Toronto’s subway system is not merely for transportation, but it can also be considered as an economic activity. Subway system is especially practical and economical where land is expensive. According to Lawrence Solomon, the benefits of a subway system are:
- Citizens can have larger surface land area
- When traffic is busy on the surface, subway is a great way of traveling
- Underground retail stores emerged as the subway system developed, and these stores really make subway system profitable.
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However, I noticed that Vancouver only has Skytrain, instead of subways. According to Amanda Briney and Yahoo Answers, the reasons are:
– Vancouver is close to ocean and rivers, such as the Fraser River
– Part of Vancouver is actually on hills, such as Burnaby
– Vancouver usually has earthquakes that are too small to be sensed by humans, but are serious enough to cause unstable ground
– It costs more to build subways than to build Skytrains
Unlike Toronto, maybe Vancouver cannot build a subway system that goes through and around the whole city, but Vancouver can at least build subways at some parts of the city. This would be beneficial to Vancouver’s economy.