The Toronto PATH

Winter is drawing in fast. It's getting colder and I've seen the odd snowflake drifting through the air. I can't wait for the first big snowfall; everyone assures me I'll get over it pretty quickly, but I'm still excited by the prospect of a white Christmas. But so far, it isn't the external conditions to which I'm finding it hard to adjust, it's the level of heating indoors which is killing me.

It's cold out there today. It's cold out there everyday.

When I first arrived I equipped myself with heavy boots, a heavy down-filled coat and a (fake) fur trimmed hat to keep the cold out. All totally unnecessary. Every building in Toronto is heated to such an extent that if you were to wear all that stuff you'd drown in your own sweat within minutes. Every house, shop, subway, cafe, restaurant, bus or train is determined that on entering their premises you have to strip down as far as your own personal sense of decency allows and then carry all your fur-lined outdoor clothes like some sort of trapper laden down with pelts. It's impossible to dress appropriately; you either freeze to death on the streets, or you run the risk of heat-stroke indoors.

All this was troubling me when I discovered the Toronto PATH this week. To avoid having to go outside at all in the winter, the crafty Torontonians have built an entire underground city beneath the downtown area. There are 28 km of underground walkways which link dozens of downtown locations as well as housing 1,200 stores and services. It would be entirely possible to live down there and never have to see sunlight ever again. Come the eventual Zombie apocalypse, Toronto will be happily sipping on their Starbucks, getting their nails done, visiting the cinema and trying to decide which of the many food courts they should visit for lunch whilst the rest of the world will be trying to figure out how to make a CB radio work and whether or not rats are safe to eat.

And never seeing sunlight again is quite a likely prospect; successfully navigating 28 km of underground tunnels is not particularly easy. I went down there trying to get to Union station from the bus depot. Overground this journey would take perhaps half an hour. I was down there all day. I'm confident that I saw every inch of the PATH. Occasionally I would pop my head above ground and find myself in an investment bank or a management consultancy and have to retreat back down to the world of shadows and bargain dental care.

By the time I eventually found my way to Union station I emerged, blinking in the daylight and decided to never forsake the surface world again. But I know that once the novelty of the snow has worn off I'll be headed underground again.