The Frustrations of a Toronto Transit YouTuber
Ok, a lot of this probably just applies to anyone who cares about Transit and Cities and lives here....
I really like making YouTube videos about transit, and being in Toronto for that has so many benefits. The Toronto Region is legitimately undertaking one of the largest transit expansion programs in the western world, with 2 new subway lines, 4 new surface tram lines, 3 major subway extensions, a couple possible tram extensions, 2 or 3 major new BRT corridors, and the electrification of regional rail all going on, alongside countless smaller projects. The amount of money being spent and the amount of work (and improvement) is absolutely staggering. So then why am I fairly keen to leave this place I’ve lived in for over 6 years?
I should start with the positives, because there are lot! And you shouldn’t think of this post so much as one of dislike, but more of disappointment. I think for a lot of people Toronto is the best place to be if you like cities and you like seeing them grow radically, but you also want to or have to live in North America.
The first really exciting thing about being in Toronto is that lots of good transit projects are opening all the time. Since 2019, we’ve had the new ION Light Rail Line (Kitchener-Waterloo is still part of the greater region IMO), many newly accessible subway stations, several new bus terminals, renovated Union Station spaces, and much more. That’s without even considering the many much larger projects which will open in the not-so-distant future like the 25-station Eglinton Crosstown and the 18-stop Finch West Tramway. Even stuff that isn’t done is making visible construction progress, so a trip to various locations every few weeks almost always gives you something new to see.
At the same time, Toronto’s transit agencies (to their credit) have a pretty wide-open filming policy. As long as you’re not disrupting operations or using a giant tripod setup you are allowed to film and take pictures of the systems (how it should be, the public pays!) - which is really good for YouTube creators or just urbanists in general trying to point things out, good or bad.
Of course, a lot of the major projects going on in Toronto aren’t even under construction! The city’s second major downtown subway — the Ontario Line — should be underway in the coming months, while regional rail expansion projects from new stations to electrification are all coming close behind. There is also an almost unimaginable amount of transit-oriented development projects large and small that are in various stages, and will help feed new and existing transit infrastructure with new riders.
If you get bored of it here, you’re also in luck, because from Toronto you can get to loads of other interesting North American cities easily. Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec City are an easy train ride, and most cities in the US midwest and northeast are a quick flight from our (normally) pretty nice (and well served by transit!) airports — one of them is even accessible by streetcar and pedestrian tunnel 10 minutes from Downtown! Finally, if you want to go around the world, Pearson Airport is incredibly well-connected, with flights to almost every major global city you can think of on a very regular basis.
Toronto is very car-friendly and is certainly awash with highways and parking, and in that way it is firmly North American, but unlike so many cities in the US, transit is a very viable and high-quality option 24 hours a day — I’ve been without a car for almost the entire time I’ve lived here, and that includes in very suburban areas where car-free living would be impossible in any other city on the continent. People from all walks of life use transit of all shapes and forms, and it doesn’t empty out late at night or at midday. Your experience is also likely to be continuously improving, with a lot of legitimately world-class elements alongside some of the more typical North American frustrations. There is a lot of great content out there from people like Not Just Bikes (and myself of course) talking about how Toronto is not a high-quality or well-planned urban area, but at the same time it is measurably better than its large peers to the south — including even New York on some things (we’ve had fully open gangway subway trains and smart cards for the better part of a decade!). And whether the policy decisions are good or not, there is support for major transit expansion and improvement from all levels of government on both sides of the aisle, which means that even during the pandemic, off-peak service in suburban Toronto was still better than many major North American cities peak service in core areas.
These rather unique transit successes and the combination of modes in the city make Toronto a good city to grab examples from, and to show what is possible when transit service is a priority, even when other policies are lacking, and I think that makes it a very special place.
That said, over the years, my frustration with Toronto has really mounted, and I think the gears are finally spinning on the topic of relocating to another city — As I frequently have alluded to on Twitter.
A lot of things are driving me to do this, so this part of the post won’t be short, but hopefully people can relate. To be clear, I’m not saying when and where I’m likely to move yet because that is not entirely decided, but staying feels like a bad decision for me. I should also say that this calculus is quite dependent on my existence as a transit content creator and probably applies to a much lesser degree if you aren’t trying to make content about, and help redirect the city in a better direction.
To start things off, here are some of the difficulties I’ve found in the city:
As a Transit YouTuber
Despite so many projects going on in Toronto — from maintenance facility expansions, to streetcar track replacements, to the commissioning of new vehicles, and the construction of new stations and tunnels for rapid transit — direct contact with transit agencies is few and far between: I have attended a small handful of events though never by my local transit agency. This isn’t to say there aren’t good people trying to make things happen, but somewhere along the chain things never seem to align, and so the type of videos made by people like Geoff Marshall just often aren’t possible (even though viewers request them, and critics look down on me for not making them). This is deeply frustrating for a few reasons, for one — I spend my days making almost entirely free videos advertising the positive transit expansion and improvement work in Toronto that help people better appreciate the challenges transit agencies face, and yet the resources to do a better job at that (e.g. more site visits) simply are not available, even though I’m convinced there isn’t a good reason for that. This gets even more frustrating when the local news (who might not even get as many eyes) gets access to stuff and then proceeds to botch key details of project going on — confusing the public, besides just generally approaching everything from a driver’s first approach: “So, when will drivers on this street get relief from all this transit construction?”. At the same time, being so close to projects and not being able to get any inside looks makes living close to them feel pointless in the first place: I could live 1000 kilometers away and show up on opening day and get almost as much access, and that just doesn’t feel very nice.
At the same time, I’ve received a number of invitations to visit projects in other parts of the country and the world, including crazy cool things like seeing Canada’s future deepest station firsthand. Being able to travel to other cities to see under construction projects, pre-commissioned vehicles and the like, but not being able to do that often in my own backyard hurts!
More concerning for me is that while all of this incredible and mostly positive transformation goes on in Toronto, not enough is going on to document it. While those who are not directly working on projects but are passionate about them — like myself and others — may want to get access and resources to talk about the massive changes happening in my city, we often cannot, and this means a huge opportunity to educate the public and get people excited about transit, planning, and city building is lost.
There is a big opportunity that is going unmet; given the lack of regional governance in Toronto and the massive growth, there are an incredible number of transit projects and developments going on without a good amount of understanding from the public. It is unfortunate that there is no access to nor interest in creating a better region-wide understanding of the infrastructure we are building and the changing urban landscape we are moving towards. This especially excludes young people and others who cannot attend often awkwardly timed community meetings, read massive reports and documents, or monitor 20+ transit project websites.
As a Citizen
The cost of living in Toronto, and a number of other Canadian cities is crazy.
In Toronto, there is a particular fascination with destruction over creation, or with talking about what we don’t want without providing clear answers to what we do. When the Gardiner Expressway is mentioned, people tend to be very eager to talk about tearing it down, but there is far less interest in talking about the transit and city building projects that would actually enable that, from more GO Transit stations downtown - something which I. have personally spent a lot of time advocating for - as well as a more comprehensive rapid transit network, and that’s why it sometimes feels like we are attracted to doing things for the wrong reasons.
At the same time, there is a frequent issue with transit projects we have in the city that occurs when people from various schools of thought criticize a particular project without explaining how they would replace its capacity, or network enhancements with a different project. Compromise solutions feel far too uncommon, and so whenever a subway is needlessly proposed or built, instead of saying “why don’t we run at grade or elevated tracks like so many other cities”, the proposal is generally to simply water down the whole project, or use one’s own preferred technology.
I see this with light rail in particular. If often feels like support for a project in its initial conception and construction is high, but continuing support for critical things that in some cases make or break a project (like transit signal priority on Line 5 Eglinton) is much less. While support for an LRT on Eglinton was loud, resounding, and broad, I have heard virtually nothing from politicians on issues like capacity and signal priority, or service that will actually impact real people using the transit. It often feels like people are sideline supporters, but have little real attachment to projects.
One thing that might explain this tendency has to do with the predominance of car ownership and use in Toronto even among urbanists, as I mentioned earlier (and hey, I’ve even spent a few months with access to a car in the city - so I get how it impacts your perspective): I think to some extent this leads to a lot of our poor transit decisions. Projects are value-engineered in ways that mainly compromise service in contrast to aesthetics, because if you live next to the line and still drive most of the time you probably don’t care all that much if it runs often or is fast as long as it looks pretty. When you don’t need to make all your trips by transit because you can just drive, your views on some of these critical quality of life issues is unhelpfully distorted, while at the same time I think you can often fall into a mindset where moving towards a less car-centric city is not possible or even not desirable.
Something else I’ve noticed in Toronto, which is quite different from other places I have lived (I experienced this in London a bit too on my recent trip), is an odd tendency to justify bugs as features. For example, while I think the lack of Wi-Fi and cellular service on the subway here is a major annoyance and given the amount of time I spend on transit potentially a major waste of my time - I have been told that this should be seen as “valuable time to disconnect”. I just do not think that is a helpful approach to take in making a city more convenient and a place where transit is people’s first choice to get around.
Toronto is unfortunately also in a state of crazy austerity on a local level. Property taxes here are substantially lower than adjacent cities, which have much less intense infrastructure to maintain and less density overall. This contributes to a number of problems, from painfully poorly maintained parks and public spaces, to insufficient operations and maintenance funding for transit, and of course to the housing crisis.
Toronto will always be an important city to me, and I will certainly be around to cover projects when they open to the public: That said, things are fairly open for the future. I want to travel more and find a home base for the channel where I can have a positive impact on the local transit and urban area, because sometimes I think that I have failed Toronto in this regard.
Where it’s going to be is anyone’s guess: moving to another country is tempting, but incredibly logistically difficult, but anything is possible, especially if it can help me to make a contribution to improving the world’s, and Canada’s public transportation systems.
Hi Reece,
I am a born and raised in Toronto, and have been a long time subscriber and viewer of your channel. I would have preferred to maybe e-mail you this instead, but I was not able to find any e-mail address other than the one you have listed on YouTube for business inquiries, so I decided to just write this to you here, I hope you don't mind.
First of all, you have NOT in any way failed this city, so please don't give yourself this negative talk. You have simply died on a hill that many other transit experts and consultants have died on before you, but I don't mean to add to your negativity. The mistake that everyone makes is that they think that because their ideas are good then this means that the TTC should listen to them. What people don't realize is that the TTC is mainly run by Torontonians, and we don't listen to good ideas. We listen to very assertive leadership, the loudest person in the room or someone that just refuses to be ignored.
If you want to be heard by the TTC then what you need to do is go down to TTC headquarters at Davisville in person and be polite but very assertive about talking to the person you want to and telling them what you want to tell them. You need to push your way through and NOT take no or the run around for an answer. They will then be very happy to be receptive to you. Sending e-mails, having a great YouTube channel and asking them to please listen to you may work in other places in Canada, but it is not how we get things done here in Toronto.
On the other hand though, I want to point out that it is not clear to me exactly what you want from the TTC. I have read your posts about it and watched your videos about this topic. You talk about being acknowledged, invited to behind the scenes things and you having good ideas for them to improve their transit system. But what it is exactly that you want from them? Do you want them to say hi to you, is there a specific thing you want to see or go to, is there an idea that you have that you want them to implement? I don't mean to sound facetious but it is really not clear to me exactly what it is you want from them.
People in Toronto are pretty sinical and the TTC is never going to randomly reach out to you. If there is something that you want then you need to be specific and pursue this to the end. Then you can use that as a starting point for your relationship with them, which will be a slow one step at a time kind of thing. Sorry if I come across a bit critical, but I am just trying to help you.
The short of it is this, you need to be a Vancouverite that has now become a Torontonian, not a Vancouverite that found himself in Toronto because he went to University here.
Love the channel and the content, and will always be a supporter.
I just wanted to drop a bit about property taxes... Did you mean land use taxes instead? We don't want parking lots taking important and valuable space!