CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 3: Rochester, NY vs Baltimore

This time we feature possibly the most odd first-round matchup (in terms of my experience of the places) in the entire bracket: Rochester, New York vs Baltimore (Maryland, but there's really only one famous Baltimore). On the one hand, I lived in Rochester for 4 years and in Baltimore's metro area for only 3 months; on the other, I basically never visited Rochester outside of living there, whereas I visited Baltimore to see family for most of my life. So I know both cities pretty well, but in an odd mismash of ways; let's see how it plays out.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

I have taken many train trips from Rochester to Chicago, and I think one to New York; the city lies on the route between the two (or Boston, since the train splits around Albany). It's actually relatively well timed for a US train, if you're not the kind of person to get woken up by a train stopping---the both directions of the Chicago-Rochester train are overnight and you arrive at a pretty decent time. A pleasant experience if you managed not to wake up at the Indiana/Ohio stops.

Don't fly into Rochester and expect to get anywhere easily though; the bus does go to the airport but we aren't talking a useful or productive link.

Baltimore has the easy upper hand: sitting on Amtrak's Acela line, the closest thing the US has to a high speed line, with a direct train link (both light and heavy rail) from the airport to the city, and frequent bus service to other Mid-Atlantic destinations as well. Easy in, easy out, actual choice of times and destinations.

VERDICT: Rochester 0, Baltimore 1

b) How do you get around?

Rochester has a high density of destinations in downtown, so you can probably get around pretty well as a tourist. The Erie Canal links city and town centers in the metro area on a walkable, bikeable path, and is scenic itself. There is a bus system, though I'm not going to advertise the RTS to tourists.

Baltimore has major flaws in its transit system: the inherent racism of not interconnecting the somewhat-suburban (white) light rail and fully urban (black) subway is a lingering issue. There is a card you can use on both, so at least there are steps in the right direction. There's also issues of interconnectivity with the regional MARC train as well...but ultimately for this matchup there's no contest. As a tourist, you could pick one of those 3 and it would get you everywhere you need to go, plus access DC (another whole city in this bracket) if you use MARC. 

Light rail will get you places. Not all the places (see below) but some.

VERDICT: Rochester 0, Baltimore 2

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

I think here we're more even, mostly because Rochester is more concentrated in terms of where tourists might want to go. I don't think there are really any visitor-heavy spots that are difficult to get to.

Sometimes they're even pedestrian friendly events, like this foodtruck rodeo.

By contrast, Baltimore has more to see, but it makes it harder to do without a car by navigating from spot to spot by different methods. For example, the one tiny hipster neighborhood in Baltimore (Hamden) is actually hard to get to from much of the city by public transit.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

I bought my first car in Rochester because the answer was no.

Also sometimes even that got covered with ice, as in this close-in illustration that was very pretty but annoying to drive with.

Admittedly, I worked at a university well outside the city center. But Rochester does not have commuter-oriented transit in a meaningful sense, and Baltimore does. Unless you live walking distance from work, Rochester requires a car to work, and Baltimore will give you a lot more options, even including distant suburbs on the various forms of rail if you work downtown.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Rochester suffers here from a specific memory of mine: hiking a mile plus without sidewalks in the snow to go play boardgames because the bus that was supposed to connect me did not actually come/exist after all. The service ends too early at night, the radial bus network makes it hard to make any connections that aren't to downtown alone, and sometimes it literally doesn't exist.

Baltimore doesn't have great transit connections to things like grocery stores, and that might cost it in later rounds but right now it's not close.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 4

c) How are the basic amenities?

Rochester actually scores well here. The parks are good and, more significantly, that Canal link means it is much more walkable than transitable, ironically. 

Baltimore is also well equipped with parks, and sidewalks (see above about the Rochester metro for that). We'll get more picky about amenities in later rounds, but here it's another tie.

VERDICT: Rochester 2, Baltimore 5

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

In downtown Rochester? Sure. Literally anywhere else in the metro area? No. Baltimore is not great at that either, honestly; I've spent a lot of time in both cities as the only person on the street. 

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 6

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Baltimore has had some...problems getting an extension of its rail system going. That's what happens when a governor cancels your project unilaterally! But they are working on some transit-oriented developments that were (very) recently announced, because the new governor is more supportive.

Rochester has some nice ideas being studied, but nothing nearly so concrete as yet.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 7

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Well, no. 

We're talking some cities that have real, regrettably storied histories of segregation and racism, in living memory as well as in the deeper past. Rochester still has major issues with inequality and segregation along school district lines dividing the inner city from the suburbs. Baltimore has a massive issue with racist policing. As I've said in previous versions of this, there is no honor to be had here.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 7. If both get points for some things, sometimes both have to get no points too.

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

People in both places will be a bit weird about it, in my experience, but in Baltimore it's more concern that you might not afford a car, whereas in Rochester it's sheer confusion. 

People do, in fact, use the light rail, even if many of them own cars.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 8

e) How do people react to people living close together?

The iconic Baltimore house is a row house. Rochester used to have those, but not nearly as much. 

In other words, Baltimore thinks it's pretty neat when people live cheek by jowl, while Rochester turned its back on that approach. Yes, Baltimore metro has a bunch of sprawl too, but so does all of America. Baltimore is still at least capable of imagining itself as close together.

FINAL VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 9

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 2: Vancouver vs Toronto

Moving around the initial round, we're going to have a Canadian showdown today, between two of my very favorite cities in the world: Vancouver vs Toronto. I've probably visited Vancouver more than any city I've not actually lived in (probably more even than the cities my family lives in and I don't) and my wife and I honeymooned in Toronto and have kept visiting it ever since. A tough matchup, especially for round 1; let's see if it's a bit closer than our first wipeout.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Both Vancouver and Toronto are places I have visited without a car, via multiple transportation modes, so I can speak from some experience here. Vancouver's SkyTrain goes to the airport; Toronto's Union Pearson Express does too, and the City airport is so close to transit that you don't even need a spur line: just walk up Bathhurst to the streetcars and buses. 

Not far by ferry either.

Both have train links as well, in Toronto's case towards Windsor/Detroit, Ottawa/Montreal/Quebec, and the Northeast US, and in Vancouver's towards Seattle/Portland. And both have intercity bus service as well, to similar destinations. The Amtrak Cascades is the nicest of these rail links, and coming into Pacific Central is a core memory for me, but Union Station in Toronto is a much more convenient place to be dropped by both train and air-train links, as the core of the transit network, plus City airport is the best. But in the end, Pearson is just so far out there (and the SkyTrain link to YVR is a bit more frequent too), so:

VERDICT: Toronto 0, Vancouver 1

Sadly neither too fast nor too frequent.

b) How do you get around?

Toronto has a thick network of streetcars, buses, and subway, and a regional GO train network that's slated to get an upgrade (though who knows how much of one) soon. It has ferries to the harbor islands as well, though no further afield (RIP Rochester Fast Ferry).

It even has some nice bike lanes.

Vancouver has SkyTrain, which is excellent, and a robust bus network including some very high frequency routes. It also has a personal favorite, the SeaBus to North Vancouver, and a very strong ferry system around False Creek and even around the nearby parts of the province thanks to BC Ferries.

Frankly you can get around both of these cities very well as a visitor without a car. I have never wished I had a car while visiting either. However, I have notably found myself lamenting the slow speed of Toronto transit more often than Vancouver transit, so once again:

VERDICT: Toronto 0, Vancouver 2

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

For some godforsaken reason, both these cities' zoos are pretty hard to get to by transit. Toronto wins though, because it is doable; Google would love to sell you a Lyft from a random bus stop to the Greater Vancouver Zoo, and the Zoo doesn't even have a transit suggestion on its website. The Toronto Zoo is slow to get to (I lied--that is the one place I've wished I had a car to get to) but is accessible without a car. 

Again, I honestly think this is a pretty close one, since I don't feel limited as a visitor in either, but this objective comparison of the zoos shows why I'm tipping it towards Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 1, Vancouver 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Now obviously I have not lived in either of these, but: Vancouver metro does have a higher percentage of residents not using a car to get to work than anywhere else in Canada. More anecdotally: yes, in both cities you can expect to get to work, but Toronto's network of higher-speed and higher-frequency lines is more concentrated on the single downtown of Toronto (which is admittedly a big hub), while Vancouver's is marginally more diverse in terms of city centers that it hits. This could change a lot if that aggressive GO train expansion hits, but it hasn't yet, so:

VERDICT: Toronto 1, Vancouver 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Vancouver is the least affordable place to live in Canada. Toronto is not far behind. They do have a lot of amenities close by: while neither is a fifteen-minute city, you can expect to be able to do your shopping, find a doctor (if you can find one with an opening), etc. within a reasonable radius of walking, biking, or transit. But while you can probably commute more easily (by a small margin) in Vancouver, I'd say it's marginally easier to live in Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 2, Vancouver 3

c) How are the basic amenities?

Again, both of these cities are equipped with sidewalks, parks, accessible bathrooms in public areas, etc. This is going to be a tie a lot (but when it's not, it matters).

A lovely little park.

VERDICT: Toronto 3, Vancouver 4

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Yes, very much so, at least in the main urban areas. 

I wouldn't say either is completely crowded (I do try to avoid taking pictures of other people in public, so I don't have crowded street scene photos), but I do think in my experience Toronto has this even more consistently than Vancouver; I might be biased by when and where I've walked, but I find more people out and about in Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 4, Vancouver 4

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Both cities do seem to acknowledge the need to expand, and to include both more people and more transit/more bike lanes/more everything to support those people. But while Toronto is doing a good job expanding transit, I tend to see more acknowledgement of the value of transit-oriented development alongside transit (even bus transit!) in BC, and the Vancouver metro specifically. So while both are clearly on an upward trajectory in terms of urbanism (expensiveness aside--which is a big aside!) I have to give the edge to Metro Vancouver here.

VERDICT: Toronto 4, Vancouver 5

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both of these cities are highly diverse; both are also significantly less segregated than comparable US cities, and while the two cities have different minority groups that are more prevalent there, it is difficult statistically to distinguish their overall diversity. Anecdotally, the main thing I notice coming to both cities is simply that they are diverse, and while there are definitely issues of racial segregation in Canada sufficient for its own Wikipedia page (both historically and today), these two major cities are not significantly distinguishable on this metric.

VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 6

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

Honestly, in both cities, I tend to get more of a confused look when I do bring a car than when I don't. 

You want to drive in this?

But Toronto is in Ontario, home of the Fords, or more generally home of a certain kind of Conservative voter that very much does want to drive in Toronto traffic and resents the idea that others don't use cars to get around. Vancouver certainly has those folks (everywhere does, as far as I can tell) but they aren't the premier.

VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 7

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Here both of the cities shine again. Vancouverism, while criticized justifiably in some ways (particularly in terms of how urban renewal was historically handled, and the way certain historic districts reflect that) is a real commitment to density. Toronto's waterfront likewise has a profusion of tall towers that bring large numbers of people together.

And this isn't exactly treated as undesirable as a place to live: it costs a lot, as much as the market can bear and then some.

So both of these places are cities where density is valued, rather than rejected. 

But Toronto's density is more confined: there are fewer regional centers with high density, and less overall density. Again, this is another very close matchup, but I'm going Vancouver again here.

FINAL VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 8

This feels a bit unfair to Toronto, which is a perfectly lovely city that I want to visit and re-visit. But Vancouver moves on, and Toronto (and my great stash of images, alas) falls by the wayside in tight contest that broke just slightly one way too often.

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 1: Seattle vs Quad Cities

Welcome to our first matchup in CityBracket 2025, the battle of the two cities I've lived in for the longest in my life, the Seattle vs Quad Cities matchup! I'm not sure we're going to have any major surprises today, but that's why they play the games why I do the analysis!

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

This one is a pretty clear verdict, though as we'll see in later matchups neither of these cities is going to rock this one once the competition gets fiercer! The Quad Cities has a bus depot (technically one on either side of the river)

and you certainly can take a bus to and from the airport

Or in my case, a bus to a bus to a bus (this is the first one)

But Seattle has an actual rail link to the airport

(when it's running at least) and an actual train station as well

(Image from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License)

Plus you can even bike to and from the airport (well, assuming you had a bike to leave, so maybe this isn't about "visiting") 

 VERDICT: Seattle 1, Quad Cities 0

b) How do you get around?

Well, those same options are available once you get here: the QCA has Metrolink and Citybus

And the ability to bike, but limited bike lanes

Though some of us still use them!

Seattle, by contrast, has not only Link Light Rail and Sounder Commuter Rail but a much more extensive (i.e. not only hourly) bus system:

And bikeshare and scooters, not just bikes one might own oneself:

VERDICT: Seattle 2, Quad Cities 0

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Well, there are whole areas of the QCA that aren't on bus lines--and the same is true of Seattle (but rather less). And the downtowns is/are a bit less connected (thanks, Mississippi River)

Not that there isn't water by Seattle's downtown too.

VERDICT: Seattle 3, Quad Cities 0

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Seattle has flaws in its system, but there's a reason it is on this list of high commuting by transit and none of the Quad Cities are. Seattle isn't some massive outlier among large US cities, but there's a major difference in commuting styles between those larger metros and ones like the QCA for a reason, and a lot of it is that, no, you can't expect to get to work without a car in the QCA.

Unless you're me.

Ah, the sweetness of living one mile from work and next to a hospital that's a comparatively major transit hub! 

And yes, there is the Tyson bus if you work at that plant, so there is some transit accessibility for some work. But not generally.

VERDICT: Seattle 4, Quad Cities 0

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

As you might guess, these closely correlate. Seattle has plenty of single family residential housing that isn't totally transit-oriented or walking-friendly:

But even this low-density area (I grew up taking the school bus across the street from that grocery) has, well, a small grocery store on the corner, and there are multiple bus lines that stop at this corner. It's much easier to move around Seattle without a car, and it's much more likely that there will be smaller-scale commercial like this dotted into your neighborhood.

VERDICT: Seattle 5, Quad Cities 0

c) How are the basic amenities?

Well, both cities mostly have sidewalks, and parks

They both have tree-lined streets and the usual American ability to use a bathroom without paying. It might be generous to the QCA here (Kimberly Road having no sidewalks still bothers me) but I'm going to call this a tie. If we had a closer matchup I might push harder, but...

VERDICT: Seattle 6, Quad Cities 1

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

I wrote a whole post about this in the QCA. We can talk about Seattle in a future matchup, but suffice to say, there are a lot more people on the street.

VERDICT: Seattle 7, Quad Cities 1

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Seattle has ST3 coming, slowly and over budget. The Quad Cities might someday get a rail link to Chicago.

VERDICT: Seattle 8, Quad Cities 1

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Seattle is quite white. The QCA is more so. My high school in Seattle literally had an article about how racially segregated it was even within its walls while I was there. The QCA has a very long history of redlining and its impacts. 

There is no glory here.

That said, Seattle is more diverse and similarly racially divided, so it squeaks this one out.

VERDICT: Seattle 9, Quad Cities 1

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

In Seattle, it depends where you are, but it's not entirely unusual not to use a car.

In the Quad Cities, I get yelled at for having my kids on my bike.

VERDICT: Seattle 10, Quad Cities 1

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Seattle's growth plan is inadequate and being opposed by local groups in the courts. 

Davenport's master plan is not really focused on growth at all.

Seattle is already much denser, and while there are certainly large numbers of NIMBYs there, it's not a close call as to which city is more positive about density.

FINAL VERDICT: Seattle 11, Quad Cities 1

As predicted, this was not a close matchup. But the QCA is doing better than I expected on some of these categories, and maybe (though I'm not optimistic) it could go more the Iowa City direction and start putting up some impressive numbers even against a larger city someday.

Seattle had an easy time of this matchup, but they'll need to step up their game against more difficult competition, possibly as early as the next round.

CityBracket 2025 Details

 Welcome to our first midweek CityBracket 2025 post! The goal of this post is to say something about how the bracket will actually work, and what the goal is here.

The purpose of CityBracket is to think about what makes a city feel urbanist to an individual in the city--visitor or resident--rather than to think about the kind of formal urbanist elements that might show up in a list of architectural or urban planning criteria. I'm not aiming for the spreadsheet-driven work of someone like CityNerd (whose work I greatly enjoy and respect, to be clear!). So no mathematical formulae of density, WalkScore, or cost of living here. But it isn't just going to be arbitrarily picking a winner each time either. Rather, I want some qualitative (rather than quantitative) measures to compare across cities as we go through the bracket.

I'm going to evaluate the cities on eleven criteria across two main categories and a miscellaneous one: the ability to visit and to live there without a car.. And because urbanism isn't just about banning cars, a lot of that miscellaneous section is pretty important as well.

The criteria:

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Is there an airport with good transit links, or in the downtown core itself? Is there one or more significant train stations? Can you at least take an intercity bus?

b) How do you get around?

Does the transit system connect to the places a tourist or visitor is likely to want to go? How frequently? Are they close enough to walk between? How much empty space is a tourist going to have to cross to get places, and how can they do that?

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Even if (b) is a win, sometimes there are important places or things you just can't do without a car. Maybe the tourist areas are fine, but there are whole areas of the city that you couldn't visit a friend in; maybe there's a main area that's easily accessible but one notable tourist attraction that for some reason isn't accessible without a car. 

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Like it or not, we live under capitalism, and so people will generally have to get to work. Can you expect to find a job and housing that allow you to work without a car? Or will you need one for your commute, either because the jobs, the housing, or both are in places that are car-dependent?

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Besides jobs, of course, there are lots of other things we need: groceries, schools for our children or ourselves, medical care. Can you expect to be able to access these without a car, or is the entire transit system organized solely around job commuting? 

c) How are the basic amenities?

Are there even sidewalks if you need them? Could you go play in a park, or is there no green space? Can you go pee without paying someone? Is there shade, or cover from rain, or other protections from nature as you go about your day?

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

This is inspired by the Jane Jacobs' theory about cities needing "eyes on the street." But I'm not necessarily concerned about crime; I'm more interested in the idea that the experience of a city is, in my opinion, better when you actually see other people.

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

This is about trajectory: sure, there may be cities that are more urbanist now, and they'll quite reasonably score higher on other elements, but they're not interested in expanding or intensifying their urbanism. Some American cities, for instance, have legacy systems that might be quite good, but getting anything new is like pulling teeth; others don't have as much legacy work, but are actively expanding urbanist elements in the city today.

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Good urbanism should mean that people of different classes, races, interests, etc. mix and connect; so a city that is highly segregated along any of those lines is missing something. So too is a city that does not attract or actively drives out people of a certain type: a sundown town could in theory have great transit, but it doesn't meet my urbanist ideal.

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

Independently of how easy or possible it actually is to not use a car for visiting or living, how do people react? Is that seen as odd, strange, or rare? Or is it seen as normal or praiseworthy?

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Again, independently of actual density (though of course they're related), how do people respond to the idea of density in this place?

Obviously, my judgement of these eleven criteria is going to be subjective, and I make no bones about that. But I will try to think beyond my own experience (especially for cities where I've never been a tourist because I've only lived there and vice-versa). Get in the comments if you think I've biffed something badly, or to share your own experience!

Next up: our first matchup, in the upper left corner: Seattle vs the Quad Cities!

Introducing CityBracket 2025

For the summer (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere) I thought I'd try something new on this blog. Instead of a weekly blog about topics that occur to me, I'm going to try to do a twice-weekly blog, but with a continuous theme: what I'm calling CityBracket. And in my hubris I've decided to call it CityBracket 2025 in case I last doing this long enough that I do another someday.

The basic idea is this: an 16 city bracket (hence the name) divided into four groups, ending with a championship. Each matchup will be evaluated on urbanist characteristics as I have personally observed and experienced them, as well as through more generally available information, with the winner advancing to the next round, and ultimately crowning a winner.

As I said, I'm going to base this on my own knowledge: that means the cities in CityBracket 2025 will be cities I know well, divided into four regions for the bracket. The Homes region consists of the 4 cities I've lived in longest. The Stays region is represented by 4 cities I've lived in for a shorter period but at least three months. The Family region is 4 cities I've visited a lot for, well, family reasons. And the Travel region is the 4 cities that I have visited most frequently just for fun.

That means the contenders are:

The Homes region:

The Quad Cities 

Seattle 

Boston

Chicago

These are the cities I've spent the longest in, and thus have the best knowledge of, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to score highly for urbanism.

The Stays region:

Rochester, NY 

Baltimore

London, UK 

Oxford, UK

This region is notably unfair to Rochester, where I lived for four years, but that's still less time than I lived in any of the Homes region places.

The Family region:

Louisville 

Lincoln 

Detroit

Washington, DC

A notable omission here is Portland, OR: undoubtedly a better transit city than, say, Lincoln, but one I don't visit my family in nearly as often.

The Travel region:

Vancouver, BC

Toronto

Milwaukee

New York

This region has some heavy hitters, especially as I often do tourism explicitly for travel reasons. But that doesn't guarantee anyone anything, of course!

Midweek this week I'll introduce a brief rundown of my criteria for matchups, and next Sunday we'll kick things off with the first matchup in round 1! Feel free to let me know in the comments if you disagree with how I've grouped the cities or the results of the matchups: after all, I'm hardly perfect, just like the transit and urbanism in these cities!

Transiting Toronto

Since I visited there and have a bunch of pictures, I thought I might discuss this week what taking transit in Toronto feels like as a visitor. To be clear, I have visited a lot over the years but never lived there, so I'm speaking to not just this trip but overall experience, but not to what it's like to take transit as a resident.

Also, they're building quite a bit there but it's not done yet, so I'm not speaking to that either.

1. It'll Get Ya There

I discussed as part of a larger post last week the issues with traffic and delays that can come with Toronto transit, but the biggest point for me about Toronto transit has always been that within the urban core there is good solid coverage along the major streets. It may be slow sometimes, it may be less cheap than it used to be, but between the ¥ shaped subway and frequent buses/streetcars on major streets, you can basically treat Toronto as a grid and go up one major street, over another, and make it anywhere.

King Street streetcars: an east-west link.

The 1 line, a north-south link.

To me, this was the biggest thing about Toronto when I first visited over two decades ago: I could get basically everywhere and I could figure out how to do it, because the transit really did cover it all.

2. Strange Accessories

The GO regional transit system overlaid on the TTC is a bit eccentric. Now, they're planning to significantly upgrade it. But they have not finished that yet. They did finally connect the Union-Pearson Express to the airport, so there has been progress! But right now you have this:

So much rail! Right downtown! And yet: do you see any actual trains?

How about here?

It's got wonderful potential, and I'm so glad they're planning to do more with it, but right now, it's a regional transit system that has maximal promise but isn't there quite yet.

3. Multimodal and Proud

Toronto has a great number of transit modes that work together.

Ferry!

The aforementioned Union-Pearson Express!

GO Trains (this is the yard; still didn't manage to photograph one in motion).

Subway!

Streetcar (or bus, as here)!

Regular bus!

Bikeshare!

(Some) separated bike lanes!

And all of these work together to bring you across the city. 

Is Toronto transit perfect? No. Certainly not. But it's a pleasure to visit, and it compares positively with basically every American or Canadian city I've visited.