I was getting mighty jealous of the new parts of the Sydney Metro… but if Ontario Line sticks to quality materials I’ll be a tad less jealous.
Part of me remains cynical that these OL stations will fall victim to traditional Torontonian cheapening, but looking at how one of the Finch West LRT's underground stations is turning out (itself a noticeable improvement over Eglinton Crosstown, let alone TYSSE) I do feel somewhat hopeful that we might be turning a corner...
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Part of me remains cynical that these OL stations will fall victim to traditional Torontonian cheapening, but looking at how one of the Finch West LRT's underground stations is turning out (itself a noticeable improvement over Eglinton Crosstown, let alone TYSSE) I do feel somewhat hopeful that we might be turning a corner...
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It still bothers me that the Line 1 and Line 6 roundels aren't indicated on the signage. Most are quickly looking for #'s, not the type of train.
 
Part of me remains cynical that these OL stations will fall victim to traditional Torontonian cheapening, but looking at how one of the Finch West LRT's underground stations is turning out (itself a noticeable improvement over Eglinton Crosstown, let alone TYSSE) I do feel somewhat hopeful that we might be turning a corner...
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Finch West is better than what Toronto normally builds but we're starting from a very low bar. It's still nowhere close to the level of the Sydney Metro. If one knew nothing about Sydney and Toronto, you'd assume Toronto was substantially smaller, poorer, and a considerably less prominent/sophisticated city compared to Sydney.

Everything about the Sydney Metro is many notches better. Higher quality materials (stone instead of tiles), ceilings double/triple the height (installed a proper ceiling), and a sophisticated colour palette. Ontario Line stations are MUCH better but it's still not good enough.

Sydney understands that key infrastructure like a subway needs to be top shelf/the best one can build .... and spends the money to get it done. They view themselves as a premier global city and build accordingly. Toronto still carries on like it's a giant Oshawa then argues 'well it's better than what we had before!' Torontonians then react puzzled why the world views Toronto as 2nd tier.


Barangaroo Station, Sydney
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Finch West is better than what Toronto normally builds but we're starting from a very low bar. It's still nowhere close to the level of the Sydney Metro.
Can't disagree with that, but one has to remember that the path from mediocrity to excellence must start somewhere. For a place like Toronto with a long history of apathetic provincialism in its mindset and DNA, that will have to come in a series of incremental steps.
Sydney understands that key infrastructure like a subway needs to be top shelf/the best one can build .... and spends the money to get it done. They view themselves as a premier global city and build accordingly. Toronto still carries on like it's a giant Oshawa then argues 'well it's better than what we had before!' Torontonians then react puzzled why the world views Toronto as 2nd tier.
You raise a valid point about what's (in my mind, at least) perhaps one of the more dispiriting aspects of being a Canadian.

We look at Australia and find a nation that superficially resembles us perhaps more than anywhere else: we're both former British Commonwealth settler colonies, geographically massive but with many stretches of barely habitable land, our moderate-sized economic and demographic heft falling somewhat short of qualifying us to be in the foremost rank of global powers.

Yet I have gotten the sense that Australians have a certain cultural impetus to achieve excellence and greatness that still eludes many Canadians, in large part. You see it in the finessed quality of their urban realm, architecture, and infrastructure (of which the Metro is but their latest example), their commitment to punching well above their weight in the Olympics, the seriousness and maturity in the discourse surrounding their military, foreign affairs, and geopolitics...just to provide a few examples.

It's just so disheartening that a nation with so many of the same historical and cultural fundamentals as us chooses to adopt the mindset of a regional micro-superpower (for lack of a better term) while we continue--this many years after Confederation--to resign ourselves to this infantile, pathetic "aw-shucks" state of mind whereby we sit on the laps of the imperial hegemon of the day (first Britain, and now America) and treat ourselves as nothing more than a marginal subordinate backwater, hoping naively that the rest of the world will love us for it.

Sorry if this is a long off-topic rant, but as a Torontonian and Canadian with strong patriotic instincts who wants to see this place excel and thrive, this is a topic I feel extremely passionately about.
 
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Can't disagree with that, but one has to remember that the path from mediocrity to excellence must start somewhere. For a place like Toronto with a long history of apathetic provincialism in its mindset and DNA, that will have to come in a series of incremental steps.

You raise a valid point about what's (in my mind, at least) perhaps one of the more dispiriting aspects of being a Canadian.

We look at Australia and find a nation that superficially resembles us perhaps more than anywhere else: we're both former British Commonwealth settler colonies, geographically massive but with many stretches of barely habitable land, our moderate-sized economic and demographic heft falling somewhat short of qualifying us to be in the foremost rank of global powers.

Yet I have gotten the sense that Australians have a certain cultural impetus to achieve excellence and greatness that still eludes many Canadians, in large part. You see it in the finessed quality of their urban realm and infrastructure (of which the Metro is but their latest example), their commitment to punching well above their weight in the Olympics, the seriousness and maturity in the discourse surrounding their military, foreign affairs, and geopolitics...just to provide a few examples.

It's just so disheartening that a nation with so many of the same historical and cultural fundamentals as us chooses to adopt the mindset of a regional micro-superpower (for lack of a better term) while we continue--this many years after Confederation--to resign ourselves to this infantile, pathetic "aw-shucks" state of mind whereby we sit on the laps of the imperial hegemon of the day (first Britain, and now America) and treat ourselves as nothing more than a marginal subordinate backwater, hoping naively that the rest of the world will love us for it.

Sorry if this is a long off-topic rant, but as a Torontonian and Canadian with strong patriotic instincts who wants to see this place excel and thrive, this is a topic I feel extremely passionately about.
I think some of why we don't aspire to excellence the way the Australians do is that it costs money, and we've picked up some of the "Taxes/Government Spending is bad" thing from our neighbours to the south, particularly since the 1980s. Which makes sense given how much of our news, TV and other media comes from the US, in a way that isn't true of Australia. Australians aren't getting local ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox stations the way many Canadians do.

Luckily we are starting to see places in the US willing to invest in transit again (for example: Seattle has opened 2 light rail projects this year, including one yesterday!), so hopefully this is a cultural shift for the better across North America.
 
I think some of why we don't aspire to excellence the way the Australians do is that it costs money, and we've picked up some of the "Taxes/Government Spending is bad" thing from our neighbours to the south, particularly since the 1980s. Which makes sense given how much of our news, TV and other media comes from the US, in a way that isn't true of Australia. Australians aren't getting local ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox stations the way many Canadians do.

Luckily we are starting to see places in the US willing to invest in transit again (for example: Seattle has opened 2 light rail projects this year, including one yesterday!), so hopefully this is a cultural shift for the better across North America.
As a counterpoint, Sky News Australia exists and it is Rupert Murdoch’s baby as Murdoch is an Aussie. In fact, Sky News Australia is more often compared with MAGA “news” channels Newsmax and OANN than Fox News.

Thus, Australia has their ignorant chuds like anywhere else.
 
What's that dieselpunk thing with all the wheels and spools on it?
 
Hopefully they will maintain on the Ontario line the linguistic progress made on Finch West according to this picture - "Fares" is translated properly on the sign above the Presto machines as "Titres de transport"... now if they could just replace "Tarifs" with "Titres" on the machines themselves. (A "titre de transport" is what you use to pay your fare - ticket, card, etc. "Tarif" is the amount of the fare.)

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Hopefully they will maintain on the Ontario line the linguistic progress made on Finch West according to this picture - "Fares" is translated properly on the sign above the Presto machines as "Titres de transport"... now if they could just replace "Tarifs" with "Titres" on the machines themselves. (A "titre de transport" is what you use to pay your fare - ticket, card, etc. "Tarif" is the amount of the fare.)

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Metrolinx can't even get the translation on the Presto machines accurate? That's shameful.
 

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