Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
Agreed. Its unfortunate that Toronto built such bland stations compared to Montreal. I guess its because we built most of our network earlier, but even then the only "nice stations" in the system are those on the Spadina line.. We don't have a good habit of building grand stations.
I don't think Eglinton's stations are going to be particularly nice either, its unfortunate.
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A lot of it is cultural. Montreal has historically been Canada's biggest city, its cultural capital, and the home of the nation's elite and old money. It's predictably been a place where style and beauty is valued.
Toronto has historically been a blue collar industrial city where the culture has been extremely pragmatic out of necessity. People value function to the exclusion of almost everything else. As Toronto usurped Montreal, the city has become increasingly more sophisticated but a culture is hard to change. Toronto still sees beauty as a frivolous luxury and calls to make thing 'nice' are met with hostility. You still see many mock it as a waste of money rather than an investment in our city. That's a blue collar mentality through and through.
In places like Rome, Sydney, Boston, Madrid, etc. there is rarely any backlash to spending money on design; the populace demand it. These are cities that have been at the top of the heap for a very long time. Bare bones doesn't cut it. They expect the best and complain when they don't get it. Toronto only rose to prominence over the last 20-30 years. It will take generations before we also demand the same standard.
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