We should compare ourselves to NYC perhaps because it is big which is the really important factor in comparisons right?
We should compare our selves on a per capita basis.
New york is a special case as their suburban development was subway driven, early on. They aggresively expanded their system, first with elevated rapid transit and then with the metro.
You can nickel and dime things, but still, compare things on a per capita basis.
If we look at european cities we can clearly see how smaller ones are in many ways far superior compared to us in terms of transportation. The scandivaian capitals kick ass dude. Oslo, Stockholm... for such small cities they have amazing systems that we could only envy. Naturally they took our metropolitan toronto stuff and applied it to their entire metropolitan area, not just a small part. or other places like Copenhagen where development was put on routes like a finger, rather than unplanned monstrosities.
Lets just look at all sorts of placesi n europe. Sure, we might get a hard time to find something exactly comparable - cities are different - but we certainly should not compare the tiny places like zurich.
Nevertheless, Toronto until the 1980s was way up there in terms of transit. We were one of the better places in the world. Then things went chronically wrong in the 1980s, and what we have had by today is that systems much smaller than ours in the 1980s have expanded and are superior to what we have. We fell behind while others went forward.
When you look at those tram/lrt small cities - keep in mind when their transportation system was created - when they were even smaller than they are now. In that framework that might not be bad. London, ont, might deserve some tramming. But Toronto, a whole different thing does not. If their sizes in the past were what they are now, they would have gone for metro construction - every major european city does.
Most importantly, they do not care if they have to spend a bit more. Their coordinated development and auto-disincentive is what makes the difference.