Having 7.5x the population means having more funds available for building expensive subway lines. Having more population also necessitates more of the transit to be via subway or rail, as opposed to buses which are slower and have other issues, but way cheaper than rail or subway.
Toronto, having less population, invests less in the most expensive solution that’s best for the densest cities, but still also invests in light rail and bus networks.
I was born in a town of <10k. We had buses and nothing else. Capital city of my country has a population of ~300k - has rail and trams in addition to buses. Capital city of the country just north of us a bigger population in the metro area than our entire country - 1.6 million vs 1.3 million. They have metro lines. Slightly over half the population of Toronto, slightly over half the total length of metro lines. Toronto is also building an extra 3 lines in addition to the current 3, nearly doubling total length of lines when it’s done.
Now Chengdu vs Toronto: 7.5x the population, 9x the rail lines (by length). Is Toronto really doing so badly? I would say that the bigger you get with cities, the need for high density transport lines actually rises faster than city growth. Maybe not quadratic, but definitely not linear. n log n maybe?
Having 7.5x the population means having more funds available for building expensive subway lines. Having more population also necessitates more of the transit to be via subway or rail, as opposed to buses which are slower and have other issues, but way cheaper than rail or subway.
Toronto, having less population, invests less in the most expensive solution that’s best for the densest cities, but still also invests in light rail and bus networks.
I was born in a town of <10k. We had buses and nothing else. Capital city of my country has a population of ~300k - has rail and trams in addition to buses. Capital city of the country just north of us a bigger population in the metro area than our entire country - 1.6 million vs 1.3 million. They have metro lines. Slightly over half the population of Toronto, slightly over half the total length of metro lines. Toronto is also building an extra 3 lines in addition to the current 3, nearly doubling total length of lines when it’s done.
Now Chengdu vs Toronto: 7.5x the population, 9x the rail lines (by length). Is Toronto really doing so badly? I would say that the bigger you get with cities, the need for high density transport lines actually rises faster than city growth. Maybe not quadratic, but definitely not linear. n log n maybe?