Public transit in Toronto, Canada 🇨🇦 vs Chengdu, China 🇨🇳

We don’t have to agree with China’s politics to appreciate that they did a positive thing. And we shouldn’t have to emulate their politics to get a thing done. We should be able to do it

!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works

Lemmy has tankie problem.

Lemmy is more international than Reddit, so you'll see more diverse perspectives

The speed and size is impressive, yes.

But I doubt the quality.

"Tofu-dreg project" (Chinese: 豆腐渣工程) is a phrase used in the Chinese-speaking world to describe a very poorly constructed building, sometimes called just "Tofu buildings". The phrase is notably used referring to buildings that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake disaster,[1][2][3][4][5][6] and the Bangkok Audit Office skyscraper collapse initiated by aftershocks from the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake over 1000km away, which was constructed with poor construction techniques and materials

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu-dreg_project

What helps is that the aumomotive/gas industry lobby there isnt so effective.

Pentagon wasted tax money on facebook bots to convince people in East Asia that the chinese covid vaccine was poison, so no one is really buying the "China human rights abuses are what allow China to succeed" idea anymore.

Especially since you can just as easily point to Japan's infrastructure projects which achieved the same thing under US supervision post WWII, meaning said human rights violations aren't even a supposed cost if there's less evidence of it that of UAE literally pirating in immigrants to build their lavish towers and stadiums.

Of which the US fully supports, so this just goes back to the blame game of who is worse.

Yes, China has some shady ideas of what is considered acceptable behavior and work output from citizens, but the point is that they are using it to rapidly grow their infrastructure, unlike NA which take a decade for a single transit system to get approved all while car OEMs are pumping out dumpsterfire vehicles of whose parts are overwhelmingly made in China.

We have had industrial accidents and deaths as well... We may have better safety standards but going from no subway system to a massive full city system more robust than Western countries in a fraction of the time is pretty remarkable.

Digging tunnels is dangerous. Especially if you dont have a century of experience to build off of.

This is like the 2 extremes. China with terrible human rights violation and sloppy construction and cities where even thinking about mass public transit is akin to killing puppies.

How many lives are saved by not having people in cars?

21st century Laozi

I wonder why

While your comment is very amusing, accessibility and congestion are pretty high up on the list of things that make a place "nice." A deep Investment into public transit is very likely to have a positive impact on an inhabitant's happiness.

(Incidentally, it's ironic that you have leapt to the conclusion that one of these cities is "winning" while nothing of the sort is stated in the post, only then to take objection to people drawing such conclusions.)

Yep, developing country is developing? Holy crap, imagine that!

Add to that, Toronto's transit system includes light rail that pulls together a much wider geographical area, outside its subway system. It's a pretty good system, actually

Very recent, non-peer reviewed research, n=1. It makes me very happy to be able to nap on a subway/night bus or safely ride a bicycle or somewhat less safely ride a motorbike. My productivity is the same because I work remotely.

Apples every day of the week.

Meanwhile Hamburg, Germany with only 1.8 Million:

What is the required population threshold for investing into public transit? Above 3 million and below 20 million, it seems, but can you be more specific?

DONT BRING NUANCE AND LOGIC TO A SENSELESS FEELINGS-BAITING POST! It doesn’t MATTER the city layout over top of it, the context of rapid and rampant industrialization in China, or something as inconsequential as number of people!

NYC with almost half of the population of Chengdu.

It helps that in China you can’t own land. All the land is owned by the government. You only have “use rights” and for a limited time (something like 80 years - I forget the exact number). So when it comes time to build infrastructure the government just tells you to gtfo.

No just any shit, shit that helps everyday people living in their country.

I'm just thinking of the major cities in my U.S. state where the public transit map, before and after, looks like Chengdu in 2010. So as unfortunate as the circumstances are in Toronto, they can be even worse.

One of the reasons they can build their future so quickly is because they were left in a unique position after WW2 to effectively destroy their past.

The idea that you get to put a stake in the ground and then that plot of dirt yours forever is insane. The amount of infrastructure projects in Denmark that are put on hold indefinitely because locals are upset, not at being forced to move, but because they think they own their land and the view, is nuts.

Except China respects user rights to an insane degree and there's many images of giant infra projects going around one tiny homestead and whatnot. My guess is also Chinese typically are less game to make a big deal about new transit compared to the home owners of Canada. Where's the Toronto excuse now?

Gestures in eminent domain.

Careful, you might get a ban from .ml for saying that

Also easier when you don't need to worry you'll be voted out for spending tax money on a massive infrastructure project.

it's a metro, no need to move anyone...

Is that what they did? It's a legitimate question, I'm not finding info online.

Do you have statistics from the last 15 years to back up that claim?

Here is an analysis on construction related fatalities in China.

And here is some reporting construction related fatalities in the US

The last video of Not Just Bikes is specifically about Toronto's streetcar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhQxNHrD6fA

mean....you really don't need an extensive subway network here

Found the 905'er

The streetcar network is a complete shitshow. Multiple streetcars bunched up, with hundreds of people inside, being blocked by a few SUV drivers and parked cars on the side of the street.

Its faster to bike or walk in most cases.

Same for the buses. There's a reason the bus lines here have nicknames like "the sufferin' dufferin"

is this why there is no traffic problems in Toronto and commute is not a suicide inducing nightmare?

At grade == weak

Toronto isn't filled with great alternate modes of mass transit so much as it's filled with excuses not to build mass transit.

Let me weep in "Ontario line".

street cars

Is at least one of them called Desire?

I'm posting an absolute shit ton of content to support Lemmy.

You aren't the first one to notice :)

Bot, perhaps?

Maybe they're not just mildly infuriated.

Not to undermine your point on the demand, but note that Chengdu's population has grown <7 million since phase 1 of Line 1 (the 18.5km middle quarter of the navy purple line; for reference the green Toronto line is 26.2km) was opened, while the decades that preceded this saw the city having similar population growth rates to Toronto.

The maps above also seem to be differently scaled.

The Toronto map is ~2x more-a-zoomied-in, judging by the distances between the farthest stations. In 2024, looking at the track maps, the driving distance between the farthest stations (Vaghan Met. to Victoria Park) is 36km while that of Chengdu (天府机场北 to 何公路) is 93 km.

These two maps are at the same scale:

Toronto

Chengdu

Having moved to Toronto from NYC, transit could be much worse. NYC's is larger due to the greater population but nearly everything else about it is trash tier. Gods help you if you need to go to a borough other than Manhattan. I honestly much prefer Toronto's transit.

Also, the picture leaves out a lot of context. There's a large network of street cars and busses that fills in the gaps here, as well as a massive underground pedestrian network called the PATH. The subways are only a small part of the equation.

(Currently writing this from a TTC street car)

Don't forget Chinese corner cutting. You probably have to knock 25% off of that if you want infrastructure of a level of quality and safety tolerable to Westerners.

I think it's fair to guess China is less car-obsessed than Canada, and more serious about fighting climate change. That being said, without cheating it becomes pretty obvious we're working with the same technology and fundamental logistics in this map.

its sad im over here in Dallas and im envious of Toronto.

And still WAY ahead of a ton of similarly sized cities on the continent

It's a disaster until you compare it to most other North American cities. Like what is better? NYC and Montreal? I'm sure there are a few other cities that I can't think of.

But its true that it has been neglected for decades. Thankfully that has changed a bit recently with 2 new lines being in construction. However the maintenance budget is continually insufficient to keep everything in good repair. Only new projects make your government look good I guess. (But we need both new projects and maintenance)

Yeah. Line 3 used different rolling stock than the other three lines, unusual linear induction motor powered equipment, which was reaching the end of its service life. The plan was to shut it down in November 2023 and temporarily replace it with bus service while they built a Line 2 extension to serve the neighborhoods Line 3 used to. Unfortunately, a train derailed in July 2023, which resulted in the system shutting down four months sooner than expected.

The Line 2 extension is going to take a different route to eventually arrive at Line 3’s old terminus. I think there’s plans to covert the old line 3 viaduct into a Bus Rapid Transit guideway.

Bet money America's interstate highway system would not pass today's Congress. And can you imagine conservatives bitching about the spend?!

The construction of the Interstate Highway System cost approximately $114 billion (equivalent to $618 billion in 2023)...

For non-Americans, our interstate highways are federally funded, safe, consistently engineered and tie the country together. If interstates magically disappeared, our economy would collapse within a month.

I do think there needs to be a shift in how the government invests in this country, but the answer isn’t “let’s go authoritarian”.

In the end, its more about getting things done, and investing in society, rather than how strongly you can shout your opinion about transgender folk. A government that invests in society is one not focused on either enriching itself, or cutting all social spending to fund tax cuts for oligarchs. When the only acts we/society/rulers ever implement is giveaways to their sponsors, you could think about your programming that tells you your rulership is the best system of all.

improving mobility increases production

Can you restate that in a way that makes it clear that the billionaire class will be able to utilize the project to rape and pillage society and increase income inequity? Otherwise, I don't see how anyone can support it.

I think it's less about the absolute dimensions than about the fact that Toronto's metro barely grew at all.

Berlin has 1.4 times the population of Toronto and a train system comparable to Chengdu.
Our tram network is proportionally bigger than Toronto. It could be a lot better but all trams in west Berlin where removed while the city was divided.

This. 20 million vs. under 3 million in Toronto.

Also, the fact that it has technologically developed fast in the past decades, as compared to Canada that has developed steadily in the past century, is not really the plus OP seems to imply it is.

That said, it's perfectly possible that public transport in Toronto leaves much to be desired - without comparing it to China.

That's what a single-party government, where NIMBYs and minorities have no power, can do.