One of my favorite cranky American authors, James Kunstler, was at a speaking engagement nearby recently. Unfortunately since he spoke in Guelph, rather than in downtown Toronto, I wasn’t able to make it. On his web site he has written for us a brief yet highly disturbing comment about his trip:

Returning last night from the little university town of Guelph, Ontario, I was driven to the Toronto airport against rush hour traffic churning out of the city in the opposite lanes. I don’t think I have ever seen a greater and more hopeless volume of automobile traffic in any city. They are paying something equivalent to four dollars a gallon up there in Canada. The bloated urban organism of Toronto has reached its terminal size and scale. But the inevitable process of contraction will shock even those now suffering in the commuter lanes.

Anyone who’s from around here will laugh knowingly at the experience of braving the 401 at rush hour. I am surprised and alarmed, however, to see Kunstler hold up Toronto as being even worse than the many American cities he’s no doubt familiar with.

I thought we Torontonians liked to blow our own sufferings out of proportion; perhaps our complaining is justified after all.