in the process of industrialization, opening up new markets and tying regions together, while at the same time creating a demand for resources and technology.

In the early morning of 6 July 2013, a runaway train hauling 72 tankers filled with crude oil derailed as it approached the centre of the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The tanker cars exploded and the oil caught fire, killing 47 people and destroying many buildings and other infrastructure in the town centre. The fourth deadliest railway disaster in Canadian history, the derailment led to changes in rail transport safety rules as well as legal action against the company and employees involved in the incident. Years after the derailment, re-building was still ongoing and many of the town’s residents continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress.