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Originally Posted by Martin Mtl
But that looks more suburban than anything else. To my eyes, it even feels empty and desolate, not a urban lover's walking experience. So it valides the point Beedok was making. The rows of triplexes tightly packed on much narrower streets feel a lot more urban to me and gives the city a much more denser feel, a more enclosing sentiment. I don't envy the kind of streetscapes pictured above.
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It is suburban - but when you get 10km out of the core of Montreal it looks more like, well, this: (though, so too does much of Toronto)
And that area actually is pretty urban for a post-war suburb - high population density, lot of pedestrian traffic, good assortment of businesses & amenities, generally vibrant. My point was that even if its pre-war built form is more modest; dense, urban(ish) areas like that spread out much further in Toronto due to modern infill.
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I don't have absolute proof about Montreal's streets being narrower in general than Toronto's, but it's a feeling I have time and time again when I visit your city. Downtown Montreal really has only ONE very large street (René-Lévesque) and the occasional bits here and there, very short, like Union between Sherbrooke and Ste-Catherine. Otherwise, all the streets are much narrower, and that is without mentioning Le Plateau, an extension of the downtown core where the streets are narrow, and Old Montreal too, of course. Once again, no proof,no scientific studies, but it's something that I notice everytime I'm in Toronto. In general, Montreal feels more compact than Toronto, smaller, but more tightly build. I don't think it's a value judgement, it is what it is, and both cities have their own urban merits. They are simply not build the exact same way.
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Selective bias is all I that can attribute that to, aside from the very narrow streets of the Old Port.
Typical 19th-century inner-city commercial street in Montreal:
Typical 19th-century inner-city commercial street in Toronto:
Typical 19th-century inner-city residential street in Montreal:
Typical 19th-century inner-city residential street in Toronto:
Typical early 20-century outer-city commercial street in Montreal:
Typical early 20-century outer-city commercial street in Toronto:
Typical early 20-century outer-city residential street in Montreal:
Typical early 20-century outer-city residential street in Toronto:
Road widths all look pretty comparable to me. Wide boulevards like Rene Levesque or University Ave. are the exception in either city.
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