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by tom_vidal 286 days ago
Just to get this straight… they built tunnels for people walking so they could continue to jam the streets aboveground full of cars?

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.

3 comments

No. They build tunnels so you can get to the subway without going outside when the weather is nasty. The first tunnels were built in the age horse.
cars are indeed a huge problem in Toronto (like most cities), but the tunnels are nice to have even when there are no cars outside. I used to live in a building directly connected to the subway and could, on rainy or very snowy or grossly cold mornings, get to work without ever being exposed to the elements.
While Toronto does have a lot of traffic, and certainly the suburbs are entirely car-centric... Toronto is ridiculously cold, snowy and icy in winter. Reducing cars on Yonge St (for example) wouldn't make winter go away.
I see you havent been to Winnipeg, montreal, calgary, ottawa etc...
Just because others have it worse does not mean things are not bad.
Other than during particular cold snaps or storms, Toronto is VERY far from "ridiculously cold, snowy and icy". Perhaps it's ridículosus compared to the tropics, but it's tepid compared to most of canada and much of Europe/Asia.
Winnipeg, Montreal and Calgary also have pedestrian tunnel networks, as do Edmonton and Halifax, for the same reason as Toronto -- terrible winters.

Perhaps Ottawa should get one?

My point was that Toronto's winters are not ridiculous, by any reasonable (Canada, Europe, etc) measure. Those cities have it vastly worse.

I forgot about Halifax's, and I lived there for a while long ago!