The Lives and Deaths of Cities

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is basically one flight per hour in either direction between Toronto and Montreal.

Those extremely frequent flights basically fill the role of hourly (or even more frequent) trains that you would have between the two biggest cities in a normal (sorry!) country.

They're super busy with business travellers.

Spin it how you want. But when you go on Flight Aware and compare Montreal-Boston and Montreal-NYC (I looked at EWR, LGA and JFK) in total, the difference is very substantial to Montreal-Toronto. Both in number of of flights and the size of aircraft used. Montreal-Boston is verging on a fifth the seats. And Montreal-NYC has somewhere between a third to half the seats.

And really are we going to say there's no business traffic at all between Montreal and Boston and New York City?

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

That strange disinterest in trains is just bizarre.

The strange disinterest is a product of a federal government that gets squeamish on certain topics.

Regionalism combined with that Scottish parsimonious streak. Generosity with handouts to individuals and provincial governments, but little actual interest in nation-building infrastructure for reasons. Some fair, some...less so.

GO and Exo/REM are product of provinces that care about the regions they serve. Hence, they feel less like minimum legacy mandated services and more as vehicles to accomplish something.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by thewave46

The strange disinterest is a product of a federal government that gets squeamish on certain topics.

Regionalism combined with that Scottish parsimonious streak. Generosity with handouts to individuals and provincial governments, but little actual interest in nation-building infrastructure for reasons. Some fair, some...less so.

GO and Exo/REM are product of provinces that care about the regions they serve. Hence, they feel less like minimum legacy mandated services and more as vehicles to accomplish something.

What's ironic is that it's arguably the railways - both freight and passenger - that made Canada as a country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I remember Robert Charlebois (famous Québecois singer from the 1970s), he said as soon as he could he left Montréal for NYC, because that's where things were happening. He wouldn't have gone to Toronto (in fact he was quite disparaging of Toronto... in one of his most famous songs he says "à Toronto... mais si je me rappelle bien ça fermait un p'— peu trop tôt", i.e. [I went to] Toronto... but if memory serves me right things closed a tad too early there").

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[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Spin it how you want. But when you go on Flight Aware and compare Montreal-Boston and Montreal-NYC (I looked at EWR, LGA and JFK) in total, the difference is very substantial to Montreal-Toronto. Both in number of of flights and the size of aircraft used. Montreal-Boston is verging on a fifth the seats. And Montreal-NYC has somewhere between a third to half the seats.

He's trying to explain to you that it's mostly business passengers. There's a difference between traveling for work and traveling for fun. What the Québécois in this thread are telling you is that for fun/holidays/leisure NYC and Boston are more appealing to the people of Québec than Toronto.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What people want and what they actually do can be very different. A very rough count tells me just scheduled air and rail services has at least 5000-6000 seats per day in each direction between Toronto and Montreal. If nobody from Quebec ever wants to travel to Toronto who is filling those seats? Are we saying that it's all exclusively Ontarians traveling to Montreal. Come on now.

Like I said, I think a lot of people are projecting here.

Projecting, or wishful thinking (trying to deliberately minimize the links between Toronto and Montreal). I take VIA regularly, and you hear A LOT of French spoken on the train to/from Montreal/Toronto.

And today's Toronto is not the 1980s Toronto of Robert Charlebois with a chip on his shoulder.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

The problem with Americans is they simply cannot listen to anything other than English-speaking singers (except for small non-English niches). So if you don't sing in English, you cannot make it in America unfortunately. Even Edith Piaf was confined to some select scenes in NYC, never made it beyond. And Charles Trénet had to go to Québec.

Robert Charlebois went to NYC for inspiration and to soak up the creative atmosphere, but I doubt he had any illusions about making it big in the US market, or even becoming a tiny player there.

As you say, the US (and in fact the anglosphere in general) is pretty closed to any music that isn't sung in English, with only very few exceptions that are often novelty songs: Gangnam Style, Macarena, Despacito...

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

He's trying to explain to you that it's mostly business passengers. There's a difference between traveling for work and traveling for fun. What the Québécois in this thread are telling you is that for fun/holidays/leisure NYC and Boston are more appealing to the people of Québec than Toronto.

And I am trying to tell you and him that I don't buy this line that it's mostly business passengers on one route but substantially different on others. That's wishcasting nonsense. The majority of all air travel is business pax. What's should really tell you about interpersonal and tourist travel is buses and trains. And even here there's a huge between the Toronto-Montreal and cross-border markets from Montreal.

Also, love the moving goalposts here. We started with, "Quebecers travel more to Boston and New York, than Toronto.". And now we're at, "Ackshually, they travel to Toronto for work but they actually go to the largest business centre in the world to eat pizza.". Y'all are — ridiculous with the projection.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

What's ironic is that it's arguably the railways - both freight and passenger - that made Canada as a country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

It's also the railway that made Jacques Parizeau a sovereignist. He recounted once how he became convinced Canada was an artificial country after traveling by train from Québec to the west (Vancouver? Alberta? can't remember), and seeing the immense emptiness between Ontario and the Prairies.

[MolsonExport]

This thread is not about promoting Quebec Separatism. Feel free to construct such a thread. It is sort of insulting to be given history lessons about one's own country and province from somebody (apparently) living in Europe; someone who never posts about anything else on SSP, other than about Quebec separatism and Quebec's alleged greatness compared to the ROC. You are just trolling.

Most Canadians past a certain age are aware of Jacques Parizeau's fabled conversion on that train out West. It is a core part of the separatist lore.

He should have taken the train to Senneterre and witnessed the immense emptiness of 95% of Quebec.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's also the railway that made Jacques Parizeau a sovereignist. He recounted once how he became convinced Canada was an artificial country after traveling by train from Québec to the west (Vancouver? Alberta? can't remember), and seeing the immense emptiness between Ontario and the Prairies.

I wonder what there is about the vast emptiness between Ontario and the Prairies that would make one a Quebec sovereignist, though?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

This thread is not about promoting Quebec Separatism. Feel free to construct such a thread. It is sort of insulting to be given history lessons about one's own country and province from somebody (apparently) living in Europe; someone who never posts about anything else on SSP, other than about Quebec separatism and Quebec's alleged greatness compared to the ROC. You are just trolling.

While actively denying statistics to boot.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What the Québécois in this thread are telling you is that for fun/holidays/leisure NYC and Boston are more appealing to the people of Québec than Toronto.

I didn't want to chime in on this one because I'm geographically closer to Boston while farther from Toronto (compared to the average Québécois). I also have a U.S. bank account (no exchange rate penalty) and am in northern NH all the time (have land there and love to manage it myself whenever I have time) which makes the round trip to Boston even shorter.

I would still guess that for most people in Southern Quebec, NYC and Boston are better destinations (more exotic) than Toronto, given equal travel time (cheaper gas is just a bonus).

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

He's trying to explain to you that it's mostly business passengers. There's a difference between traveling for work and traveling for fun. What the Québécois in this thread are telling you is that for fun/holidays/leisure NYC and Boston are more appealing to the people of Québec than Toronto.

For intercity travel, the #1 driver is business passengers.

And the #2 driver is family/friends. If you have relatives in another city, then you go there all the time. A ton of people in Toronto have relatives in Montreal, and vice versa, especially if you're in one of the big immigrant communities that have a presence in both cities (people from the Middle East, for example).

People going on vacation is probably a distant third. How many times do people visit a city that they have no business or relations in? I've been to NYC five times in my life, but 2 of them was when a good friend of mine lived there and we were both young so crashing on a couch was no big deal. Now that I have kids, I don't see myself visiting NYC and staying in a hotel for a decade, or more.

BTW, I think I can speak for almost all Torontonians here that we agree that NYC is always going to be a bigger tourist draw than Toronto. Even Boston offers more than Toronto for visitors, if you lump in all the colonial villages, Cape Cod, places like Newport, etc. into the mix.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I wonder what there is about the vast emptiness between Ontario and the Prairies that would make one a Quebec sovereignist, though?

Bizarro lebensraum.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I wonder what there is about the vast emptiness between Ontario and the Prairies that would make one a Quebec sovereignist, though?

You'd have to ask him. If he was still alive.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

I didn't want to chime in on this one because I'm geographically closer to Boston while farther from Toronto (compared to the average Québécois). I also have a U.S. bank account (no exchange rate penalty) and am in northern NH all the time (have land there and love to manage it myself whenever I have time) which makes the round trip to Boston even shorter.

I would still guess that for most people in Southern Quebec, NYC and Boston are better destinations (more exotic) than Toronto, given equal travel time (cheaper gas is just a bonus).

Proximity in general drives most travel. But I would guess that more Quebecers are traveling to upstate New York or Vermont than New York City itself.

I also imagine there's a lot of selective recall where that trip to visit a relative or friend in Toronto doesn't come to mind as a real vacation. But that trip to Boston does.

Also, NYC cheaper than Toronto? I dunno about that. Especially with our dollar as it is.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by lio45

I would still guess that for most people in Southern Quebec, NYC and Boston are better destinations (more exotic) than Toronto, given equal travel time (cheaper gas is just a bonus).

I didn't know gas was more expensive in Canada (can't remember from the last time I went there, but then I wasn't the one doing the driving). I remember when it cost only 95 cents per gallon in one gas station in LA... Here these days it's nearly 8 USD per gallon!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

For intercity travel, the #1 driver is business passengers.

It depends which cities. For example Paris-Barcelona: the #1 driver is not business. Ditto for London-Malaga.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

And the #2 driver is family/friends. If you have relatives in another city, then you go there all the time. A ton of people in Toronto have relatives in Montreal, and vice versa, especially if you're in one of the big immigrant communities that have a presence in both cities (people from the Middle East, for example).

It's possible that this contributes to the difference of opinions, where Quebecers may be more likely to have family in the GTA, but maybe Quebecois are less likely?