Orienting Yourself in Sainte-Foy
Sainte-Foy sits just west of central Québec City and is home to two of the area's most important transport hubs: the Gare de Sainte-Foy train station and an intercity bus terminal. For a visitor, that makes Sainte-Foy less a sightseeing district than a gateway — a place where you can arrive by train or coach and then connect onward into Québec City and Old Québec. The local transit authority for the whole area is the Réseau de transport de la Capitale (RTC), and almost everything below runs through it.
How Visitors Get Around
Getting around Sainte-Foy and the wider Québec City area is done mainly by public bus, taxi, or ride-hailing, with walking filling in the gaps around the hotel and commercial strips. There is no metro or tram network to plan around — the RTC's system is bus-based, and it is built around a set of high-frequency routes that link the major hubs. If you are staying along Boulevard Laurier or Avenue des Hôtels, you are within a short taxi ride of the Sainte-Foy train station and well placed for the bus routes that run downtown.
Rail: Arriving and Departing by Train
VIA Rail Canada operates the trains serving this area, and Sainte-Foy has its own station, the Gare de Sainte-Foy, at 3255 Chemin de la Gare. It is a stop on the corridor route between Québec City and Ottawa, which also calls at Drummondville, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Lambert, Montreal, Dorval, and Alexandria, with multiple trains a day over the full route. The same route also serves the Gare du Palais in Québec City itself.
The Gare de Sainte-Foy is also a stop on The Ocean, the Halifax–Montreal service, which runs a few evenings per week and calls at Moncton along the way. Note that for The Ocean trains, a shuttle links the Sainte-Foy station with the Gare du Palais in Québec City, and that shuttle must be reserved in advance — worth arranging when you book rather than on the day.
For practical purposes, think of the two stations as a pair: Gare du Palais puts you in Old Québec near the old port, while Gare de Sainte-Foy puts you west of the centre. Which one suits you depends on where you are staying, and the RTC buses connect the Sainte-Foy station to downtown.
Buses and Public Transport
The RTC is the local public transit system, and it is the backbone of visitor movement in Sainte-Foy. Two routes matter most if you are coming or going by air, and both are useful for reaching downtown:
- Route 76 runs between the airport and the bus and train stations in Sainte-Foy, and also serves the heart of Sainte-Foy. It connects with the high-frequency routes 800 and 801 toward downtown Québec City. Departures are roughly every 30 minutes, seven days a week, with service from the airport starting early in the morning and running until late evening.
- Route 80 runs between the airport and Saint-Roch in Basse-Ville, west of the Old City, via the Les Saules terminus. It also connects with the high-frequency routes 800 and 801 toward downtown, and runs seven days a week at roughly 30-minute intervals, departing the airport from early morning until late evening.
Both routes stop at the airport site. The high-frequency 800 and 801 routes are the ones to remember for onward travel: they serve the Sainte-Foy bus terminal at 3001 Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois, and they also serve the Gare du Palais train station and bus terminal in Old Québec, alongside route 1.
On fares, expect a single RTC ticket to cost a few dollars — one ticket bought from the RTC machine at the airport costs $3.10, and the fare quoted for the airport route is $4.00 in exact change. Rather than chasing the exact figure, the useful thing to know is that you can buy a ticket from an automatic RTC vending machine in the airport terminal, located across from the airlines' check-in counters; the door next to the machine leads out to the RTC bus stop. The machine accepts VISA, MasterCard, Interac Flash, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, so you do not need to hunt for coins before you board. For route and schedule questions, the RTC can be reached at 418-627-2511.
Intercity Buses
Sainte-Foy has its own intercity bus terminal at 3001 chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois, easily reached by city transit and served by RTC routes 800 and 801. Several operators call at Sainte-Foy on their way to and from Québec City, including Autobus A1 on its Thetford Mines route and Autobus La Québécoise on its Sherbrooke services. If you are arriving by coach from elsewhere in Quebec, check whether your service stops in Sainte-Foy or at the Gare du Palais terminal in Old Québec — the two are in quite different parts of the city.
Taxis and Ride-Hailing
Taxis are readily available, and in Sainte-Foy the local company is Taxi Coop Sainte-Foy-Sillery (418-653-7777). Other operators covering the area include Taxi Coop Québec (418-525-5191), Taxi Laurier (418-651-2727), and Tibi Taxi (418-476-8483). Uber also operates in Québec, so ride-hailing is an option alongside traditional cabs.
For airport transfers specifically, a flat fare applies between the airport and the city centre, which takes the guesswork out of the meter. The Gare de Sainte-Foy is also only about a five-minute taxi ride from the hotels along Boulevard Laurier and Avenue des Hôtels, making a cab a reasonable choice if you arrive by train with luggage.
Walking
Walking works well for short, local trips — between your hotel and nearby restaurants or shops, or from a Boulevard Laurier hotel to the station. It is less practical as a way to cover the ground between Sainte-Foy and central Québec City, which is why the bus routes and taxis matter. If your destination is Old Québec, note that motorcycles are not allowed inside the walls of Old Québec unless the rider has a hotel reservation inside the walls; on foot you have no such restriction, and the area is best explored walking once you get there.
Getting from the Airport into the City
Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB) is the main airport for the area, served by Air Canada, Air Inuit, Air Transat, American, Delta, Porter, Sunwing, United, and WestJet, among others. It sits roughly 15 km from downtown, and you have three realistic ways into the city:
- RTC bus route 76 — connects the airport to the bus and train stations in Sainte-Foy and the heart of Sainte-Foy in under 30 minutes, with connections to downtown and Old Québec via the high-frequency 800 and 801 routes.
- RTC bus route 80 — connects the airport to downtown Québec City (Saint-Roch) via the Les Saules terminus, with connections to Old Québec and the Convention Centre.
- Taxi — a flat fare applies between the airport and the city centre, so you know the price before you get in.
Buy your bus ticket at the RTC vending machine in the terminal, across from the check-in counters, and exit through the door beside it to reach the stop. If you are heading to Sainte-Foy itself rather than downtown, route 76 is the direct choice; if you want Old Québec or the Convention Centre, route 80 or a connection onto the 800/801 will get you there.
Crossing to Lévis
One extra option worth knowing about is the Québec–Lévis ferry, which runs seven days a week, all year round, sailing on the hour and half-hour during the day and hourly at night. It is a pleasant way to cross the river and a useful link if your plans take you to the south shore.