How Toronto built two very different light railways

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPFyCa8xsjk

Toronto’s $13 billion Eglinton Crosstown Line

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVQ8CbZK7Mo 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_Eglinton

So, what should have been a proper high capacity subway ends up being a little like an Edmonton LRT line. 

https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/eglinton-crosstown-lrt/what-were-building

Toronto’s Skyline Is About to Change Forever (again)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4V8jo8-NFg&t=113s  

Drone View Of Toronto’s One Bloor West - Canada’s Tallest Building When Completed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26xU_Rx2ks0  

How Toronto Is Slowly Becoming The Skyscraper Capital Of North America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z6w82sAYck

Sideways Chicago vs. Tilted Toronto: Great Lakes Urbanism Showdown

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1swCsa1_U5s

Canada's next tallest building just crossed the 100-floor mark

 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/canada-next-tallest-building-100-floors 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_108 Opened between 2018 to 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/875_North_Michigan_Avenue Chicago's first 100 story building opened in 1969. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building Opened in 1931. 

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/07/09/one-park-lane-skyscraper-australia

World’s Tallest Towers Comparison

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pmnf8npA8 

There was a time when no structure in BC was allowed to be as tall as Blackpool Tower. Then there was a time when no building in Vancouver was allowed to be as tall as the Seattle Space needle or the Calgary Tower. Even in late 2025, only one Vancouver building has been allowed to be taller than the Calgary Tower. 

Burnaby, Coquitlam and especially Surrey, don't have such imposed height restrictions as stumpy Vancouver. Thus, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey will all be having taller buildings than Vancouver.  

If Montreal can ever have its equivalent of La_Defense or Canary_Wharf, then it might be able to have some tall buildings that would be impressive by Melbourne and Toronto standards. Perhaps even Chicago or NYC standards. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Defense 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Wharf

Calgary ranked the top place for GTA families moving out of Ontario

 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/gta-families-move-to-calgary 

If you move from Toronto to Calgary, you will still be in a real city. However, Calgary has about a 3rd of the population. The GTA is so much more vast and dense than Calgary. The Calgary_Tower is only a 3rd of the height as the CN_Tower.

For those that move from Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Edmonton to Vancouver, you will be shocked to see mostly 4 lane bottleneck-chokepoint bridges. The few 6 lane bridges in Greater Vancouver have no proper bus or HOV lanes, so its the epitome of congestion planning.

Calgary ranked the top place for GTA families moving out of Ontario

 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/gta-families-move-to-calgary

City of Vancouver exploring Olympic Line streetcar test revival after the 2026 FIFA World Cup

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-olympic-line-streetcar-demonstration-revival-proposal 

The city and greater urban region should have never gotten rid of the streetcars and interurban tram-trains. Now, its extremely difficult to bring them back. Fortunately, backwards Vancouver was unable to get Toronto, Melbourne and SF to get rid of their street railways. Those cities and many others just never had anything like a Vancouver Mind Virus or BCMV to thwart them. 

Of course Seattle & Portland would bring back some of their streetcar lines long before slow-moving Vancouver can.

Burnaby apologizes for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent

 https://globalnews.ca/news/11528001/burnaby-apology-discrimination-against-chinese-community 

Asia is the most populated part of the world and until recently, China had the biggest population. Thus, people from China or people who are of Chinese descent, live all over the world. There was a strong, KEEP CANADA WHITE agenda, right into the mid 20th century. Of course this mentality wasn't just directed towards Asians, but towards anyone who was nonwhite. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_head_tax 

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination

It took until the 1970s for Multiculturalism to challenge the, KEEP CANADA AS A WHITE MAN'S PARADISE. 

https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/canadian-multiculturalism-policy-1971

https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/200920E#:~:text=In%201969%2C%20the%20Royal%20Commission,Its%20key%20objectives%20were%20these: 

https://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.htm#:~:text=A%20Ministry%20of%20Multiculturalism%20was,fully%20participate%20in%20Canadian%20society. 1973 

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/multiculturalism

While Canada hardly has that much of a Pacific Coast, when compared to the US and Australia, the BC part of Canada should have had at least one major city on the scale of Montreal or Seattle, Brisbane or SF. Unfortunatly, Vancouver has retained several of its overlapping restrictions, which prevent it from being on a scale similar to that of Montreal, Seattle, Calgary, Brisbane & SF... 

Despite Burnaby & Grater Vancouver being multicultural for several decades, so much of the restrictive BC mentality remains like an old disruptive computer program that hasn't been deleted. Unfortunatly, after the WW2 era, Greater Vancouver and BC continued with a backwater mentality. Just look at how much bigger things are allowed to be in Australia's 4 largest cities. Look at the scale of Seattle & Calgary & see how much of Greater Vancouver is still held back. Look at how big Edmonton as a capital is, while Victoria remains as a small provincial backwater. 

Unlike Melbourne, SF and Toronto, backwards Vancouver made sure that it was one of the first cities to get rid if its streetcar and tram-train (interurban) network before the 1960s. To make matters worse, the Greater Vancouver Region had and still does, have a system of mostly narrow bridges. 

There was such a push to have a tracks to tires agenda, no one seemed to realize that all the bridges should be wide enough to accomodate 2 bus lanes, or at least build a bus bridge or tunnel next to an existing bridge. 

Just because Multiculturalism in Canada started to officially get going in the 1970s, the city & municipal councils and planning departments were still predominantly managed by people of European descent. For most of the Colonial and postcolonial history of BC, the main municipalities were Vancouver, Burnaby, NW & Victoria. It was that way right into the 1970s. 

Since the predominantly White civic structure was firmly in place well into the 1980s, there was plenty of time to implement and maintain a social engineering agenda. An unofficial (White) Urban Livability Plan was cleverly devised by scaling almost everything down. Since BC can't control non-white immigration, "Livability" had to be symbolically quite visible. Livability was an ingenious way to impose various overlapping restrictions throughout the decades. How does the Livability agenda work? Suppose that there was a mostly subconscious mentality to refuse building up proper big city infrastructure for non-white people. Thus, by symbolically constructing inadequate transportation infrastructure, it becomes a way demonstrating that you are not properly building for the future, despite most of the world being non-white. Now, Burnaby & the Greater Vancouver region are so far behind now, its difficult to catch up to other proper metropolitan areas around the world.  

Despite Canada being the 2nd largest country in overall size, it has such a small area on the Pacific_Rim and Asia is the most populated part of the world. By keeping most of the bridges narrow and the trains short compared to most cities, that fits right in with the symbolism of antigrowth towards a predominantly non-white world. Canada is nowhere near close to having 1% of the worlds population, but most of the world is non-white. Its been that way since the beginning.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burnaby+apologizes

City of Burnaby makes formal apology for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/burnaby-apology-discriminating-chinese-descent-9.6980642 

Since BC started out as a British Colonial outpost, people of European descent were at the orchestrated top of the human hierarchy. Chinese and Asians & nonwhites in general were a concern to the White majority of early BC.  

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/people-and-stories/chinese-canadians

South Asians were also a concern to the colonial power structure.  

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/komagata-maru 

https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2016/08/the-komagata-maru-incident-of-1914.html 

Of course Indigenous and Black People were part of being categorized as a lesser class of human. 

It took a very long time for the British_Empire to respect the people of a multicultural world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_British_Empire 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_British_Empire#Decline_and_decolonization 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_British_Empire#Postmodern_and_postcolonial_approaches

Multicultural Canada has less than 1% of the world's population. Yet, so many smaller countries are able to have a higher density and larger population than Canada. 

Burnaby in Greater Vancouver is part of Canada's largest urban area on the Pacific_Rim. There are still many people who would like to thwart the scale of growth in Greater_Vancouver. They don't want the region to become as big and dynamic as Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Seattle, SFBA, Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane. 

A big & dynamic urban region means more Asians and more nonwhite people in general. Unfortunatly, some people are still too uncomfortable with that notion.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burnaby+apologizes

Evolution of the Toronto Subway 1954-2030s

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRpRxT9s--I

Bus, Bike and Footbridges

 https://www.tbtechno.com/en/portfolios/pergola-viaduct-of1-4b-bus-hov-lanes/ 

https://stvinc.com/project/verrazzano-narrows-bridge-bushov-lane-implementation-design/ 

https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/01/29/wsdot-hov-overview/ 

https://bikeportland.org/2017/05/11/is-it-time-for-more-bus-only-lanes-in-portland-228020

https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/bus-network-improvements.aspx

https://ipvdelft.com/bicycle-bridges/

https://www.arch2o.com/10-amazing-bridges-passageways-bikes/

https://hansonthebike.com/2017/07/11/dutch-bike-bridges/ 

https://mtc.ca.gov/operations/regional-trails-parks/san-francisco-bay-trail/explore-trail/bridges-bay-trail 

https://mtc.ca.gov/operations/programs-projects/bridges/san-francisco-oakland-bay-bridge/bay-bridge-east-span-path

https://www.curbed.com/2021/04/brooklyn-bridge-bike-lane-narrow.html 

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/the-brooklyn-bridge-is-finally-getting-a-bike-lane-before-the-end-of-the-year-040921

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/tri-city-news-archive/news/new-bridge-bike-path-needs-better-access-hub-3014166

https://www.asiarealestatesummit.com/pedestrian-bridges-and-infrastructures-that-connect-public-spaces-and-other-stories/ 

https://www.benesch.com/project/43rd-street-pedestrian-bridge/

https://surfarchitecture.com/a-new-suspended-pedestrian-bridge-over-the-water-in-toronto

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/581364-longest-enclosed-pedestrian-bridge 

https://www.mediaoffice.ae/en/news/2025/september/14-09/rta-builds-six-new-pedestrian-and-cyclist-bridges-across-major-dubai-roads

https://www.conteches.com/bridges-structures/truss-and-girders/continental-pedestrian-bridge/

Cities, the BIG and the small of it

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/CN_Tower_1976.jpg/330px-CN_Tower_1976.jpg , https://www.britannica.com/topic/CN-Tower Standing at a height of 1,815 feet (553 meters)  

1815' divided by 581' is almost 3.13 times the height of a stump in Vancouver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_Centre "Skyscraperpage lists the buildings height to the roof as being only 139.6 m (458 ft). This is stated to be the height from the Hastings Street entrance while the height from the back entrance on Cordova Street is 146 m (479 ft). It also lists the buildings pinnacle height to the tip of the antenna as being 177.1 m (581 ft)." STUMP!

This Vancouver stump is only 32% of the CN Towers height. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/A_look_downtown_%28759827996%29.jpg/960px-A_look_downtown_%28759827996%29.jpg The Harbour_Centre building should have been on the scale of something like the Hopewell_Centre_(Hong_Kong). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Canadian_Place The BMO. Unlike Chicago, Toronto has no 100 story office towers.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/First_Canadian_Place_August_2017_01.jpg/500px-First_Canadian_Place_August_2017_01.jpg Its a 72 story HQ tower in Toronto.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentall_Centre_(Vancouver)#Three_Bentall_Centre A 32 story BC office stump.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Bentall_3.jpg/330px-Bentall_3.jpg

Being from small Vancouver, its amazing that Canada even has one megacity. Toronto is certainly a big city on a lakeshore like Chicago is. Montreal isn't allowed to have buildings as tall as Melbourne, let alone NYC. Montreal has allowed only one office tower to be over 50 floors and a few residential towers in the 60s. 

Calgary has more 50+ story office towers than Denver and Perth. No 40 story office tower exists in BC. The office section of the Harbour_Centre doesn't even have a 30th floor and the revolving restaurant is closer to being like 35 floors up. However, with the overall building being 481 feet, it would be equivalent to 40 floors, if the windows went right up to the top. The flagpole has no windows, but the flag would be like the equivalent of being 48 floors up.

Not just Toronto & Montreal, but Edmonton and Seattle have longer underground train stations than backwards, congested Vancouver. 

The Iron+Bridge, Oak+Street+Bridge, Knight+Street+Bridge & the Arthur+Laing+Bridge should all have a bus+and+bike bridge built next to them. The extremely inadequate Lion+Bridge should have already had a bus and train tunnel close to it. 

Over half of all Metro Vancouver homes projected to be condos by 2051

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-housing-growth-forecast-condos 

For several decades, trains, bridges and buildings had to be half the size of what real cities allow. Vancouver and especially the Greater Vancouver Region couldn't build a huge wall, so the next best thing was to heavily impose a symbolic resistance to build big. Thus, by watering the scale of almost everything down by imposing a series of overlapping restrictions, Vancouver & BC remained stunted. 

Then, things started to slowly change going into the 21st century. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Wall_Centre Opened in 2001. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Tower 2004  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Georgia_(Vancouver) 2012 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver 

While restrictive Vancouver started to allow some taller buildings, its still behind what many other cities permit. Especially that of what's in Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle_One_Yonge Toronto 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Square_Tower Seattle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stantec_Tower Edmonton 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Sky Calgary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_sur_le_Parc Montreal

Since Burnaby, Coquitlam & Surrey aren't under Vancouvers imposed restrictions, they can build taller. Eventually, Vancouver will have to allow taller residential buildings, but its as if there is a strong mind virus determined to hold the scale of everything back. 

Lions+Gate+Bridge Still, a 3 lane crossing with no plans for a bus, train & truck tunnel. Australia has no problem building tunnels near bridges.

YVR-Canada-Line Still, a 2 car train of a joke, when several cities will have 6, 8 or 10 car trains. 

Inside Toronto's 33km Long Underground Network

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8En6z1fdCyk

Ground broken for three towers at north end of Victoria's downtown

 https://www.biv.com/news/ground-broken-for-three-towers-at-north-end-of-victorias-downtown-11378830 

Despite Victoria being the most mild winter city in Canada, it was supposed to be a provincial backwater for as long as possible. Buildings were to be kept smaller than the tallest in Edmonton, QC, Winnipeg & Halifax.

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15

In typical upside-down BC fashion, Edmonton is a mighty capital in cold winter Northern Alberta, while Victoria excels as a stunted & thwarted small city in mild SW BC.

Before Victoria could ever rival Edmonton, it would first have to rival Halifax, then Winnipeg and then Quebec_City. 

Perhaps someday, Regina might equal or rival Winnipeg, but not likely Edmonton. After Toronto, Edmonton is the largest of the Canadian provincial capitals. Both cities are worlds away from the extreme imposed restrictions of Vancouver and Victoria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada#Demographics

Bike and foot bridges

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Bay_Arch_Bridge Toronto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_Bridge Adelaide 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Adelaide_skyline%2C_December_2022_b.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Adelaide_Oval_Exterior_April_2024.jpg 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Adelaide_Oval_Footbridge.jpg 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provencher_Bridge#The_pedestrian_bridge A very nice sidewalk and unlike Vancouver, no lanes had to be removed from the bridge.

Of course Vancouver should have had several of these bridges across the Fraser River. Even Burnaby & NW should have had a few, but this is backwards BC.  

Toronto Rogers Centre Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre#Stadium_features

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Professional_sports

Multnomah County, Oregon and Clark County, Washington

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multnomah_County,_Oregon While Portland is so tiny when compared to NYC, it still has the potential to become a big city like Seattle, someday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_County,_Washington Vancouver, WA is basically a suburb of Portland. However, V-WA could eventually become like a smaller version of Jersey_City,_New_Jersey. 

Its a case of a smaller river city next to a larger river city, that is part of a metropolitan area. 

The New_York_metropolitan_area is the most densely populated and the biggest in the US. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#Geography 

The Portland_metropolitan_area could potentially become as big as the Seattle_metropolitan_area, some day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area#Metropolitan_statistical_area  

Seattle is already a larger city than Boston. However, the Seattle_metropolitan_area still isn't quite as big as the Greater_Boston Area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area#Geography 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Metropolitan_Area  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England Boston

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest Seattle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest#Population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City-Windsor_Corridor Montreal and Toronto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary-Edmonton_Corridor No hindrence from backwards BC.

Then there is backwards Vancouver and the Lower_Mainland part of BC. Short trains and mostly narrow bridges are hindering the region, by design. The regional passenger rail and the freight rail lines all need to be properly upgraded.

Don't forget the provincial backwater that is Victoria,_British_Columbia. At least Greater_Victoria has the potential to become a major island metropolitan area, someday. There should be a 4 track passenger and freight line between Victoria and Nanaimo and even up to Comox.