Urban Transportation in Canada

Public transportation & Transit passes

All cities and most major towns in Canada have a public transportation system with one or more forms of transportation (bus, subway, train, etc.). The bus is the most common form of urban transportation in Canada. To use public transportation, you must buy a ticket or a transit pass. Transit passes allow you unlimited use of public transportation for a specific period (one month or more). They are usually cheaper than buying many tickets if you plan to use public transportation often.

Transportation for people with disabilities

Public transportation often has features to help people with disabilities. In many cities and towns, there are also transportation services available specifically for people with limited mobility, such as specially equipped buses. You can find out about these services in the same way you would learn more about other public transportation options.

Manners on public transportation

When taking public transportation, it is important to understand the unspoken rules of behaviors in the shared space. Here are a few things to note:

◆Be polite and respectful to others around you. For example, maintain an appropriate noise level when talking or making a phone call.

◆If you are carrying a backpack or a large shoulder bag in a crowded public transit vehicle, keep it close to you.

◆Avoid pushing or touching others in order to make more room for yourself.

◆Have your proof of payment within easy reach in case you are asked to show it.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)—we’ve all heard the name, but what makes him “the father of American literature” as classic US author William Faulkner once called him?

Mark Twain is someone Americans are taught to love. Older relatives, English teachers and the media always praise him. But when you actually take the time to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, you find that his work is more wonderful than you could have ever imagined.

The novel describes a young boy named Tom Sawyer growing up in a small town along the Mississippi River. He explores the countryside on a riverboat with his friends, falls in love with girls, starts secret clubs and searches for treasure. Twain’s idea of childhood is magical—a time of imagination, wonder and, of course, adventure.

More importantly, through the eyes of Tom Sawyer, Twain cleverly makes fun of US culture. For example, Tom hates going to church, and Twain uses scenes of Tom there to mock religion and its old traditions. “Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it,” he writes in one chapter.

Twain’s writing is full of these kinds of critical points about culture and politics. That’s why he is so loved in the US—he wasn’t afraid to state his opinions, and he did so clearly. For instance, Twain didn’t like US wars abroad. In 1900, after the US invaded the Philippines, Twain wrote in a newspaper article: “We do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippine. We have gone there to conquer.” He also believed strongly in women’s right to vote in elections and gave a famous speech on the subject, called “Votes for Women”, in 1901. “Tom was a glittering hero once more—the pet of the old, the envy of the young,” Twain writes in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But he could just as well be describing himself.

NASA said its Kepler spacecraft has spotted ''Earth's bigger, older cousin'': the first nearly Earth-size planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our own.

Though NASA can’t say for sure whether the planet is rocky like ours or has water and air, it's the closest match yet found.

The planet, Kepler-452b, is about 60% bigger than Earth, NASA says, and is located in its star's habitable zone, where life-sustaining liquid water is possible on the surface of a planet.

A visitor there would experience gravity about twice that of Earth's, and scientists say the possibility of it having a rocky surface are ''better than ever''. While it's a bit farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, its star is brighter, so the planet receives about the same amount of energy from its star as Earth does from the sun.

Kepler researcher Jeff Jenkins said, ''The planet almost certainly has an atmosphere, although scientists can't say what it's made of. But if the assumptions are correct, kepler-452b's atmosphere may be thicker than Earth's. ''

It takes 385 days for the planet to orbit its star. ''Because it has spent so long orbiting in this zone—6 billion years—it's had plenty of time to brew life,'' Jenkins said.

''That's an opportunity for life to arise, if all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet, '' he said in a statement.

Kepler-452b is too far away for humans to visit. But the discovery of this new Earth-like planet can tell us a lot about what’s possible for the future of space travel. ''The next step in the process is to do follow-up missions to find planets similar to kepler-452b, but much closer to Earth, '' said Peter Coughlin, a Kepler research scientist. ''We could do a lot more research into those planets, and even start to think about visiting one day. ''