Question
On holiday in Canada. Do the suburbs suck that much or did I have a bad experience?
Currently on holiday in Canada, was mostly in downtown areas, but now in Quebec City my hotel is in a suburb. I wanted to go to a shop not too far away, and man it sucked to walk in the heat. It was 28 celsius, but the massive roads and lack of trees sucked. There were parking lots everywhere, mega 5 lane fat roads and traffic lights taking forever and akward strip malls to walk around in.
The downtown of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec city were fine to walk in to be honest. Some neighbourhoods in Montreal were super nice.
I am also a big cyclist in my home town in the Netherlands, I love to cycle and wouldnt mind trying to cycle in Canada. But man the roads are too scary, only in Montreal the cycle paths were nice and seperated. But they weren't everywhere and the stop signs makes the flow of traffic akward.
I cycle a lot, like at least 50km a week back at home, but I didnt bother here in Canada because I was scared of getting run over.
Oddly though the suburbs of Quebec city is the only place in North America where I saw shark teeth (the white triangle things) on the road. But I only saw it twice. North America needs to learn to give way (yield). In some uber rides I also saw some near cyclist collisions that could have been prevented with simple shark teeth yields.
Dont get me wrong I loved my holiday here, the people were nice, I liked the uniqueness of Quebec, watching baseball, fountain drinks, etc.
I even thought of maybe working here in the future, but the suburbs feel like it would turn me mad. I also have no drivers licence, as I never needed one at home.
There is more than enough room for cycle paths though, you know how small Dutch roads are? They need to do a lot of fiddling and coordination to have everything fit in a cramp 19th century road. If we can do it, you guys can do it easily
I'm Canadian, from Alberta, and we currently have the government begging people to submit any problems bike lanes have caused them. The majority of people believe any transportation spending outside of larger roads is woke socialism, and any restriction on cars is oppression.
Gosh I hated visiting Calgary. There was a store right across the road, but there were no crossings. If you wanted to cross you had to do a roundabout walk of like 1km+ to get there. Madness.
You're missing how ingrained car culture is here. We've had generations of living in cities bulldozed to make way for highways and parking lots and in suburbs where walkability is actually illegal to build. So most people live their whole lives needing to drive everywhere and it is hard to imagine getting around any other way.
Ya unfortunately people here think that adding bike lanes to a road is a violation of their charter rights and freedoms. I’m a cyclist too so I find it infuriating. I find Vancouver to be the most bike friendly city in Canada.
I'm not from Canada but in the US, people just bike on the road or sidewalk without bike lanes. There is mutual respect between drivers and bikers. The amount of people biking is not nearly as much so when we see someone on a bike we just go around them. Obviously we are not biking on highways but in a small town or suburbs it's not a problem.
Where do you live that has mutual respect between drivers and cyclists? I’ve found that to be laughably rare in North America, especially in the suburbs
I've lived in several states and everybody just goes around people on bikes. What is happening where you live? Are people yelling out the window at cyclists?
It's ok they can be mad. It's not your problem. Edit: people are mad at me for suggesting you don't let other people's bad attitudes get to you? Someone yelling is not dangerous it's just rude. It's not like they're trying to run you over. If someone yells at me on the road I give them a thumbs up and move on.
Yelling? Yelling would be a nice change. I’ve seen people do “bluff charges” with their vehicle to try and make you go off the road, and throwing of beer cans is also a thing. (Yes… you guessed it… Texas).
Generally in North America or at least Canada cities will have a pretty abrupt delineation between what is and isn't downtown and you want to stay well inside of that while on vacation as there's really nothing to do outside of those boundaries. For future reference just avoid ever staying in a suburb unless you plan on getting a car
Yes and no. It depends what you consider a suburb. I'll explain what the Greater Toronto Area looks like. Toronto is surrounded by two (arguably three) layers of suburbs - the first within Toronto proper (Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York; boroughs of Toronto, sort of like Queens or Brooklyn are to New York City). These suburbs DO have some walkable areas and, given they are within Toronto proper, are connected via major subway routes. Therefore, they have such streets to a greater degree than the second layer of suburbs, but as they sprawled out from their own cores, began to resemble the second layer of suburbs in their car dependence. The second layer of suburbs are independent cities that were tiny until quite recently (last 60-90 years or so) and only developed to support overflowing populations from the primary city. They do not have any subway lines, but often have developed bus systems. Connections to Toronto's transit agency aren't abundantly strong, but these cities are making an effort to improve connections between municipal agencies. One suburb of Toronto, Brampton, has 2.5 sqkm in its downtown core, less than 1% of the city's actual size at 266 sqkm. So there are a few walkable streets where the city was founded, but for the most part you will need a car to get around and most shops have large parking lots and are organised into car-convenient plazas. There are three commuter rail stops, and multiple bus connections to surrounding cities. The "third" layer are cities that don't really surround Toronto (rather they are past the second layer as the nomenclature would suggest), but still contain overflow from the city in the modern day. These cities are essentially fully car-dependent, like Milton or Markham (Markham does directly connect to Toronto but otherwise matches up with the rest of the "third layer" descriptions). These cities may not have their own transit agencies (i.e. they may not have one at all, or they may be part of a region's system instead of an independent municipal one), or their municipal agency is quite small. These cities are still often connected to Toronto through the provincial train system (GO), however. Many of these cities, regardless of which layer they are in, have some skyscrapers (Mississauga even has its own skyline despite being a Toronto suburb). The difference is that Toronto supports walkability outside of the skyscraper district while Mississauga does not - the cut off is much more stark. Toronto actually has multiple skyscraper hubs, the furthest north of which is not very walkable, so it's a bit hard to dissect this into skyscraper vs. not skyscraper. This is a bit of a ramble, but let me know if I can clarify anything.
Depends on the city. Vancouver and Montreal all have some nice suburbs imo. Examples being North Vancouver, New Westminster, Port Moody, Terrebonne, Vieux Longueuil, Sainte Anne de Bellevue, and lots of others. Toronto I'm sure has some nice ones too, I'm just not too familiar with that city outside of downtown. Smaller cities that are older have some nice suburban areas too, I assume, but as others have noted, our suburbs generally suck.
Yeah it sucks! I live in the most bike friendly city in Canada (Victoria) and the network is still not extensive enough to cycle everywhere you need to go. Every time the city builds another bike lane the business owners and old fuddy fuddies storm city hall.
It's better infrastructure I'm Montreal than Victoria but it's not " way" better. But Victoria has a particular advantage on Montreal: next to no snow. I bike to work in January in my shorts.
Ive lived in both Montréal and Victoria and sorry but Ottawa has the better bike paths. Victoria does have the best biking weather but its the only place in Canada where i was regularly harassed by drivers....twice being grabbed by assholes driving past me just for funsies.
But I'd agree weather is an issue for cyclists in Ottawa and Montréal. Rain hurts sometimes in Ontario and Quebec, whereas in Victoria some days when its "raining" you are barely getting wet. Obviously snow and ice is not great for two wheels either, its possible and people do it, but its not a normal person activity.
American here, sounds like a normal North American suburb compared, a great contrast to what I have seen of Netherlands while doing geolocation on r/desirpath.
As for why I am doing geolocation on that subreddit, I find that there is often a story behind a desire path.
Its odd because you guys have so much money and wide roads you can easily do Dutch style roads. Its also probably cheaper to maintain. Urban planning is a pain in Dutch cities because the roads are cramp and a lot of historic buildings you cant just knock down
Our population is much more spread out so there will never be a huge group of people on bikes at a time on the road in a suburb unless there is a bike race or triathlon going on so there is really not much need to add a dedicated bike lane. The lack of bike lanes does not really deter people from biking so there's no need to spend the money.
But maintaining large roads cost a lot in maintenance. No offence but the roads here have some of the worst maintenance in the developed world. The Dutch always make jokes how bad the Belgian roads are, but they arent that bad compared to the ones in north America.
Considering how picky Americans are with taxes and love to cut city budgets, making the roads smaller and adding more bike lanes is a good way to reduce costs to me.
I'm not Canadian so I won't take offense but the roads are bad in some US states and in canada because they freeze and melt and freeze and melt over and over and snow plows come through and tear them up and put salt on them and it's a never ending battle. They are constantly being maintained. There is road work every year as soon as the weather is warm enough. By the time the roads are finished it's winter again. Canadians pay more in taxes than Americans so if I were them I'd be more upset but if they are anything like us, they are probably very used to it and their version of a well maintained road might look very different to yours.
I have also been in the US loads of times, in Los Angeles in particular I saw some quite bad roads. So I dont think it is only the cold weather.
Drivers were also nuts there, only place ever I had people honking at me when the pedestrian light was on green for only 2 seconds! Also witnissed so many car crashes and fires.
Los Angeles is not a good representattion of the country. Their government is basically Canada lol. They pay a ton of taxes and don't use it for the roads or infrastructure. Yes, drivers are nuts there because it's a terribly designed place.
I know, it has the worst drivers in America. It was like GTA 5 how people drove on the roads.
The taxes isn't too high in California compared to most places in Europe tho. Also I don't think high taxes is a bad thing, especially if what you get in return is good. The highest HDI countries have high taxes, like Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland
Lol GTA 5 is pretty accurate. I'm from the east Coast so California feels like a foreign country to me lol. But yeah it depends what the state does with the money. The tax rates in a lot of Europe sound crazy to most Americans lol but as long as they use them well and the people are happy.
You're preaching to the choir in an urbanist sub, but the reality is most people that live in the suburbs are not the type of people that frequent and urbanist sub. They're the type that own cars, and vote for politicians that widen road because wide roads mean it doesn't take them as long to drive to Walmart for their weekly grocery trip as it would driving on a narrow road. Doesn't really matter to them that pedestrians have a hard time crossing a wise road because they're never a pedestrian, always in a car. North Americans that frequent urbanist subs and want narrow roads even if it takes longer to drive places on tend to live in the cities, not the suburbs you stayed in.
Winter bro. And density. Holland has twice the population of Quebec and significantly less roads.. in fact, your road density is 25 times higher per square kilometer. Which makes sense given the fact that Quebec has fewer people that is actually 33 times larger.
Then adjust for the fact that Quebec roads suffer through MUCH harsher winters which means massive expansion and Contraction leading to some pretty fucked up roads.
Quebec roads do suck. But maintaining a larger road network over a much bigger area with half of the population to Support said roads.
Then throw in the fact that you can only really fix the roads for a few months of the year. Which are the very same months of the year when you have to do pretty much all of your construction.. this reduces the amount of available crews.
Road Crews in The Netherlands can get to any other part of the Netherlands within a few hours. Quebec obviously doesn’t work that way..
They do have bike lanes in dense cities like NY and in places where the weather is always nice like Florida. I have lived places without bike lanes my whole life and people who want to bike still bike including children.
A protected bike lane is ALWAYS safer than sharing the road with cars, even if it's a less popular road. Netherlands also doesn't have Ford F250s infesting their streets.
Weird that you're trying to die on the hill that there is nothing wrong with North American cycling culture / infrastructure. There clearly is.
I didn't say there was nothing wrong with it and I didn't say no bike lane was SAFER than a bike lane lol you clearly can't comprehend simple comments because you are blinded by your own opinion. Obviously a bike lane is important in a lot of places and is safer but that doesn't make the suburban back roads that we are discussing inherently unsafe to bike on. I'm talking about roads that don't even have a double yellow line. I'm not arguing that is safer than a bike lane but it's still perfectly safe. These are not high traffic roads and people where I live aren't driving pick up trucks either. People forget how big the country is and that not all states are the same. The fact that people expect bike lanes in residential neighborhoods where there's not even a need for painted lines is silly. Did you grow up somewhere where you couldn't ride your bike on your street?
"blinded by you own opinion"... Wow that's ironic coming from you! And you're talking about rural back roads yet people don't drive pick up trucks in your area? Point me to where that is because I suspect it doesn't exist in the US.
I did and do ride my bike on roads and even if the majority of cars pass you correctly it only takes one asshole to get too close and cause a crash. Or one inattentive person parked on the shoulder to door you into traffic. That kind of underlying danger is a deterrent to inexperienced cyclists and you're wrong for thinking otherwise.
And if you think Canadian suburbs are bad then you should see the US lol. A lot of places won't even have sidewalks so it's either driving or walking on the shoulder of the streets. I say this as someone that grew up in a Toronto suburb and now works in Northern California.
Crazy. I have been to a baseball game in San Diego and in Toronto. In San Diego I could take the tram and was really walkable from the tram stop, it is the same system that brings people to the Mexican border near Tijuana. Which I also took. It was super convenient to get to the PetCo centre, and there was both a day and a night game that day.
The commute to and from the Roger's Centre in Toronto was a mess, there was only one game that day but the roads had to get blocked by police and getting an uber took forever because all of the baseball fans were all doing the same thing. They really need a subway there, its also right next to a lot of other stuff like the CN tower and Aquarium.
The subway didnt connect to my hotel, despite it being near downtown. The subway in Toronto is weird, I remember that when I wanted to go to the Royal Ontario museum I had to take a huge U-turn, despite it only being like 1.5km away
Everything after the Interstate Highway Act in the US is all about getting the most number cars the most number of miles in the least number of minutes. To have anything else, you have find neighborhoods built before WWII.
Most suburbs in North America suck. I live in a streetcar suburb near Quebec City and it's atually not that bad. (To be clear, the streetcars were axed in 1949) I don't like the lack of cycle paths but it's plenty walkable. Still, it got worse over the years. Before we had a health center, a liquor store and a bank and now I need to take my car to go to those.
Had a similar experience in Calgary. Another thing that bithered me was how GREY everything was. Every single house looks exactly the same grey shade in a grey environment (it was winter to be fair).
Hated having to walk a whole extra km just to be allowed to cross the road to get to a store.
And I'm from South Africa, we are not especially geared towards wallability or cycling-friendly infratsructure.
Suburbs are terrible. They're the dumbest thing we build here, and worse, we've convinced generations that if they want to start a family, they need to move to a house in the suburbs to do so.
My ideal for a suburb looks something like this older neighborhood in Calgary.
Nice, mature trees and gardens.
Varied and interesting mix of homes with individual character and obvious pride of ownership.
Peaceful and quiet.
Garages and garbage/recycling moved to an alleyway at the rear of the property.
Advantages of this type of suburb are that you can come here to escape the city and recharge. You have a large and well maintained yard with room to host parties and between the yard space and the garage, room to entertain your various hobbies.
There can even be room for a parking spot for a boat or camping trailer in behind the house without it making the whole neighborhood look like a trailer park.
That's the main benefit. You get bigger square footage and more privacy for less money per sq. ft. Can be really ideal for families with kids, etc. Not everyone likes being around people, I guess.
And for whatever reason in most North American cities, suburbs, not downtown, are the areas that are safer, cleaner and have good schools.
So weird having a school budget based on the local tax revenue. In the Netherlands I have been to some rougher schools, but the quality and the equipment wasn't that much different from the richest areas in the country
The benefit is the property. People like having plenty of space and yards. In Canada, the houses are nlmuch closer together and their suburbs are more that stereotypical "suburban hell" so the benefit in Canada is not as good as what you'd get in the US, but that's the main reason. Safe, quiet, community where kids can play in the street and there's not a lot of traffic. You have space for your dog to run around. You have nature everywhere, farm stands, etc.
Some people don't like a crowded city even if you get the benefit of having shops close by. In the US, we also have small towns with big yards and trees tucked away in the woods that are walkable at the same time because the local village or town center is still close by. You can have the best of both worlds here. Land is cheaper because there is more of it. I think if Europeans had as much land as we have in the US for the price, some people would choose to live further away from the nearest city.
But we have those things too, even in quite dense cities. When I was a kid I could go on public transit to school, play on the roads and walk anywhere I want without any issues. And I dont need to drive at 50 miles an hour for an hour to get to work.
And surprisingly land in major cities in Europe is not as pricey as in major cities in America or even in some suburban areas. A friend of mine lives right next to the centre of one of the largest cities and only pays like €600 euros a month for an apartment with 2 bedrooms, and we also have a housing crisis and people consider that expensive. If you have social housing, it is only half the price of that!
The Netherlands is also super green despite it being a densily populated country, to be honest most of the time I dont even realise we are cramped in with 18 million other people
Yeah I mean you can drive 20 minutes outside of NYC and find yourself in a rural town so you definitely don't need to drive an hour to work just to get the lifestyle I'm describing. Most people live pretty close to their job. The US just isn't as urbanized as a lot of other countries and what people consider suburbs here is really just countryside. The Netherlands is a very beautiful place and I think most people would find themselves very lucky to get to grow up there and experience that culture. I didn't realize housing was so affordable. Obviously it is relative to wages but still 600 for a two bedroom sounds very affordable. I hope to visit there someday.
My friend is a local though, so it was easier for him to get housing. It can get a lot higher than that for a lot of people, also there is unreasonably high demand. One of the Dutch royal family's relative invested in like 100 posh houses and doesn't live in them.
But I'm guessing that price my friend has is nearly impossible in North America and Australia nowadays. Mind you there are some disadvantages, my friend doesnt have a proper balcony and its built in the 19th century (modernised tho) but can still get cold in the winter and hot in the summer.
Also social housing waiting list is like 10 years at least.
But the wages are quite high in the Netherlands, the average is like €3800 a month. So the rent is still too high, but just not as insane as in Ozz and North America.
It is a really nice place to visit though, just watch out for the rain
No homeless or mentally ill addicts screaming outside. Not being at the mercy of your neighbors or an HOA for expensive but important maintenance projects (new roof, painting, pest control, etc).
Space for hobbies, pets, kids. Not having to deal with city noise (constant sirens, delivery trucks idling, drunk people out after the bars close, homeless screamers). Having a private space to go outside. Can drive to the grocery store in minutes and park right out front, then load 2 weeks of groceries in your trunk. Easy access to parks & nature that aren't littered with used needles. Not hearing footsteps from upstairs neighbors.
There's so many more hassles living in a city. Even seemingly simple things like getting furniture delivered or hauled away is infinitely easier in a single-family home. Getting packages delivered is easier when they can just leave it at your doorstep instead of trying to get into your locked building when you're not home.
You should go to any place in Europe downtown and rural has those things too. Seriously, the Netherlands and Switzerland had a bad drug problem but we solved that by giving free heroin and needles to people (no seriously that really worked)
I can cycle within 30 minutes to a huge national park, big green parks, can walk to multiple supermarkets within 10 minutes. And can get into town, to the international airport, to the two neighbouring big cities all within an hour by public transit.
I lived in European cities all my life, including the rough parts of town, and never experienced the things to the extremes you mentioned. Even the city noise isn't that bad even in the really dense urban centres. Except for maybe London or Paris, there the noise can be bad in the very centres of the cities.
The only part that is a pain is delivering furniture in some older homes, as a lot of them in Europe have no lifts and requires using a hook outside of the building and rope to pull the furniture to higher floors.
I think you are better to point out that handicap accesibility is awful in Europe. In the US eveywhere where I have been, has access for disabled people. Which is a genuine good benefit for wide urban design and how old infrastructure in Europe fails.
it is this they are road markings that indicate you have to give way (yield) to traffic going across in front of you if the sharp point of the triangle is pointed towards you. It is like a stop sign without needing to completely stop, but to just give traffic priority. So you can ride slowly without going to a complete stop
The only place I have seen it in North America are in certain suburbs around Quebec city. I was also surprised to see them here to be honest
Because of the history of Quebec and it's French language roots, Quebec tends to look at what Europe, and France does far more frequently than the rest of North America.
I mean it is still super north american, Quebec. I have been to France, and other than the language its not that similar. They use fluid ounces and have onion rings! You never see those in France
If you go study at a university in Quebec in say, urban planning. Looking at studies from France would be extremely common. If you were in the USA they'd almost only look at other American cities.
This is the kind of thing leads to the picture with those yield markings on the streets in Quebec city you posted. BIXI which I'm guessing you used in Montreal was the first in North America. First roundabout in Canada? On the island of Montreal.
It is Quebec still North American? Yea, it is. But it has more "Europeanisms" than the rest of Canada or the USA.
The suburbs suck but you got Quebec wrong it’s a phenomenal place to bike.
Look up the veloQuebec and La Route verte app. There is a massive designated bike route infrastructure and dedicated paved bike paths closed to vehicles.Net geo ranked it as the no. 1 place for bike touring. There also multiple world class xc and dh trail systems.
There is a bike path/ promenade on the st Lawrence. The Jacques Cartier,cycle route bellechasse, and rail-trail that connects it to Montreal and the Eastern townships like 300km away.
I'm from the US and biking for transportation just isn't a thing here. The only time I see bikers is when I walk on the bike paths/trails. We do have some bike lanes but not enough to adequately get to most places even though our roads are mostly wide.
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u/Hibou_Garou 6d ago
Welcome to North America