Burning Down

In Canada public transportation is run by the cities (for the most part anyways), so I can really only speak for Toronto (although I'm fairly sure most other cities here have good transport systems). The system here is pretty good, in my opinion. Of course there are always people who complain, saying the fares are too high, buses and trains are never on schedule, etc., but I've never had a problem. The entire city is accessible by bus, and the downtown core (where I live) is also served by streetcars (or trams or trolleys, same thing) and the underground subway. The subway is generally a better mode of transport because it bypasses all the road traffic (obviously!), whereas the buses and streetcars can get stuck in traffic. Our subway system is much smaller than that of New York's though, and I believe it is also older. Thousands of people use public transport here everyday, and the peak times are at rush hour in the mornings and afternoons, when everyone is heading to work or school.

It costs $3 for each ride, but there are passes and tickets available, and the price is lower. Passes and tickets are good if you use the system everyday or for the better part of a week. Oh yeah, it is also MUCH cheaper than a car, for which you have to buy gas and pay for maintenance, etc. I have a car that I use almost everyday because it's pretty good on gas and my uncle is a mechanic who gives me good deals on maintenance, but I sometimes like to take the bus or whatever. And public transport here is a good way to pick out all the weirdos in the city, just as long as you keep yourself safe!

Cable and satellite? It's pretty good here. Though most of the stuff on TV is garbage! There's basic cable packages, in which you get an analog signal and about 40 channels. I think that's about $100/month, but I'm not sure because I don't have it. I have digital cable. Digital cable is a major step up from basic and it's basically equal to satellite, except you don't need a dish. That package offers (well here anyways) up to 500 channels. Most of the programming is repeated though because the majority of channels are networks that broadcast the same shows at different times across the country. That costs almost $200/month. Satellite offers pretty much the same thing for roughly the same price, and sometimes you can get a radio package (like XM or Sirius) for an additional fee. Both digital cable and satellite offer specialty channels that show only movies for example.

In Toronto, the channels are mostly Canadian, but we do get a lot of American channels that broadcast from Buffalo or Rochester (the networks like Fox, NBC, CNN, CBS, etc). With the digital cable and satellite, you get all of that plus the channels that come from other parts of Canada or the US. What's so great about that is, if you know you're going to miss your favourite TV show you can either record it to PVR or catch it later from a more western time zone.

Lateralus, thanks for telling me what netball is! I sort of had an idea but I wasn't really clear on the dynamics of it.