Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
I mean, to be fair you are talking about cities over 10 times the typical Canadian city size. Sure, Toronto has really dropped the ball. But you aren't going to have 10 subway lines in a city of a million, no matter how dense it is.
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I'm not talking exclusively about Tokyo or Taipei. Kyoto has a population of 1.4M, approximately the same as Calgary. Their public transit system is lightyears beyond ours. It's not an issue of population size; it's one of deliberate choices and priorities US and Canadian society has made since the end of WWII. We've decided that the car is king and public transportation is for poor people, so we don't invest in it appropriately. If over 90% of Calgarians -- regardless of socioeconomic status -- used public transit as their primary form of getting around (as is the case in Hong Kong), you can be sure the system would be properly funded and more convenient.