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Old 07-21-2010, 10:50 AM
 
701 posts, read 1,895,338 times
Reputation: 284

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I live in Toronto, Canada, and have visited or lived in various large other cities such as New York, Chicago, Philly, LA, London, Paris, Montreal, Vancouver, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong etc. And I am shocked by the lack of service in Toronto's rapid metro system.

First, with a city population of over 2.5 million (metro 5.1 million), Toronto has 2 complete subway lines (another two very short lines with a few stations only). It has a sheer 42 miles. Chicago with a similar population, has 107 miles. San Fran and DC both have over 100 miles as well. Toronto with 60% more people, ties with Philadephia.

Put distance aside, a monthly pass in Toronto is a whopping $121! New York city, with 26 subway lines, charges $89; Chicago $86. Keep in mind that a typical job would pay about 20-30% lower in Canada compared with the US.

Now let's talk about technology. Apparently Torontonians still live in the 1980's. There is no such thing as a fare card where you swipe the card at the entrance and the fare for your trip is automatically deducted. You have to go to the machine, or ticket collectors (who are paid $50K+ by sitting there by the way) to buy something called "tokens", some antique sort of coins the civilized world has abandoned for decades. So basically unless you pay $121 for TTC's pathetic service each month, everyday you need to carry a bunch of dime-sized tokens to go around. If for some reason, you need to make one more trip than originally planned, God bless you, unless you are close to a subway station, or a store that sells tokens, you are stranded with your $20 bills in the wallet. You can't purchase day pass or weekly pass on the machine or online either. You would need to go to a ticket collector in person. A real person will actually scratches your day pass to show the validity date.

Having been to many big cities, I haven't seen a single city in the developed world, or even developing world, which charges such outrageous fares to its residents, offer such pathetic services, and use such outdated technologies.

By the way, the subway also breaks down regularly, and the bus is never on time (the bus schedule is completely meaningless). And the bus drivers feel it is reasonable to pull the bus over so that he can go to buy a coffee and keep 30 passengers waiting in the bus for 20 minutes.

How do you rate your public transit? I would give the TTC a score of 40 out of 100.
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Old 07-21-2010, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
448 posts, read 532,689 times
Reputation: 168
Philly - 50 out of 100.

I just don't like taking the L. I would rather ride my bike to places or just walk depending on where I'm going and what for.
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Old 07-21-2010, 12:57 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,825,122 times
Reputation: 7752
For Houston I would rank the buses 2 out of 100 but the trains 85 out 100 because although the ridership is high there is only one line so overall I would rank Houston at about 55 out of 100
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Old 07-21-2010, 01:24 PM
 
701 posts, read 1,895,338 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove View Post
For Houston I would rank the buses 2 out of 100 but the trains 85 out 100 because although the ridership is high there is only one line so overall I would rank Houston at about 55 out of 100
LOL. at least it is cheap to own a car in Houston, isn't it?
Here is Toronto, you pay $200-$300 per MONTH just for insurance. What's in Houston, like $80?
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Old 07-21-2010, 01:45 PM
 
Location: NYC
7,305 posts, read 13,464,946 times
Reputation: 3714
Baltimore: 1 out of 100

Because that's the about how often one is on time when dependent upon it.
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Old 07-21-2010, 01:54 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,825,122 times
Reputation: 7752
Quote:
Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown View Post
Baltimore: 1 out of 100

Because that's the about how often one is on time when dependent upon it.
wait is 100 the high score or is it one? I may have my numbers totally switched.
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Old 07-21-2010, 05:14 PM
 
Location: On the Rails in Northern NJ
12,380 posts, read 26,782,631 times
Reputation: 4580
60 out of 100 for my state Transit / Rail network........could be better in Urban areas and connecting them....but the state plans on fixing that over the next 2 decades...
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Old 07-21-2010, 05:20 PM
 
Location: Fort Wayne/Las Vegas/Summit-Argo
245 posts, read 584,569 times
Reputation: 241
Poor.
The buses only run in areas that are easily accessible by walking.
And no train, nor a light rail.
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Old 07-21-2010, 07:14 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,364,617 times
Reputation: 35920
Excellent. The RTD covers a huge area. Light rail is coming along.

http://www.rtd-denver.com/
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Old 07-21-2010, 10:35 PM
 
Location: OUTTA SIGHT!
3,018 posts, read 3,554,081 times
Reputation: 1899
Poor here as well. Oh, say 25 out of 100.
Even though we have a (small) rail line it's very limited and they killed a lot of bus lines to fund it.
Bus lines that would've taken people to the 'light' rail.

Now they're noticing people aren't on the thing in the numbers they need.
Cap Metro studying commuter rail changes | kvue.com | KVUE News | Austin, TX | Breaking News

I would be if I could get to it in less time than it took to go downtown on my own.
I was already looking at an hour and a half to go 12 miles (on the regular bus line).

Austin has a real 'small town' vibe sometimes... and not in a good way.
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