How did Canada become more culturally public transit than the US?

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by softee

The Greater Toronto-Hamilton area (GTHA) is well past 7.5 million now, it might be around 8 million by the 2026 census.

I mean the US also has 8x the population of Canada - it should be expected to have more and larger cities.

Canada for a country it's size (40 million) has a lot of very large cities. Even Countries like the UK and France, with 50-70% more people than Canada, don't have more than a handful of very large cities. Canada has Toronto at 7.5 million, Montreal quickly approaching 5, Vancouver at 3, then 3 more cities in the 1.5-2 million range. The UK has, what, London at 9 million, then Birmingham at 2.5, Manchester at 2, and Leeds at 1.5?

[nec209]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think his point was that the freeways in the U.S. were built into the hearts of cities but that didn't happen in Canada. The interstates were not supposed to go into cities in the U.S. either but mayors wanted access to all of the money that the feds were pouring into the interstate highway project.

The greater Vancouver area can’t sprawl out because of farmland and in the greater Toronto area can’t sprawl out because of the green belts so they are building more dense.

The question in the 50s and 60s where they talking about sprawl and if that was the reason they built more dense and did not want these freeways.

[mhays]

Vancouver is also because of greenbelts. They could pave that farmland if they wanted to.

[nito]

I think Anglophone countries tend to possess more individualistic traits, which is reflected in the legal code and then on subsequent urban development. But there are certainly divergencies, not just in use of public transport, but active travel (walking and cycling).

I’m not sure that being a resident of a 1mn+ metro provides clarity as to why one city has better/more heavily utilised transit infrastructure than another. I would have thought density would play a part, but going by citydensity.com (a very cool website, and worth playing around with), North American cities tend to drop off quite quickly in a rather uniform fashion. It’s also not like Canadian cities were immune from building large capacity roads through the core (e.g. Boulevard Ville-Marie in Montral and the Garnier Expressway in Toronto).

I would hazard a guess that the fundamental difference between American and Canadian cities is that the street environment is slightly less hostile, which makes accessing public transit less daunting. There could also be greater integration with other transit modes, as well as a service offering that is more comprehensive and of a higher quality.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I mean the US also has 8x the population of Canada - it should be expected to have more and larger cities.

Canada for a country it's size (40 million) has a lot of very large cities. Even Countries like the UK and France, with 50-70% more people than Canada, don't have more than a handful of very large cities. Canada has Toronto at 7.5 million, Montreal quickly approaching 5, Vancouver at 3, then 3 more cities in the 1.5-2 million range. The UK has, what, London at 9 million, then Birmingham at 2.5, Manchester at 2, and Leeds at 1.5?

Part of that is down to the liberal interpretation of what a city/urban area/metro is in North America and the lack of anti-sprawl measures. In contrast to Europe where there is a prevalence of tightly formed independent urban clusters and high-capacity regional rail networks. It’s why ‘large’ North American cities can come across as less active than ‘smaller’ European cities which are less diluted and have better connectivity over a wider area.

Originally Posted by Crawford

This is true in all of Europe.

Britain still has no real HSR, they haven't electrified most of the main lines, grade separation is rare, etc. They're a relative laggard. Paris is building 120 miles of new subway while London has a epic celebration for a crosstown line where equivalents were built on the Continent 50-60 years ago. Munich and all the big German cities had Crossrail equivalents by about 1970.

I think the UK rail market occupies a space somewhere in-between other Anglophone countries and that of other European countries. The UK certainly falls short in certain areas (e.g. the number of metro and tram networks across smaller urban areas) and it does have less electrification (40%, compared to 55% for France and Germany).

That said, there does tend to be a tendency towards turn-up-and-go frequencies (e.g. pre-pandemic there were 6tph from Birmingham and 5tph from Manchester at rush-hour into London) that aren’t common on the continent, and partly explains why the UK intercity network moves more people than its German and French peers. Another example, LNER which operates on the East Coast Main Line moves more people than the entire Spanish AVE HSR network which spans 4,000km. This of course underlines the critical need for HS2.

Crossrail technically wasn’t the first crosstown line in London, that was unintentionally the Metropolitan Line (opened 161-years ago), and more recently, Thameslink as well, but I’d agree that London probably needs several other cross-town lines, and a host of tram and metro networks across the country. Particularly in the context of a booming population in such a confined geographic area.

[Crawford]

Looking at the 2023 data, the Staten Island Ferry, a single ferry route, one of dozens in NY harbor, carried more passengers than the entire rail systems in Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

The U.S. is just a crazy outlier. Except for a few locales, we're total autotopia.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Looking at the 2023 data, the Staten Island Ferry, a single ferry route, one of dozens in NY harbor, carried more passengers than the entire rail systems in Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

The U.S. is just a crazy outlier. Except for a few locales, we're total autotopia.

You're not wrong, but we should acknowledge that US transit systems had higher ridership across the board before COVID. NYC public transit ridership recovered more quickly and has held up better than most other US cities.

[nec209]

Does Canada protect green belts more so than the US or does the US lack lot of green belts in lot of cities? What cities in the US have a lot of green belts?

I hear greater Toronto area can’t sprawl out any more because of the green belts and the same with Vancouver the farms limiting sprawl.

Is farmland less of heated debate in the US than Canada. I read comments on other message board Canadians attacking urban sprawl eating up farmland in Canada. In the US is the attitude different? Is that because more of the US land is ripe for farmland than Canada if 80% of the land in Canada is not ripe for farmland.

[mhays]

The major US West Coast states/counties/cities all have protections against sprawl. They vary quite a bit in how tightly the lines are drawn, what can be built outside them, and what can be built inside them. They also vary in how recently the limits were established, hence a lot of sprawl in previous decades.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by nec209

Does Canada protect green belts more so than the US or does the US lack lot of green belts in lot of cities? What cities in the US have a lot of green belts?

I'll leave the U.S. side of the equation to folks like MHays who can speak to it more authoritatively than I.

There are 'green belts' and/or 'agricultural preserves' that limit sprawl in some measure, in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Other cities may have other forms of limitation, based on servicing, regulatory floodplains or the like as well.

I hear greater Toronto area can’t sprawl out any more because of the green belts and the same with Vancouver the farms limiting sprawl.

This is Toronto Greenbelt map.

https://ontario-mma.maps.arcgis.com/...a8d5e25b5fd62e

Its an overlay of 'The Greenbelt'; The Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment which all limit development.

The grey area south of (below) the green on the Lake Ontario side is mostly built out, but some of the northern fringe is still farmland zoned for development.

However, the area north of the Greenbelt up to Lake Simcoe (in grey) continues to see some ongoing sprawl.

Beyond these types of protections, the Ontario government imposes minimum population density targets on municipalities which tends to have the effect of making newer development a bit more compact.

Economics also drive this with Toronto housing prices have skyrocketed the last few years, few people are in position to buy a home a 1/4 acre lot. So you get smaller lots and more townhomes and midrise mixed in to things.

Is farmland less of heated debate in the US than Canada. I read comments on other message board Canadians attacking urban sprawl eating up farmland in Canada. In the US is the attitude different? Is that because more of the US land is ripe for farmland than Canada if 80% of the land in Canada is not ripe for farmland.

Again, I can't speak to the U.S. side much, in respect of Ontario, commutes are long in Toronto, and jobs tend to be concentrated to a greater degree than in many U.S. centres.

People want to preserve farmland, they also want to preserve access to nature and to keep their commute's sane.

In Ontario the southern part of the province is lined w/some of the best quality farm land on the continent. But this is also the same area that is the most populated, and dense in the country. So there is a need to regulate that interaction.

You don't tend to see as much emphasis on that in Canada's prairie provinces, where population overall is much lower,and the amount of farmland higher.

[isaidso]

In regards to prevalence of PT, population densities do matter. Policies to curb sprawl and encourage brownfield development increase population density. In 2023, Canadian Urban Area population densities were closer to that of European countries than the United States and Australia. I doubt this was the case a few generations ago. Due to rapid population growth and intensification efforts, Canadian Urban Areas could become denser than German, Italian, and French in the next 15 years. Data can be helpful so I will post some. Demographia publish tables for Urban Areas of 500,000+.


2023 Population Density of Urban Areas
(Number of 500,000+ Urban Areas in brackets)

France (8): 2,972 people/km2
Italy (9): 2,946 people/km2
Germany (14): 2,827 people/km2
Canada (9): 2,490 people/km2
Australia (5): 1,550 people/km2
United States (70): 1,220 people/km2


http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by isaidso

In regards to prevalence of PT, population densities do matter. Policies to curb sprawl and encourage brownfield development increase population density. In 2023, Canadian Urban Area population densities were closer to that of European countries than the United States and Australia. I doubt this was the case a few generations ago. Due to rapid population growth and intensification efforts, Canadian Urban Areas could become denser than German, Italian, and French in the next 15 years. Data can be helpful so I will post some. Demographia publish tables for Urban Areas of 500,000+.


2023 Population Density of Urban Areas
(Number of 500,000+ Urban Areas in brackets)

France (8): 2,972 people/km2
Italy (9): 2,946 people/km2
Germany (14): 2,827 people/km2
Canada (9): 2,490 people/km2
Australia (5): 1,550 people/km2
United States (70): 1,220 people/km2


http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf

The U.S. has far more urban areas of +500k than any of those other countries. The U.S. probably has more 500k urban areas than all of those countries combined.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I mean the US also has 8x the population of Canada - it should be expected to have more and larger cities.

Canada for a country it's size (40 million) has a lot of very large cities. Even Countries like the UK and France, with 50-70% more people than Canada, don't have more than a handful of very large cities. Canada has Toronto at 7.5 million, Montreal quickly approaching 5, Vancouver at 3, then 3 more cities in the 1.5-2 million range. The UK has, what, London at 9 million, then Birmingham at 2.5, Manchester at 2, and Leeds at 1.5?

You're comparing metro areas in Canada with municipalities in Britain. London has 14 million people, Manchester and Birmingham 3 million, Leeds and Liverpool 2 million: http://citypopulation.de/en/uk/agglo/

And that's urban area. By urban areas, in Canada, we would have 6.7 million for Toronto (incl. Hamilton and Oshawa), 3.7 million for Montreal and 2.4 million for Vancouver.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Yuri

You're comparing metro areas in Canada with municipalities in Britain. London has 14 million people, Manchester and Birmingham 3 million, Leeds and Liverpool 2 million: http://citypopulation.de/en/uk/agglo/

And that's urban area. By urban areas, in Canada, we would have 6.7 million for Toronto (incl. Hamilton and Oshawa), 3.7 million for Montreal and 2.4 million for Vancouver.

I was going off the wiki page, which I admit is 2011 numbers. The UK doesn't really have crazy high population growth though so I don't imagine the numbers have changed massively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...United_Kingdom

Canadian CMAs have also exploded in the last 2 years with Canada's population boom, they are larger than the figures you are posting. Latest estimates we have is still 2022, so the numbers are even larger than this, but:

1. Toronto - 6.7 (excluding Hamilton/Oshawa), 7.9 million including Hamilton / Oshawa
2. Montreal - 4.4 million
3. Vancouver - 2.8 million

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think the biggest minority group in Canada was indigenous until the 20th century. Canada treated indigenous people horribly, and the treatment of Canadian "aboriginals" rivals a lot of what was done to Black Americans post slavery.

The US had a large indigenous population as well. I'm sure you are aware of what happened with that?? Did I mention Japanese internment camps and the hostile treatment of the Chinese during the railroad boom. In addition black American's escaped to Canada via the underground railroad for a reason.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

The US had a large indigenous population as well. I'm sure you are aware of what happened with that?? Did I mention Japanese internment camps and the hostile treatment of the Chinese during the railroad boom. In addition black American's escaped to Canada via the underground railroad for a reason.

Your point?

[LuluBobo]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think the biggest minority group in Canada was indigenous until the 20th century. Canada treated indigenous people horribly, and the treatment of Canadian "aboriginals" rivals a lot of what was done to Black Americans post slavery.

Indigenous Canadians were likely still the largest minority group in Canada until the 21st century.

Today, it is the fourth largest racial group in Canada. From the 2021 Census

White: 69.8%
South Asian: 7.1%
East Asian: 5.6%
Indigenous: 5.0%
Black: 4.3%
SE Asian: 3.7%
West Asian: 2.9%
Latin America: 1.6%

With the explosion in Chinese and Indian immigration post-2000, it was likely between 2001 and 2006 Indigenous was overtaken as second largest group.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

The US had a large indigenous population as well.

No, it didn't. Mexico, the rest of Central America, and what is now Brazil had very large native populations. North America was almost completely empty by comparison.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

No, it didn't. Mexico, the rest of Central America, and what is now Brazil had very large native populations. North America was almost completely empty by comparison.

even if that general dispersement was true i mean really how could you say empty with any certainty when estimates range wildly from 8-112M? basically no one really knows. most guesses are in the 50M range for all of the americas, which is similar to estimates for all of europe at the time. all you can say with certainty is its really one of the most unclear mysteries in archeology.

then you have the spanish giving natives the disease riddled blankets and the like, which other euros later took up the habit of doing. no question that killed millions instantly. and who knows what the vikings and polynesians gave them earlier? oh, and the vd the natives gave back to the euros in return doesn’t quite make up for this, does it?

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The U.S. has far more urban areas of +500k than any of those other countries. The U.S. probably has more 500k urban areas than all of those countries combined.

Yes, 70 vs 45. Perhaps you missed it but I listed the number in brackets for each country.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

No, it didn't. Mexico, the rest of Central America, and what is now Brazil had very large native populations. North America was almost completely empty by comparison.

While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus, estimates range from 3.8 million, as mentioned above, to 7 million people to a high of 18 million. The population of what is now the United States was nearly 2 million.

Not exactly empty.

The population of the United Kingdom in 1500 was 3 million.