Canada has rough winters, and the salt and sand increase the wear and tear on vehicles (so you have to service and replace them more often).

Plus, Austria has a population density of 104/km^2. Canada has a population density of 3/km^2. (Obviously, this varies from town to town -- Toronto is far more dense than, say, Waterloo.) I imagine Innisfil is likely mostly detached houses, and very road-centric.

also, isn't Vienna like 1€ per day if you buy yearly pass? i think Prague is even cheaper, so 3-5$ per ride sound extremely expensive

Yes, 365€/y is true for Vienna.

Also, Vienna is a much larger city than the small Innisfil and economies of scale matter a lot.

Here in Luxembourg you pay

- 70€ for an 25km ride (Jan 17)

- 30€ around midnight for 9km (Some time in 2015)

In the more recent case I checked various companies, including French ones from across the border.

Public transport has to cover people with low income though, and just omitting buses altogether would suck a lot if a bus ride was only half the price. If it's the same pricetag, then I get how they came to this decision, from an economic viewpoint; from an environmental and city development viewpoint, putting a town of 36k citizens in taxis is surely suboptimal.

Extra stops could be solved if drivers knew ahead of time who was at what bus stop - of course, saving time this way means you can't have a schedule anymore.