@BrentToderian

As someone who grew up in the Greater #Toronto Area but goes to #HKG often, I have always been amazed and utterly disappointed in how crappy #PublicTransit is in Canada. The fact that Toronto having been voted best transit in North America for several years made me facepalm because that just tells me that public transit is really bad in #Canada & the #US.

It's a shame really because car ownership in HKG is considered a luxury and when you design a city that focuses on public transit and walkability instead of being car centric, it improves the city vastly. During rush hour, #Torontonians lament on how bad traffic is and how #commute is an absolute mind-numbing chore.

In #HongKong, while there are traffic jams, it's nowhere near as bad as most people just jump on to the subway which connects almost every major area of the territory. You only take ground transport to places where the trains don't take you there as fast or to connect to areas trains won't reach. The #minibus is something that doesn't exist in Toronto either but can have massive reach, they're essential in the more rural parts of Hong Kong linking villages to the rest of the public transit system. They are vital for connectivity when regular single decker buses and double deckers make no sense due to the lower density.

I have long viewed HKG as the gold standard for transit, something no North American city can even come close to unfortunately. I would love to ditch my car and stop paying for high gas & insurance costs if Toronto can replicate what Hong Kong has, but that's just wishful thinking. I mean it took #Metrolinx over a decade to roll out the #PrestoCard when many transit in Asia already had a smart card payment system for transit and taking over a decade to build the #EglintonLRT, I honestly don't have much hope at all.