Why Toronto Is Better Than Any American City
/ 2026 / … Toronto looks like an American city. Wide roads, sprawling suburbs, a street grid that would not look out of place in Chicago or Phoenix. The moment you try to live in it, something shifts. Twenty-five percent of commuters take transit. The subway carries over a million riders per day on the rapid transit lines alone, roughly 2.4 million across all TTC modes — third busiest rapid transit system in North America behind New York and Mexico City. The city is more than three times as dense as Houston. Even its suburbs integrate mid-rise apartments and townhouses in ways no comparable American metro does. None of this happened by accident. It happened because in 1971, residents stopped a highway from being built through the middle of the city, and the money went to transit instead. This video explains what that decision actually produced.
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