Great Lakes Cities

[Crawford]

Montreal isn't super far from NYC and Boston, and is a popular leisure destination, but it's separated by pretty vast wilderness. This makes a big difference. It doesn't feel connected.

Adirondack Park is the size of three Yellowstones, and covers more than 20% of NY State. Basically north of Saratoga, you're in wilderness.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Montreal isn't super far from NYC and Boston, and is a popular leisure destination, but it's separated by pretty vast wilderness. This makes a big difference. It doesn't feel connected.

Adirondack Park is the size of three Yellowstones, and covers more than 20% of NY State. Basically north of Saratoga, you're in wilderness.

Definitely not connected, but still "somewhere over there" in the mindspace, as opposed to "yo, what's that?"

[Acajack]

BTW Ottawa is more Northeast than Great Lakes as well, though less dominantly so than Montreal as it's part of Ontario and has somewhat closer ties to Toronto which is the capital of the province it's in.

(Though of course Ottawa barely registers at all in the US NE. Except maybe for hockey fans and some politicos in DC.)

[Crawford]

Yeah, Ottawa is completely off the radar in the U.S. I'm sort of a geography nerd and still didn't realize until recently that it's so close to the U.S. border.

For some reason I imagined it further north, prolly bc relatives in Toronto only referenced Ottawa in terms of winter cold.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, Ottawa is completely off the radar in the U.S. I'm sort of a geography nerd and still didn't realize until recently that it's so close to the U.S. border.

For some reason I imagined it further north, prolly bc relatives in Toronto only referenced Ottawa in terms of winter cold.

Ottawa's southern suburbs are 45 minutes from the border. Though at the border you're in Ogdensburg NY. Not even Watertown.

Montreal's southern suburbs are a half-hour from the border. Plattsburgh NY is another half-hour after you cross.

Vancouver I think has suburban residents whose backyard property line is the border.

Toronto is some distance further away from the border, though.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Toronto is some distance further away from the border, though.

To a land border.

The overlake border is only about 16 miles offshore from Toronto.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

To a land border.

The overlake border is only about 16 miles offshore from Toronto.

Goode pointe!

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ottawa's southern suburbs are 45 minutes from the border. Though at the border you're in Ogdensburg NY. Not even Watertown.

That Ogdensburg bridge has to be the least busy border crossing in Southern Ontario apart from some random stuff like the ferries and the Whirlpool bridge (which is exclusive for Nexus users, I think).

On the NYS side, the access road from the bridge doesn't even have a traffic light. You'd have no idea you were 45 minutes away from a city of over a million.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

That Ogdensburg bridge has to be the least busy border crossing in Southern Ontario apart from some random stuff like the ferries and the Whirlpool bridge (which is exclusive for Nexus users, I think).

On the NYS side, the access road from the bridge doesn't even have a traffic light. You'd have no idea you were 45 minutes away from a city of over a million.

Yup, and it's actually a huge bridge: https://www.google.com/search?sca_es...ih=413&dpr=1.5

I sometimes use it when the border info websites say that the 1000 Islands crossing (leading directly to I-81) is all clogged up. But only if it's really bad as it's quite the detour.

[kool maudit]

Montreal isn't a "Northeast" city because that's a US-specific designator, but it has most in common with those ones on the basis of age. Basically, the cities where there was something there in 1700.

[kool maudit]

But also... come on, Seaboard bros. Ben Franklin lived there. Washington Irving lived there. Ethan Allen made a run at it. Under orders from George Washington, Montgomery landed at Pointe-Saint Charles to no opposition (Benedict Arnold went to Quebec), but its administration under a Connecticut Brigadier General went poorly. It's not Buffalo or Windsor, or Chicago for that matter. It was there for all that.

[iheartthed]

Sometimes we really do split hairs about what is northeast and not northeast lol.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ottawa's southern suburbs are 45 minutes from the border. Though at the border you're in Ogdensburg NY. Not even Watertown.

Montreal's southern suburbs are a half-hour from the border. Plattsburgh NY is another half-hour after you cross.

Vancouver I think has suburban residents whose backyard property line is the border.

Toronto is some distance further away from the border, though.

Montreal and Toronto are nearly the exact same distance from NYC, though. And, even though it's a water border, Toronto does border NYS too. But I do agree that Montreal is more historically analogous to the northeast U.S. port cities. The geographical distinction is more arbitrary than the historical relevance.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Sometimes we really do split hairs about what is northeast and not northeast lol.

.

Just to reassure you, no one up here considers or claims Montreal to be "Northeast".

Its region is "Quebec" and the broader geographic region it's in is "Central Canada", where Quebec and Ontario are siamese twins.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Montreal and Toronto are nearly the exact same distance from NYC, though. .

In terms of flight time, yes. In terms of driving time, NYC-Toronto is a good 2 hours more.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Just to reassure you, no one up here considers or claims Montreal to be "Northeast".

Its region is "Quebec" and the broader geographic region it's in is "Central Canada", where Quebec and Ontario are siamese twins.

Yeah, that was more of a broad observation. Before the 2000s it was "East Coast" vs not "East Coast", and I understood "northeast" to be a much broader category than the modern operating definition. Now people rarely say the "East Coast" anymore other than to talk about weather. But anyway, for Canada I think Toronto fits very neatly into the Great Lakes city bucket, while Montreal seems more "East Coast".

Originally Posted by Acajack

In terms of flight time, yes. In terms of driving time, NYC-Toronto is a good 2 hours more.

Yeah, because there's no direct interstate going northwest out of NYC. The quickest route to Buffalo and Toronto is to cut through NJ and PA, while I-87 takes you directly north from the city.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yup, and it's actually a huge bridge: https://www.google.com/search?sca_es...ih=413&dpr=1.5

I sometimes use it when the border info websites say that the 1000 Islands crossing (leading directly to I-81) is all clogged up. But only if it's really bad as it's quite the detour.

I don't know what drives the economy of Ogdensburg, NY, but back when the dollar was high, I'm surprised they didn't open an outlet mall to pick off a lot of Ottawans that would have otherwise headed to Watertown.

I get that Watertown is actually on the way to something, but it's also an hour further away from Ottawa.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, that was more of a broad observation. Before the 2000s it was "East Coast" vs not "East Coast", and I understood "northeast" to be a much broader category than the modern operating definition. Now people rarely say the "East Coast" anymore other than to talk about weather. But anyway, for Canada I think Toronto fits very neatly into the Great Lakes city bucket, while Montreal seems more "East Coast".



Yeah, because there's no direct interstate going northwest out of NYC. The quickest route to Buffalo and Toronto is to cut through NJ and PA, while I-87 takes you directly north from the city.

There is also a pretty big lake in the way.

Similarly, Ottawa is equidistant (compared to Montreal and Toronto) to NYC as well but it takes about an hour more to get there, also due to the absence of a direct route. So you have to go down to Scranton on I-81 and then across eastern PA and western NJ via I-80.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is also a pretty big lake in the way.

The lake isn't the biggest factor in the time difference. The indirect driving route to the Niagara River crossing adds over 100 miles to the distance of the trip from NYC to Toronto. The distance from the Niagara crossing to Toronto is roughly 80 miles. The drive to Montreal would still be faster even with a direct interstate to the Niagara border from NYC, but the indirect route to the border crossing accounts for over half of the difference between the drive time from NYC to either city.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

So you have to go down to Scranton on I-81 and then across eastern PA and western NJ via I-80.

That's the way I go to NYC from London. London to Niagara Falls to Buffalo to Syracuse to Binghamton, then on down the way you described.

[Velvet_Highground]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, that was more of a broad observation. Before the 2000s it was "East Coast" vs not "East Coast", and I understood "northeast" to be a much broader category than the modern operating definition. Now people rarely say the "East Coast" anymore other than to talk about weather. But anyway, for Canada I think Toronto fits very neatly into the Great Lakes city bucket, while Montreal seems more "East Coast".



Yeah, because there's no direct interstate going northwest out of NYC. The quickest route to Buffalo and Toronto is to cut through NJ and PA, while I-87 takes you directly north from the city.

I get where you’re coming from with Montreal modern day road and rail connections running by Lake Champlain to New York and Boston. However the Adirondack, Green & White mountains separate the developed lowlands and urban centers of the “interior coast” from their Atlantic counterparts.

The greater Appalachian Mountains are a natural buffer between the St Lawrence corridor and the northeastern corridor. The interior corridor can be broken up between the interior coast urban corridor running from Toronto around both sides of Lake Erie to the Detroit - Toledo area then proceeding to the Chicago - Milwaukee area. While the St Lawrence corridor running from The Montreal - Ottawa area to Quebec City is more connected into Toronto & Ontario it’s arguable that if the border wasn’t present then the split might be more 50/50.

The St Lawrence River and the southern Great Lakes are a natural path for human development into the interior of the North American Continent. I think it would be more apt to consider the two regions as cousins on opposite sides of the Appalachian Mountains with the upper Great Lakes region fully developed a bit later due to geographic and political factors.

The political split between British North America later Canada and the United States stunted growth on the upper lakes until the Erie Canal was built a single unified polity would have likely seen earlier development using the Niagara portage. Montreal is old city that’s had a long time to develop plugged into Atlantic trade and immigration giving it a feel more similar to the NE US, imo.