North America > Canada > Toronto (YYZ)
The Car or no Car advice for Toronto can be broken down into three similar questions - do you need a car in Toronto ; is it worth it (based on costs), and ultimately - should you rent one? (a balance of the two).🚆 🚌⛴️ Do we need to rent a car in Toronto ?
These scores are based on the quality of public transport and other travel options. If these are good enough to see the main points of interest, then you don’t need to rent a car.
💰💶💳 Is it worth hiring a car in Toronto?
These scores reflect the practical factors that affect whether renting a car is convenient, good value, and stress-free.
📍 Getting Around Toronto — the Reality
Toronto is large, dense, and heavily congested.
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Traffic is slow and unpredictable
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Parking downtown is expensive and limited
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Distances within the core are manageable
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Driving rarely saves time in the city
For central Toronto, a car is more hindrance than help.
🚇 Strong Urban Public Transport
Toronto’s public transport works well where most visitors spend their time.
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The TTC subway forms the backbone of movement
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Streetcars provide dense surface coverage downtown
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Buses extend reach into outer neighbourhoods
While the system has capacity and reliability challenges, it remains the most practical way to move around the city centre.
🚶♂️ A Walkable, Streetcar-Oriented Core
Toronto’s downtown and inner districts reward car-free travel.
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Neighbourhoods are compact and lively
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Streetcars support short trips
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Walking works well between attractions
You can easily spend several days without needing a car.
Toronto’s newest tram and light-rail projects highlight a key weakness in the city’s surface-based approach to transit. While these lines look modern and add capacity, they are fundamentally slower than Montreal’s REM, largely because they operate at street level. Trams share space with traffic, encounter frequent intersections, and are subject to turning vehicles, pedestrians, and delivery activity. This immediately caps average speeds in a way that fully separated systems simply don’t face.
By contrast, Montreal’s REM is entirely grade-separated, running on viaducts, in tunnels, or on exclusive rights-of-way. That separation allows high, metro-like frequencies and consistent speeds regardless of road conditions. Toronto’s new tram lines also suffer from weak signal priority: although trams technically have priority at some junctions, it is often partial or conditional, meaning cars still dominate intersection timing. The result is stop-start running that undermines what should be rapid transit.
That said, this doesn’t mean the TTC performs badly overall. Toronto’s transit network is still reasonably effective, especially for commuter flows into and across the core. Subways and traditional streetcars work well for high-demand corridors, but the system remains commuter-focused rather than transformational. Where Montreal used the REM to leap forward in speed and regional connectivity, Toronto’s surface tram approach delivers incremental improvement — useful, but nowhere near as fast or reliable as a fully grade-separated system.
🚆 Regional Rail Expands the No-Car Zone
Toronto’s regional rail network extends car-free travel further than many visitors expect.
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Frequent commuter rail services into the suburbs
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Direct rail links to nearby cities
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Airport rail connection to downtown
For many regional trips, rail is faster than driving.
🚗 When Renting a Car Makes Sense
The case for a rental car appears once you leave the urban core.
A car is useful for:
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Exploring Ontario beyond Toronto
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Visiting smaller towns and rural areas
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Flexible trips where rail doesn’t reach
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Longer itineraries with multiple stops
Outside transit corridors, public transport coverage drops sharply.
⚠️ Why Driving in Toronto Can Be Frustrating
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Heavy congestion most of the day
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Complex downtown street patterns
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High parking costs
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Construction delays
Many visitors quickly abandon driving once they experience city traffic.
Conclusion: should you rent a car in Toronto?
No for the city — yes for Ontario beyond it.
Toronto’s public transport, walkability, and rail connections make a car unnecessary for city breaks. Renting only becomes worthwhile when you’re ready to explore outside the metropolitan area.
