Toronto Amenities

Can we talk about amenities ? Can we ? Okay.

In the strictest of senses, I'm not sure if public transportation is classified under 'amenities', but I do it anyway. It's one of my pet pissoffs with this so-called city.

I cannot think of any other large North American city with such a poor system of public transportation. Coverage of the subway system (two whole lines, woo hoo !) is laughable for a city of this size. Subway service is supplemented by bus service and, in the downtown core, streetcars. On major streets the bus service is adequate (you can take the subway/bus combination to get around the city pretty quickly), but heaven help you if you're travelling after rush hour, or to anywhere outside of the well-serviced downtown core, or some combination of these.

Now I'm not bitter because I'm a spoiled New Yorker used to a real subway system. It's just plain to see that Toronto cannot become a world-class city without a good transportation network. Um, not that I have such high hopes for this dunghole, though.

Moving on ! What is there to do here ? From a touristy point-of-view (sightseeing, attractions, etc.), not much. And that's assuming that you visit during the two-and-a-half months of summer that Canada kindly offers. You hit the CN Tower, visit the Harborfront and see the island thingies, take the daytrip out to Niagara Falls and the tacky carny town that has grown like some insidious weed around it, hit a few comedy shows (Toronto jazz and comedy can actually be worth seeing, in the right spots), and unless you fancy drinking yourself silly in one of the many pubs (another thing 'right' about Toronto, thank God for small mercies) you've pretty much done it all.

Leave the Toronto equivalent of Broadway (local talent, Broadway shows) to the locals - you want to see Broadway, freakin' go to Broadway.

The coolest summer tourist attraction is probably the streetlife and shopping along Queen Street and similar 'hip' streets.

In short, if you weren't born in this city, there's not a whole lot (other than people/relationships) to keep you here. Toronto Has No Soul.

In contrast, I still read NYC newspapers every day because I have an intimate attachment to the city, one that grows rather than diminishes over time.

John Updike on New York:
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that anyone living anywhere else must somehow, in a sense, be kidding."