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Originally Posted by someone123
If American cities invested so heavily in freeway construction, wouldn't that have come at the expense of transit, given a fixed level of infrastructure spending? Why compare Toronto's transit infrastructure to American cities after already establishing that its freeways are much more limited?
At the end of the day my impression is that Toronto has somewhat more limited overall transportation infrastructure compared to world cities of a similar size and level of wealth. It has neither a good road network (like US cities) nor a good transit system (like European cities). I'm not sure it's split 50/50 either. It's more like 25/25; one quarter of the freeways, one quarter of the subways, and half as much total heavy transportation infrastructure.
This isn't a criticism of Toronto specifically. I don't think that Canada invests enough in infrastructure, period. The fastest growing cities are the worst off because they have the fastest growing demand for infrastructure but the supply is going up slowly everywhere.
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Why did I compare Toronto to US cities? The model of development (especially post WWII) in Toronto is more similar to American cities than to European cities.
As for comparison to world metros, it's hard to classify Toronto. Considering Toronto has a metropolitan population of ~5.5m, it's not among the huge cities of the world - comparing it to metro systems in New York, London, Tokyo or Beijing is pretty unfair to Toronto.
Comparing it to the plethora of transit systems in China is unfair too. That sort of growth is what you'd expect from a centrally-planned government that doesn't have to deal with inconveniences like soliciting public input or citizen debate.
So, in comparison to European cities like Barcelona, Berlin and Oslo, Toronto fares rather poorly. However, those cities are more dense than the Greater Toronto Area though - building expensive transit lines to low-density suburbs is a recipe for disaster - look at Los Angeles. Then again, Los Angeles shows the limits of freeways as a primary mode of transport too.
In comparison to North American cities, Toronto does well. Other than the aforementioned Montreal Metro, Washington Metro and Chicago 'L', I can't really think of a city close to Toronto's population that has a more comprehensive transit system.
So, it's a classic Canadian story - not full-blown American-style 'freeways at all costs' mentality or European-style 'screw the cars, we'll build transit' view. I think the city gets a lot right. In the mythical world of infinite money, sure, we could spend more on infrastructure, but I think the value equation would break down if huge amounts of money was spent on either mode of transportation. The costs and destruction associated with the proposed freeway system in Toronto would have been monumental, but more subways like the Sheppard line wouldn't have fixed anything either.