i mentioned when i first came down in here in mid-2013 that i didn't really feel like i'd left toronto until i got out of london. and, we know toronto is big - 5th biggest metro area in north america now, iirc, meaning it's behind, what? new york, los angeles, chicago, houston?

is that it?

is it that big?

but what is that like on a map?

any concept of the gta nowadsays is more than just hamilton and the old boroughs, it's the string of cities around it, too. brantford - famous mostly as the hometown of wayne gretzky - is a suburb of hamilton, now. kitchener-guelph-cambridge-waterloo is becoming it's own amalgamation, and it is itself in the gta, too. i think that the strip up the niagara river, which is amalgamating too, is next, even if it's still distinct, right now. i mean, there are people that seriously want to move the buffalo bills to toronto in order to keep the team - such is the size of toronto as a regional centre, that even buffalo sees itself as a suburb.

it's a huge area, and i'm just looking at it from the west - it's moving north and east, too. 

the infrastructure of the city of toronto might end somewhere around the 401/403 split, but what i was trying to get across is that it doesn't feel like it anymore it just feels like you go through a string of suburban towns/cities that includes woodstock, ingersoll and then london. so, the infrastructure breaks, but the city doesn't really end; closing the gap is more about catching up than thinking forwards.

as it is., that's my limit point on the way back out of toronto: i can get to brantford, and no further - then i need to pay for it.

the previous government was taking about an extension to london by 2025. i haven't heard anything from the new one.