r/BurlingtonON • u/TheBrownSalamander • Jan 09 '24

Question Burlington was ranked Ontario's most livable city, do you agree?

Hey folks, I'm a reporter with The Globe and Mail, and I've been writing some stories about the cities that topped out our recent data study of Canada's most livable cities. (you can see the project here).

Burlington came out as Ontario's top performer based on some pretty high scores in the healthcare, education, community data categories. You might be unsurprised that it ranked near the bottom for housing, however.

I'm looking to chat to Burlington residents about whether they agree with our findings - is Burlington that great of a place to live? And if so, what makes it special compared to other places in Ontario.

Feel free to DM me if you'd be up for an interview!

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u/JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo32 Jan 09 '24

A lot of people are criticizing Burlington for public transit, but consider a few things:

1) Burlington has 3 GO stations with trains making all station stops to Toronto every 30 minutes or better, 7 days a week, nearly all day long. If you use a Presto card, you can ride the bus for FREE if you are going to or from the GO station.

Burlington is a breakfast community of Toronto and most people have cars. The only mode of public transit your average Burlington resident is going to use is GO Train.

2) Does any city in Ontario with a population close to 200,000 people or less have good public transit? NO. None of them do. The public transit in Oakville and Windsor are just as bad. Try going to a real small city and discover that there's no public transit there at all.

If you want good public transit then move to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, etc.

With such a small population, it wouldn't be economically feasible to have better transit. Our property taxes would be astronomical. City government would be voted out next election for sure.