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Dichotomy said:
If taken purely from the perspective of transit, then I suppose you have a point, but then with just over 1 million souls in the greater city, how could you expect Vancouver to have an amazing transit system? This is also a city that has no highways to speak of either.
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Actually, Greater Vancouver has just over 2 million souls. While the City of Vancouver doesn't have highways the GVRD most certainly does! What is Highway 1 coming into the region?

On the transit side, Calgary, a city of half the population of Greater Vancouver has an LRT system that has more riders than Vancouver's skytrain. While Vancouver is more compact than Calgary, it proves that residential density alone does not contribute to high transit ridership (although Calgary is aggressively pursuing and building TODs on its LRT system). Calgary, which has the least employment sprawl of any city in Canada) is able to have high ridership because of its concentrated downtown while lots of employment in Vancouver has fled to places like Richmond and Burnaby. Even though Vancouver is not a big head office city, I think it should try and cultivate more employment in its downtown ins some form.

On the other hand, Vancouver offers its own unique brand of urbanism that, whether many people outside of it may not like, people there unquestionably love it. To each their own.
 
Bertie Wooster said:
Actually, Greater Vancouver has just over 2 million souls. While the City of Vancouver doesn't have highways the GVRD most certainly does! What is Highway 1 coming into the region?

On the transit side, Calgary, a city of half the population of Greater Vancouver has an LRT system that has more riders than Vancouver's skytrain. While Vancouver is more compact than Calgary, it proves that residential density alone does not contribute to high transit ridership (although Calgary is aggressively pursuing and building TODs on its LRT system). Calgary, which has the least employment sprawl of any city in Canada) is able to have high ridership because of its concentrated downtown while lots of employment in Vancouver has fled to places like Richmond and Burnaby. Even though Vancouver is not a big head office city, I think it should try and cultivate more employment in its downtown ins some form.

On the other hand, Vancouver offers its own unique brand of urbanism that, whether many people outside of it may not like, people there unquestionably love it. To each their own.
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Compare highway 1 through Vancouver to the exact same highway through Calgary. No comparison. Toronto had 2 million in the greater area when the 401 was built. Vancouver has not planned for that. You can gets about as far as New Westminister, then you're f$%ked.

Still, my point was that despite not having any highways IN THE CITY, it is easier to get around Vancouver (city) than Toronto (city) because Hastings, Renfrew, Kingsway, Broadway and others are SIX LANES.
 
Dichotomy said:
Compare highway 1 through Vancouver to the exact same highway through Calgary. No comparison. Toronto had 2 million in the greater area when the 401 was built. Vancouver has not planned for that. You can gets about as far as New Westminister, then you're f$%ked.

Still, my point was that despite not having any highways IN THE CITY, it is easier to get around Vancouver (city) than Toronto (city) because Hastings, Renfrew, Kingsway, Broadway and others are SIX LANES.
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Yeah, most of highway 1 (16th ave North) through calgary is an urban arterial. Most of it's stretch except near the edges of the city in the east and west is not freeway.
 
Dichotomy said:
If taken purely from the perspective of transit, then I suppose you have a point, but then with just over 1 million souls in the greater city, how could you expect Vancouver to have an amazing transit system? This is also a city that has no highways to speak of either.

Yet, the city is amazingly easy to get around, save for the choke points of the Lions Gate Bridge (entirely the city's fault for not widening it 15 years ago when they had the chance) and the tunnels/bridges into points south. I count no less than 5 major arteries out of the center core that are 6 laned. Compare that to Toronto's measly 3: Gardiner, Lakeshore and DVP (University ends at St. Clair).

Your example of Kits, UBC (on the same bus line - what's the problem?) and West Vancouver is disingenuous, at best: try getting from Mississauga to Yonge/Steeles and thence to the Bluffs in Toronto, for example - by any means!

To separate Vancouver from its natural beauty and weather is to say, well, I like Barry Manilow, except for his sappy lyrics and nauseating persona. Vancouver is truly blessed by its natural beauty and weather. The more I travel, the more I realize how horrid Toronto's truly is. These two cities could not be more different if they were on separate planes of existance.

I grew up in Vancouver, and although it has changed a lot, it is growing in lots of good ways. Coal Harbour does look a little contrived, but Pacific Ave along English Bay and the build up in Burnaby are examples of good planning.
Every time I visit B.C., I run into more and more associates and long forgotten friends from here who moved there.

To each their own, I supppose.
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Your post really reflects that you get around Van by car, or in friends' cars. To suggest that it's EASIER to get around Vancouver than Toronto by public transit is farcical. Your comparison of Missassauga to Steeles/Yonge and then Scarboro is crazy! that's 4-5 times the distance as compared to N. Van, Granville, to UBC. Get real! You need to check a map! And, if you WANT to take one bus--when and if they run--and I've tried, be prepared to wait the 45 mins for it to come--or take 3 different ones. Did you actually TRY this? I have--many times whilst studying there. Did you simply mentate this travel?

I grew up there too--and I know it only too well.

What's interesting is that the Car is SO prevalent and SO necessary in a so-called environmentally conscious city. Yet, once you've DRIVEN to the outdoors, the car is forgotten.

Of COURSE it's and outdoor place--if you've ever tried living on the Island for a summer, you'd see Van's outdoor stuff is just BLOCKED by the presence of a city. Vancouver isn't "blessed" by beauty--it "mars" the gorgeous BC environment and coast--um...try hanging out in Burnaby, Coquitlam--and heaven forbid the East End--there is ugliness on par with the worst in Canada.

No, Vancouver isn't about realistic and objective assessment... it has a "cultishness" about it's supporters (e.g. acolytes)... In closing, you've totally missed the point that I made: delete Vancouver, you've still got paradise (which we did not create, the PLANET did); delete Toronto, you've still got awful weather and bugs in the summer (we did, however, make Toronto).

Yes, I say to each his own also, unless "his own" includes brainwashing. Still, you've got your opinion, such as it is.
 
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Bugs in Toronto?

I spent most of the summer outside and wasn’t bitten once. I also think the blue waters of the great lakes and the green lush valleys are very picturesque so Toronto isn’t doing too badly on the natural beauty front.

Also, unless you like cool damp weather Vancouver doesn’t really trump Toronto on the weather front either.
 
westcoasttransplant said:
Your post really reflects that you get around Van by car, or in friends' cars. To suggest that it's EASIER to get around Vancouver than Toronto by public transit is farcical. Your comparison of Missassauga to Steeles/Young and then Scarboro is crazy! that's 4-5 times the distance as compared to N. Van, Granville, to UBC. Get real! You need to check a map! And, if you WANT to take one bus--when and if they run--and I've tried, be prepared to wait the 45 mins for it to come--or take 3 different ones. Did you actually TRY this? I have--many times whilst studying there. Did you simply mentate this travel?

I grew up there too--and I know it only too well.

What's interesting is that the Car is SO prevalent and SO necessary in a so-called environmentally conscious city. Yet, once you've DRIVEN to the outdoors, the car is forgotten.

Of COURSE it's and outdoor place--if you've ever tried living on the Island for a summer, you'd see Van's outdoor stuff is just BLOCKED by the presence of a city. Vancouver isn't "blessed" by beauty--it "mars" the gorgeous BC environment and coast--um...try hanging out in Burnaby, Coquitlam--and heaven forbid the East End--there is ugliness on par with the worst in Canada.

No, Vancouver isn't about realistic and objective assessment... it has a "cultishness" about it's supporters (e.g. acolytes)... In closing, you've totally missed the point that I made: delete Vancouver, you've still got paradise (which we did not create, the PLANET did); delete Toronto, you've still got awful weather and bugs in the summer (we did, however, make Toronto).

Yes, I say to each his own also, unless "his own" includes brainwashing. Still, you've got your opinion, such as it is.
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PSSST: I grew up in Vancouver, too. We lived on the corner of Dundas/Naniamo, although our house was torn down a long time ago and replaced with a stucco nightmare.

Vancouver has its ugly suburbs like every other city. When I went to visit my aunt in Coquitlam (she lived across the street from some huge Mall), I spent one night, kissed her gently on the cheek, then spent the rest of my vacation at my buddy's place on the 16th floor on Pacific Ave., facing English Bay - where would you rather stay?
Vancouver has its rain; Toronto has its gawdawful humidity. Neither city is perfect, but nobody can argue Vancouver is blessed with weather and locale.

And, of course, I get around Vancouver by car. I always get around by car. How else can you visit Golden Ear, Grouse Mtn and downtown on the same day? Sheesh. Transit is for commuters, or poor people.
 
Dichotomy said:
And, of course, I get around Vancouver by car. I always get around by car. How else can you visit Golden Ear, Grouse Mtn and downtown on the same day? Sheesh. Transit is for commuters, or poor people.
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helmsley.jpg
 
I didn't think it was kosher to post our own pics on this board. :confused:
 
I give!

Dichotomy said:
And, of course, I get around Vancouver by car. I always get around by car. How else can you visit Golden Ear, Grouse Mtn and downtown on the same day? Sheesh. Transit is for commuters, or poor people.
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OK, that last post was hilarious. Now that I've calmed down and stopped laughing. I give in! You win! LOL!
 
Neither city is perfect, but nobody can argue Vancouver is blessed with weather and locale.

Yes. I can. Locale, you can have locale, they are blessed with locale. However, I'd rather die than live through another Vancouver winter, I would almost anywhere else in Canada than Vancouver, based on weather alone. The idea that Vancouver has "nice weather" is laughable to me.
 
Really? I guess you've never spent time in Vancouver in the summer? Without a doubt, the most perfect weather i've EVER experienced.
 
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