While I was in Montreal, I used their public transit, Metro, quite a bit. Sure, I would walk from downtown to Old Montreal, back, and repeat, but I'd have to get there from my hotel and it's not like my time there wasn't limited. So Metro it was, and it wasn't bad at all.
It's quite weird-no, let me start over. It's quite sad to even think about comparing Toronto's TTC to anything except maybe hell, but I'm going to break down the major differences and similarities between both Metro and TTC. Let's start with the differences and similarities in the subway. When it comes to the subway, TTC just feels like the backbone of the problem with this city. While constantly getting deeper in dept and buying new machines only to not use them until many years from now, it's also very unorganized and you can find a delay somewhere, at pretty much any given time. It's a beautiful disaster. Metro's subway on the other hand, Not so much delays to tick you off and while their trains are far smaller than the TTC's (just a little bigger than SRT trains), they use the what limited space they have with far more efficiency. People don't seem to just walk into the train, stop, then look around and hesitate as to where they should sit, they just walk in to the train, find a place to stand or sit so that people behind them can do the same. 
The subway stations have many differences between the two cities. The stations at Montreal are built with around 3 different ways to get from one side of the platform to the other (i.e. east bound to west bound) in the same station (not including jumping off one platform and climb back up at the other side). In the Toronto's TTC stations, you got a narrow stairway and/or an escalator, averaging 1.5 different ways to get from one side to the other. The subway platforms themselves aren't too different in terms of size. However, the Metro provides benches that comes out of walls, which is classy and especially cost effective as it is just a few layers of brick attached the wall, while TTC makes one, puts it down on the floor, near the wall- not attached, and paints it. Followed by a repaint every now and then. Needless costs and takes up more room than it has to. 
The biggest difference between the two subway trains is actually the age of both technology. None of them are relatively new, in fact, both are running on old technology in terms of trains, but the Metro, gets a sure win from this one. And it's in the one of greatest inventions of mankind: wheels. More specifically, their train wheels are rubber wheels, much more closer to cars. This makes maintenance cheaper than TTC's traditional wheels, and while accelerating and stopping the trains wont rock the trains and the passengers all over the place. Best of all, no squeeking sounds. None. Your ears are spared there. If you ever took the subway in Toronto, between Museum and Union, you can't even hear yourself think due to the high pitched noise of metal grinding away at each other. That, I did not miss. And most likely never will. 
And it's not just in technology that makes their system better. It's also the people. The passengers seems to understand that traveling using the public transit shouldn't be comfortable, but be fast and efficient enough to get people from location A to B to minimize travel time. Simple as that. Passengers of TTC are quite the opposite. While they do want to go home after work, they don't want to be home quite fast enough, hence they walk into the train and stand and look around, while there are people behind them waiting to get into the train themselves. The train ends up departing later than it has to, and delays are slowly born, and quickly spreads on the subway lines. It just screams out in pain of the inefficiency from the TTC passengers. In order for any system to be effective, the users attitude will play a big role. And Torontonians just doesn't seem to want to get to their destination fast enough. Guess it really is about the journey, not the destination. 
Even Metro's passes are different. Or rather, more cost efficient. TTC's metropasses are made of cheap plastic materials and only comes at a luxurious price. I had the luxury of buying a 3-day pass over there at Montreal. For $16 (flat) it was a pretty good deal. The greatest thing is, like in most places in the world, it simply scans and not swipe. This means I put it in my wallet, scan it over the scanner, and I am free to enter their stations and buses while the pass, being a size of a business card made out of a small, tiny chip and paper, never leaves my wallet. And it hasn't until I came back and took it out to take a quick snap shot of it. Sure, TTC's day-passes are in forms of paper as well, which is good, but it's also about 3 times larger than a business card. It's hard to enter wallets at that point, not to mention it needs to taken out of the wallet for every use. I'm even getting a little depressed as I'm typing this. 
The buses on the other hand, aren't all that different. Very similar in terms of design. There isn't much I can say about the bus services as both services are in the mercy of actual traffic. I did notice the buses that I was on didn't have the automated voice messages announcing the next stop like the buses here in Toronto. I suppose no one tried to sue them because they generally knew where they were going and didn't feel like suing the system about it. Twice. 
To conclude, neither systems are perfect or anywhere near it. I've heard plenty of stories from a friend of mine who lives there regarding blunders Metro has made, some stories affecting even the safety of the passengers. And Metro itself covers less ground than TTC does so there are less rooms for errors. Although, it just doesn't seem like they're at a downward spiral with their problems like the TTC's as "fixing" most of TTC's 
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