Toronto’s Growing Metro System as a Cultural Landscape

Toronto’s Growing Metro System as a Cultural Landscape

The metro system in Toronto can be seen as a very important cultural landscape; public transit is an integral part of the city’s culture, as it reflects the growth in the city’s economy, population, and urbanization. The metro system is a public space that is temporarily occupied by different people, travelling to different places. It is a public space that is part of our daily routine, and is a part of the city’s cultural geography that contributes to its expansion and growth. The following six reports can be used as a learning basis for the topic of the public transit metro system in Toronto as a cultural landscape. “Reviewing and assessing the Toronto metro system” by Sybil Derrible and “Toronto: A historical leader in transportation innovations” by Ron Stewart and Joanna Musters are two research reports that analyze the facts of the Toronto metro system and can be used to see how rapidly the public transit in Toronto has grown, along with the city. The next report by Christopher A. Kennedy, “A comparison of sustainability of public and private transportation systems”, further analyzes the impact of the metro system on Toronto and proposes that it is an important cultural landscape in urban sustainability. The next report, “Characterizing metro networks: state, form, and structure”, is written by both Sybil Derrible and Christopher A. Kennedy and can be used to understand the process behind building a metro system. This report views the metro system from a geographical viewpoint; it explains how demographics, location, and infrastructure have an effect on the location of a metro system.
The report by Jane McMahan, “Subway performance: An excavation” looks at this topic from a different standpoint than the other authors; the report focuses on the social aspect of the metro system, rather than giving a factual analysis. Sunny Stalter’s journal, “Subway Ride and Subway System in Hart Crane’s ‘The Tunnel’”, also focuses on the psychological perspective of the general metro system. The author comments on the metro system as “a space” and this journal can be used to further analyze the social perspective of public transit. Sybil Derrible, the author of “Reviewing and assessing the Toronto metro system” (Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 2012), explains and analyzes the history and growth of the metro system in Toronto since 1954. This report also proposes that the expansion of the metro system followed the growth in population in Toronto, and suggests that the metro system must expand to reflect the expansion of our economy. The authors of “Toronto: A historical leader in transportation innovations” (Institute of Transportation Engineers, 1998), Ron Stewart and Joanna Musters, state in their research paper that the Toronto metro system is a transportation showcase, and state that “it continues to mirror the image of modern Toronto: fast paced, large, growth-oriented and sophisticated, with new technology at the heart of its operations”. These two reports analyze the statistical facts of the Toronto metro system, explaining the growth and details of the system. These reports suggest that the metro system in Toronto can be seen as a very important cultural landscape; the metro is a public space where borders are passed and people are shifting from one place to another. The metro is essential for the city’s growth, as it takes people from home to work, or from home to school, and also takes people from the outer suburbs to the heart of the city. Sybil Derrible states that “the travel demand characteristics of the metro today is about 69% of trips being home to work and home to school trips”. Christopher A. Kennedy, the author of “A comparison of the sustainability of public and private transportation systems” (Department of Civil Engineering, 2002), explains how the Toronto metro system relates to urban sustainability, which is “a process of change in the built environment which fosters economic development while conserving resources and promoting the health of the individual, the community and the ecosystem.” The metro system is a cultural landscape that helps sustain the rapid growth and urbanization of the city, as it helps the flow of people from in and out of the city. Due to rapid expansion in the population and the economy, as well as the shift of many businesses to the GTA, the metro system has had to expand in order to keep our environment as free from pollution as possible. Christopher A. Kennedy’s report suggests that the metro system is a public space that is important to our environment and our future. The next is a report written by two of the authors previously mentioned, Sybil Derrible and Christopher A. Kennedy. This report, “Characterizing metro networks: state, form, and structure” (Transportation, 2010), combines the two viewpoints of the authors and analyzes the “complexity of the networks”, in relation to the geography around a metro system and why they are built in a certain location. This article proposes that not only does the building of a metro system rely on demography, geography, demand, and cost, but also on the need for expansion due to urbanization. This article can be used to analyze the reasoning behind why a metro system is built the way it is, and why there are stops in certain areas and not others. This relates to the idea of the subway as a landscape because certain stops are built based on tourist attractions, financial districts, malls, schools, and other important infrastructures. Jane McMahan’s report, “Subway performance: An excavation” (Journal of Popular Culture, 1996), analyzes the topic of the metro system from a very different perspective. This report focuses mainly on the social and psychological perspective of the metro system, and proposes that the metro system is where people of all types are joined together in a restrained space. The author states that “we need it and use it daily, yet we have little control over it. When it breaks down we are impatient, captive and frightened”. This article suggests that the metro system is a public space in which we have no control; we are forced to use it daily to get to our destinations, and although it has become a part of our routine, it is still an uncomfortable feeling for us. Sunny Stalter, the author of “Subway Ride and Subway System in Hart Crane’s ‘The Tunnel’” (Journal of Modern Literature, 2010), comments on the piece of poetry called “The Tunnel”, written in 1926. This journal refers to the metro system as a space, temporarily occupied by people coming and going, rather than as a place. The report states that “the initial entrance into the subway, for example, is an involuntary accommodation of the self to the system”, and suggests that the metro system is a part of our lives of which we have no control. Sunny Stalter’s journal and Jane McMahan’s report bring about similar analyses of the subway system; they both propose that the metro system is something we are involuntarily forced to participate in, even though it is a part of our daily routine. These two journals can be used to further look into the personal and poetic side of the general metro system. Overall, these six reports reflect different viewpoints of the topic of public transit and the metro system. The common factor in all of these reports is that the metro system in Toronto is rapidly growing, and reflects the growing society and economy in our city. The metro system can be seen as a very important cultural landscape because it not only reflects on our growing city, and but also is a part of our daily lives. People temporarily occupy the subway, using it as a method of transportation to get from place to place; the metro is where people of all ages, classes, and ethnicities are mixed together to get to their destinations. It is a space where people can see the various cultures of our city, restrained in one singular space.

RESOURCES
Derrible, S. (Feb, 2012). Reviewing and assessing the Toronto metro system. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 39.2 p154. Retrieved April 1st, 2014 from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA280721223&v=2.1&u=rpu_main&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w Derrible, S. & Kennedy, C.A (Mar, 2010). Characterizing metro networks: state, form, and structure. Transportation, 37.2 p275-297. Retrieved April 3rd, 2014 from http://link.springer.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/article/10.1007%2Fs11116-009-9227-7 Kennedy, C. A. (Nov, 2002). A comparison of the sustainability of public and private transportation systems: Study of the Greater Toronto Area. Department of Civil Engineering, 29 p459-493. Retrieved April 2nd, 2014 from http://link.springer.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1016302913909 McMahan, J. (1996). Subway performance: An excavation. Journal of Popular Culture, 29.4 p159-180. Retrieved April 2nd, 2014 from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/195364018 Stalter, S. (2010). Subway Ride and Subway System in Hart Crane’s “The Tunnel”. Journal of Modern Literature. 33.2 p70-91. Retrieved April 2nd, 2014 from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/stable/10.2979/JML.2010.33.2.70#abstract Stewart, R. & Musters, J. (Apr, 1998). Toronto: A historical leader in transportation innovations. Institute of Transportation Engineers, 68.4 p 30. Retrieved April 1st, 2014 from
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