If you look at a map of Europe, Toronto's latitude is similar to Milan's. So most of Europe has more darkness in winter than Toronto.
I would argue the darkness in winter in Toronto is pretty average compared to most places in "the West". Its the winters that are nasty, although by Canadian standards not too bad. That tells you a lot of about Canada regarding winter weather.
Embrace the winter! skating, skiing, hiking, etc... Read more, cook more. etc..
I dont know how people ever settled there.
Some years they vacillate between -10C and 4C causing ice to melt to water and then refreeze, nature's jackhammer to any surface cracks in the asphalt road resulting in a city budget line item for "springtime pothole fixing".
Once in awhile, the temps will drop to below -20C for several days/weeks. Not as bad as midwest USA/Canadian prairies winters requiring a heater for your car engine block, but going outside is laborious and painful for long periods.
What it does get is vast seas of road snot a pedestrian has to wade through at every intersection. That alone is reason to stick to PATH between October and May.
:-O
Perhaps they were talking about Maple Leaf Gardens? It is a more substantial walk.
The portion of the PATH connecting Union Station to the ACC is a few hundred metres at most.
I can't see how anyone in Toronto would help people from Montreal enjoy a Habs win over the Leafs. :)
Torontonians call it the "ACC", (short for Air Canada Centre, before its current rebranding to Scotiabank Arena - Google Maps knows both). Also, it's "Skydome", not Rogers Centre. :)
Not sure how the Habs have lost their way in the past few years. First-pick of Quebec's hockey players helped a lot I guess.
In the winter the tunnels are amazing for commute.
[1] https://www.bougebouge.com/en/shop/events/5km-bougebouge-tor...
Plus, like any other person using the PATH, the runners got lost along the way.
see https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/torontos-underground-5k...
Japan's northernmost major city, Sapporo, has a very extensive one -- of those I've seen, it's the one that's most comparable to Toronto's.
The other Japanese tunnel/undercity complexes are mostly subterranean malls around subway stations. (This also applies to all of the ones in Hong Kong.) But Sapporo's is seriously huge.
I think the common denominator is that people would rather walk in a heated underground space when it gets cold.
Toronto's PATH doesn't have a central control or planning system. It is literally a series of 1-1 agreements between buildings that build tunnels under streets to connect themselves. The main benefit to each building is that they can charge retail rents in their basements for through traffic. The system map was terrible and even had a planned route prematurely showing a way to the Eaton centre from the south for a building that was left uncompleted for almost 30 years (work stopped in the early 1990s recession and was only finished right before COVID hit).
Avoiding the weather for commuters coming in on the subway and GO train (suburban commuter rail) was a nice benefit, though only very recently was Union station fully separated from the elements. The one problem with PATH is that the shops are completely targeted to 9-5 work commuters, particularly to finance workers; think coffee/business suits/lunch/etc. Though portrayed as a giant mall, almost all the shops are closed on weekends and don't stay open much into the evenings (Montreal's is more dynamic comparatively). COVID of course upended the business climate of the shops, too. Some newer condo towers have been connected and there is some very early signs of something more dynamic, but the towers seem to still be holding on to the idea they can charge pre-COVID rents. My personal opinion is they should be seeing this as a loss leader to convince people to want to come in 5 days a week (cheap, good lunches, etc).
Anyways, we'll see how it continues to evolve.
I am originally from California, and spent some time in Los Angeles as a student. The insane parking-lot wastelands and 8-lane gridlock eventually destroyed the livabilty of that city for everybody — even for people with cars (which, out of necessity, became mostly everybody).
It is nice for motorists, but it is useful even if there are no cars.
I was recently in Toronto and can see where I was on the map, but I had no idea there was anything underground nor any obvious big accesses to it etc.
In the Financial District, the various bank towers can be told apart by the colour of the marble and other stones they build with. For an underground walkway, some parts of it are really beautiful, other parts are just what you'd expect for an underground passage in a big city (especially those parts connected to the subway transit system).
It’s a big selling point for you to have a condo that can take you to the metro without needing to be in the cold.
He lived in a condo with a direct connection to the subway station, which he used to commute to his downtown job.
He was able to do all his errands at the businesses located in the PATH.
Though someone else has a solution, see https://www.blogto.com/city/2018/07/you-can-finally-navigate...
I had a solution that involved using scanning nearby WiFi APs as a kind of hash for your location (since GPS doesn't work for most of the PATH).
But Android has been locking down the WiFi scanning APIs, so that idea is a no-go. Plus the additional rules for developing Android apps in recent years isn't dev friendly.
Chicago also has an underground system ("the Pedway") that's also mall-ish, but it's in fairly crap condition. It's got incredible liminal vibes, but is not the most pleasant to exist in.
[1]: To be fair, a commenter did mention Minneapolis
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0219405/
Waydowntown (2000)
A group of young employees bet a month's salary, winner takes all, on who can last the longest without going outside.
It's been a long time (about 50 years), since I've been there, but it was one of the better memories, as a kid.
I hear that Montréal has a similar setup.
The +15 network is reasonably good but it seems to have stalled out 20-30 years ago.
I think that’s a secret to continued, healthy city development, especially in an era increasingly marked by climate change and a rejection of car culture: how far can a pedestrian safely go within a controlled environment (climate controlled or controlled access, like a park system) in a city? Whenever I look at rankings of cities, I notice a consistent trend where cities with these sorts of features consistently rank higher than those without, because to build and maintain them requires cooperation between stakeholders rather than competition, and cooperation is at the heart of a healthy community.
10 miles/16 km.
I've actually never been, but saw it featured in a CanCon movie, waydowntown, where a group of office workers wage a month's salary as to who can stay inside the longest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waydowntown
https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2022-07-02/kansas-city-underg...
I hope I live to see Philadelphia's infrastructure get rehydrated with some of that GDP it generates for the rest of the state, and region.
I love the commercial spaces in Tokyo’s underground subway/train network, which similarly are privately owned. It’s such a huge upgrade from the concourses in subway systems in the U.S.
Maybe if people can’t walk around your city efficiently because there are too many cars, it’s the cars themselves which are the problem.
mikrl•4h ago
Going overground is usually faster and easier to navigate, buts impressive how far you can go underground.
One of these days I’ll need to try an extreme point hike.