Toronto visit

Toronto is huge! There I've written the first impression that came to mind when Ash and I visited Toronto for a couple of days. My second impression was; Toronto is huge. The difference between the two impressions has to do with how we experienced the city and surrounds. The first was to do with geographical size - the way that the city spreads across such a huge area that it is known as the GTA or Greater Toronto Area - I assume because it is hard to determine where one part of the city ends and another starts.
The second impression comes from the sheer volume of traffic that seems to be constantly on the move around the city. Early on a Sunday morning I thought that the traffic would be light - maybe it was at 12 lanes worth of constant traffic - because there were some gaps and we could drive at the designated speed limit for the roads. Regardless of this fact, the image that came to my mind often as we drove in Toronto was that of a 'flash flood' of vehicles carrying us along in their wake and  pouring towards us in the opposite lanes.

Later when we decided to use public transport, I think I hit upon why. I nearly wrote the phrase, "public transport system" but had to stop myself, because I cannot describe it as a system. The public transport that is offered in Toronto is made up of separate operators for the trains, subway and buses/trolley cars. Because they are separate, the two operators don't allow you to use their tickets for each other. So, you cannot grab a train then transfer to a bus for example. They charge independently and use different ticketing too. And this is all within the same area of the city - once you drift into the suburbs there is another public transport group altogether! It was quite bizarre for a lad who only knows one ticketing system and charge for ALL public transport across a city.

The final oddity for me was the use of the old paper tickets. I hadn't seen the like of such cheap tickets for more than 20 years, but here they were still in use in this big modern city. I think the tickets are more for people like us, people who rarely travel - as most people had a plastic drivers licence style card to flash. No swiping or payment - so I am unsure how they know when the card is no longer valid - another mystery of Toronto public transport.