Montreal vs. Hamilton

After returning from my trip to Quebec, I've decided that either the city planning, transit systems and bohemianesque way of life need to be transplanted in Hamilton, or I'm just going to have to pack up and move to Montreal (when my lease expires next year).

First off, Hamilton could take a few pointers from Montreal's transit system. I'll be completely honest here, I fell in love with the Metro. Everything is accessible via this intelligently planned rapid transit system, and even the online maps are interactive and clickable, giving information about each station and some of the nearby attractions. Each stop is even shown on Google Maps, which made it even easier to figure out how to get where my friends and I wanted to go. This was definitely an improvement over the horrible HSR site and trip planner that I'm so used to, and the insanely complicated and non-intuitive interface of the TTC site.

On top of the ability to easily pre-plan our travels on the Metro, I also must give a huge two thumbs up to the people who decided that three day tourist passes should exist for only $17, which is a definite steal when compared to the very restrictive day passes you can purchase for use on the TTC. Rather than spend $2.75 each time we got on the Metro, all three of us bought these tourist passes and could use them for unlimited travel on all busses and the Metro in Montreal. Although we only used the passes for 2 days, by the time we'd finished our sightseeing ventures on Saturday and Sunday, the passes had saved each of us close to $5 in fares.

Another thing that I really believe needs to be adopted here are the small parcs that are maintained in various places around the city. It'd be a definite improvement over the vacant lots and decrepid abandoned buildings that line the streets of Hamilton.

As for the bohemianesque way of life I speak of, it just seemed to me that while every one we met in Montreal had a little niche in their respective neighbourhoods, the general feel of the city was one of acceptance, art, culture and civic pride. I feel the same about Locke Street here in Hamilton, but it was just so incredible that the entire city seemed to be on the same page.