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What's matter in GDP is jobs. Inhabitants don't produce GDP, jobs do.
That's why GDP per capita of urban centers are often overvalued because they don't take account of the massive flow of people who commute to the city.
Washington DC is in this case.
Washington DC is a place of a lot highly productive jobs (office) and a small population.
Most of its workers live in suburbs.
One of the biggest issues with US and in a lesser degree Canadian cities is their style of development.
Cities around the world are compact, designed to be pedestrian friendly, with an availability of services that allow for communities to walk and access assets, since people live in proximity friendships develop and a community is created.
In US and Canada cities are car oriented, you have to drive to a generic big box store to be able to buy anything, not only that, the isolation leads to lack of community, loneliness, mental health issues, the dependency on vehicles lead to obesity.
There are millions in North America who work online, shop online, only interact with the world online, it is tragic and one of the reasons behind north American epidemic of drugs, obesity, and mental health issues.
It would be nice if Toronto's metro system were already bigger than it is, though even as it is now, it'd probably rank among the top ten within Europe for ridership. The big leg up a lot of European cities have though is that their commuter rail systems are S-Bahn/RER sorts of things where each branch is fairly frequent throughout the day and where multiple branches converge into a single line, especially in the dense urban core, they end up taking on the role of rapid transit. That's something all 6 of the NA cities listed would greatly benefit from implementing.
But that's mostly due to the sheer size of the Toronto area. If Toronto were in Europe it would be a top-5 metro area. Only the real biggies in Europe are larger than Toronto at this point.
Toronto's transit system (especially the rail-based offerings) is arguably sub-par for a city of its size, and definitely so by European standards.
Though as UrbanLuis and others are saying it's under expansion and will be much better in the near future.
Too suburban and the downtown is largely this very artificial recollection of shinny 21th century skyscrapers making the city feel pretty sterile. There are a few cool old buildings that managed to escape being demolished here and there but they are overpowered by the shinny skyscrapers that have replaced historical buildings, currently serving as abandoned office buildings in the era of work from home and COVID.
They really need better suburban trains, most suburbs need a downtown of their own.
It is nothing like the RER or S-Bahn you mention where these massive modern trains take people around.
I dislike the very suburban parts of the GTA, too, but Toronto's core urban area is quite large and vibrant and does compare favorably to some of the cities mentioned on the list. The large expanses of suburbs is part of all of the NA cities the OP mentioned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UrbanLuis
It's working on it.
I agree. Toronto is definitely working on it. The lines will run more frequently, go faster and have more stops when the upgrades are complete. The Go Transit commuter train currently has a ridership of almost a quarter of a million people daily. It connects the suburbs and beyond. Torontos transit system will greatly improve/increase this decade.
One thing I'm unclear on is whether Go Transit's commuter rail plans include through-running in Union Station and combining the lines west and east of the station.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
But that's mostly due to the sheer size of the Toronto area. If Toronto were in Europe it would be a top-5 metro area. Only the real biggies in Europe are larger than Toronto at this point.
Toronto's transit system (especially the rail-based offerings) is arguably sub-par for a city of its size, and definitely so by European standards.
Though as UrbanLuis and others are saying it's under expansion and will be much better in the near future.
It is part of the sheer population size of the area, but it's obviously not just that because you can turn south of the border and see oodles of urban areas of similar size that have much, much lower ridership.
Toronto's transit system is somewhat subpar compared to European metropolitan areas of similar size, but it's not its rapid transit system that's the issue (its rapid transit system would be kind of middling, not great, not terrible) rather it is its commuter rail system not quite operating to the same high standards.
Yes, Toronto would be a top metro area in Europe, though I'm not sure about top 5 since this isn't just the EU or European countries within OECD or some such with the inclusion of Moscow. Definitely at least top 10 though.
One thing I'm unclear on is whether Go Transit's commuter rail plans include through-running in Union Station and combining the lines west and east of the station.
Not sure what you mean by "through-running". Not sure if the lines will be combined, but the east and west lake shore lines will be the first to be upgraded.
Not sure what you mean by "through-running". Not sure if the lines will be combined, but the east and west lake shore lines will be the first to be upgraded.
Through-running is where a train going into a station from one direction goes out through the other instead of going into a terminal berth and then reversing back out. A lot of the European cities (and a lot of East Asian cities as well) have their commuter rail lines go through the urban core rather than terminating and reversing. This gives more operational capacity for the amount of space used as you don't need terminal berths for each train to reverse through nor a massive interlocking to help trains quickly negotiate between inbound and outbound trains. It also means fewer transfers for anyone doing a neighborhood to neighborhood trip where neither the origin and destination are in the urban core, often downtown, station. The US by contrast still mostly use terminal stations in their urban cores unfortunately.
It would be nice if Toronto's metro system were already bigger than it is, though even as it is now, it'd probably rank among the top ten within Europe for ridership. The big leg up a lot of European cities have though is that their commuter rail systems are S-Bahn/RER sorts of things where each branch is fairly frequent throughout the day and where multiple branches converge into a single line, especially in the dense urban core, they end up taking on the role of rapid transit. That's something all 6 of the NA cities listed would greatly benefit from implementing.
More like in the top 20.
Moscow metro : 2,560.7 million
Paris metro : 1,497.7 million (big strike in the end of 2019, 1,559 million in 2018)
London underground : 1,337 million
Saint Petersburg Metro : 762.5 million
Madrid Metro : 677.5 million
Berlin U-Bahn : 596 million
Kyiv Metro : 495.3 million
Vienna U-Bahn : 459.8 million
Prague Metro : 440.5 million
Munich U-Bahn : 429 million
Barcelona Metro : 411.9 million
Milan Metro : 386.8 million
Stockholm Metro : 355 million
Budapest Metro : 354.0 million
Rome Metro : 320 million
Minsk Metro : 293.7 million
Athens Metro : 259.2 million
Hamburg U-Bahn : 249.5 million
Toronto : 231,7 million
(Note APTA ridership data count twice people who transfer between lines ).
Moscow metro : 2,560.7 million
Paris metro : 1,497.7 million (big strike in the end of 2019, 1,559 million in 2018)
London underground : 1,337 million
Saint Petersburg Metro : 762.5 million
Madrid Metro : 677.5 million
Berlin U-Bahn : 596 million
Kyiv Metro : 495.3 million
Vienna U-Bahn : 459.8 million
Prague Metro : 440.5 million
Munich U-Bahn : 429 million
Barcelona Metro : 411.9 million
Milan Metro : 386.8 million
Stockholm Metro : 355 million
Budapest Metro : 354.0 million
Rome Metro : 320 million
Minsk Metro : 293.7 million
Athens Metro : 259.2 million
Hamburg U-Bahn : 249.5 million
Toronto : 231,7 million
(Note APTA ridership data count twice people who transfer between lines ).
Interesting that Toronto in population is bigger than the majority of those cities.
Only Moscow-Paris-London are truly larger, and Madrid is about the same size.
I'd argue that apples-to-apples Toronto is slightly bigger than St. Petersburg, Berlin and Milan, for example.
Toronto would be indeed be pretty huge by euro standards. But yeah, only 2 metro lines ? you gotta be kidding me. I'm interested to see their future public transportation developments.
Toronto would be indeed be pretty huge by euro standards. But yeah, only 2 metro lines ? you gotta be kidding me. I'm interested to see their future public transportation developments.
Toronto currently has 4 metro lines.
Last edited by UrbanLuis; 03-09-2021 at 10:41 AM..
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