>The climate alone easily justifies building pedestrian tunnels.

Then why are they so deserted most of the time?

>You come across as one of those car-hating fanatics who'll zero in on literally anything about North American cities, blaming everything you don't like on Evil Car Culture.

Cool story, not sure who it applies to. I live in mid-size Canadian city in suburbia now, and drive a car quite often (though I do commute to work by bike).

>Car + N.A. is the most convenient and comfortable combination, by a very long way, even if you're stuck in a condo in the gridlocked downtown Toronto as I was.

That's great that you have this highly subjective opinion, and you should have the option of living that lifestyle. Those who don't want to should not be treated as second class citizens and should have the freedom to choose a comfortable, car-free or car-lite lifestyle too. That's not possible or logistically very difficult in almost all North American cities.

The walkways like PATH are absolutely a byproduct of the way our downtowns (used to, and to some extent still do) cater to the drive-in nine-to-fivers, and don't put nearly enough thought or money into making streets more pleasant and walkable in all seasons. You can think of it as good or bad, but I see little reason to exaggerate so comically about the deadly dangers of Scary Toronto Winters, and how they necessitate separating oneself from the outdoors at all costs. The reason our downtowns suck so much to walk through in wintertime is not the weather per se, but choices and priorities we make about infrastructure and maintenance. If you really have lived in Europe, particularly parts of Europe that have actual winters with snow, you'll know exactly what I mean.

>Then why are they so deserted most of the time?

What general age range are you? I ask because before COVID, The PATH in Toronto was absolutely packed and incredibly busy. Nowadays it's true that the PATH has far fewer pedestrians but that's because of people working from home, a situation which is likely to come to an end by the end of next year with most of the financial district mandating a return to office.

>You can think of it as good or bad, but I see little reason to exaggerate so comically about the deadly dangers of Scary Toronto Winters, and how they necessitate separating oneself from the outdoors at all costs.

There are quantifiable metrics about extreme weather conditions in Toronto that are tracked by the City of Toronto's Public Health Unit, so we don't need to speculate about this issue:

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/re...

For various reasons, the number of extreme cold weather alerts, defined as periods where the temperature drops to below 30 degrees Celcius, has increased quite significantly in the past 20 years with 2022 having a record of 49 days. Considering winter is only 90 days a year, having more than half of those days resulting in extreme weather alerts absolutely qualifies as unsuitable for outdoor pedestrian travel.

Here's a comparison of Toronto and a handful of random not-Southern European cities that came to mind. For interest's sake, all these are far north of Toronto, which is in line with Marseille!

https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/19863~75981~45062~47913~5...

Toronto is up there in summer, and lowest in winter, and at high humidity. Add in high winds coming in over an icy Lake Ontario and I'd rather buy my groceries fully indoors.

I agree about the lack of snow, but there's still just enough to make that brown slush, which is worse for walking in.

My original point - perhaps overly aggressively stated - comes down to this: the people who vote and pay taxes also like their cars, and this is OK. Building a pedestrian tunnel in Toronto should be very uncontroversial. Infrastructure decisions have to be made, and there are many upsides to widespread car ownership.

- no crazies yelling at you, or at least not within stabbing range of you

- you pick your soundscape

- you pick your temperature

- lower average transit time (I don't have a stat for this one, but I started off taking the TTC (Toronto Transit) and then bought a car. Despite heavy traffic, my travel time literally halved.

- suddenly big box stores like Costco make more sense, which makes the entire economy more efficient

Of course there are downsides. But everything is a tradeoff.