And you drove North on two way Hwy 11, if you were going to Muskoka you stopped at Richmond Hill to buy gas and a snack. On weekends Richmond Hill south was bumper to bumper as husbands came to the cottage for the weekend. By the way, I never heard the term cottage country back then.
Burlington (where I live since 1999) was a farming town, the last apple orchard was removed in 1968 replaced by Burlington mall... there are still some working farms on Burloak dr. & some houses south of QEW has more than a 100 years old trees in their backyards.
My granddad was a carpenter and concrete form builder. Worked on a lot of those infrastructure jobs in the 60s and 70s. Even on the CN tower. Was certainly a different time.
My wife's grandfather also worked on the CN tower. She has a few pictures of one of the crews. One of them they are building the antenna one the ground before it was craned up
I miss the time when there was world leading things here. We still have well built freeways, you can tell as soon as you cross into Quebec on the 417. Sometimes I wonder if the quality is keeping more from being built.
@@DriversofOttawa The last time that I drove through New Brunswick there wasn't much in the way of 4 lane roads. They get all of that free money from west of Quebec.
You've got it backwards. Toronto was built on single family homes. That's our history and what made this city great. Just look around. There was no "before single family home zoning". You could walk up Yonge Street, turn off onto a perpendicular street and you'd be into single family homes. It gave Toronto a living downtown core. You can thank Chinese development companies and globalization and international land speculators for the price of things. You wanted a world class city, well you got your wish. Now you're going to have to compete with the global wealthy.
I remember as a kid in the early 60s going from Toronto to Brockville Ontario on the 401 , and fighting with my sister in the back seat ,mom would pull over and smack us with her shoe, The good old days ,
I'm always fascinated when looking at these videos. I can watch these all day. I would love to take my son in a time machine and visit the 70's and 80's for about a year.
OMG, this is awesome! Great to see how Ontario (and the roads) used to look, and the traffic was so light. I remember going on the Burlington Skyway Bridge MANY times with my mother in the 1970s and 1980s in her '69 Dodge Dart and later her '78 Ford Pinto, before the twin bridge was built next to it (and smelling the fumes from the factories nearby in Hamilton). My mother said the Burlington Skyway Bridge was such a welcome addition, as people no longer had to use the draw bridge, though (before I was born) she said she was afraid to drive it in her '63 VW Beetle after some strong winds on the bridge forced her car into the next lane, luckily there was no vehicle in that lane.
I went over the Skyway in the 70s, but just occasionally. Don't remember the structure, was too young in the 70s, but I do remember the smell, you just made me remember it again. And having fresh cow's milk at a farm near Smithville. We had a 69 Chevy Impala. Sadly my Mum's friend just died a few years ago. I had been going out myself frequently in the last 15 years. Always love going over the Skyway. Amazing all of the stories you get about your own past. I also remember all of the land north of the QEW was still farmland.
@@sofiathatcher3195 traffic on the highways today have nothing to do with john tory, it has to do with the pathetic liberal government, they fucked up the transportation system.
The fact that many of the things shown in this videos are still around to this day, shows how good some of the engineering was back then. A lot of it has been changed or replaced due to age, but generally speaking a lot of it is still standing and is in good condition. The same is true for the GO train cars.
I was born in 1996 and honestly wish I was born in 1966. Life seems so much better back then. I make 70k an year and can’t even dream to buy in Ottawa or back home in Kingston now.
Imagine how naive I was as a kid, to think that all the road construction, repairs and delays in Toronto would all be finished some day …and we could just peacefully pass through the city without even seeing a brake light. 😂😂.
@@StephaneDeschenesCanada I think I caught "two" just before the sound dropped, which would make sense as in... "car makers where pushing for two in every driveway..." one for mom & one for dad, better sales for them, but more cars on the road at the same time. So you need the infrastructure to start supporting all those extra vehicles. 👍
@@bryankautz826 I heard "2 in every dir-" before the sound cuts out, so I think he was trying to say car manufacturers were supporting 2 lanes in every direction of traffic on roads (2 lanes north for example 2 lanes south for example)
This is so cool 😎 my grandpa ran a cement truck and hauled cement to the tunnel projects in these videos. I've been running the qew every day recently, its cool to see how it looked 50 plus years ago
We can't help but wonder why audio in the last portion was censored. It seems to suggest automakers were pushing car sales (but why wouldn't they?) and shots of GO transit should remind that's what is needed now more than expanding highways.
Of course they push car sales. That's legitimate. What's more questionable is pushing: - road building at public expense (which directly subsidises their business model); - de-funding of mass transit; and - zoning laws that force construction of large numbers of homes where people have plenty of space to park their cars but no amenities within comfortable walking distance, in neighbourhoods where the roads are a deathtrap for cyclists and transit is poor or non-existent. That's why the GTA is choked up with cars. It doesn't have to be like that. Look at Amsterdam.
I remember when the Garden City Skyway was being built. I took a trip with my neighbours from Oakville to Niagara Falls, when I was around 9 or so and remember driving past the construction for it. I also recall seeing, a few years ago, of one end of the QEW bridge over 16 Mile Creek, in Oakville, from the late 40s. It was just a 2 lane road and someone's mail box was near the end of the bridge. When I was a kid, there were still several level intersections along the QEW, complete with traffic lights. My uncle recalled the "suicide lanes" on the QEW, where one could make a left turn onto a side street.
I agree, unless there was an accident. No Ontario Tall Walls then! Driving the 407 10 years ago, I imagined that's what driving the 401 looked like back in the day.
I was born the year you got your drivers' licence! I still remember driving around on some of those highways as a kid in the back seat of my parents' 1960s and 1970s cars. Some I recognize, others I don't, and wow, so much less traffic back then! If people thought there was congestion back then, I can't imagine what they'd think of it now!
Canada was just a much better place to live back then. Look at those beautiful cars. They may have broken down or had a flat more frequently back then, but the cars were so much more beautiful and looked different from all the other cars instead of our five colour array of cars today that all look the same ...shitty box-like vehicles.
@@derekhilton8859 that is so true! If you were in a head-on collision in that beautiful 55 Chevy, the steering column would be pushed into your chest and there you would die like a frog on a hook. If your head didn't go through the windshield, of course because there was no seatbelt to wear. That was common back then. I love old cars, I have three classics but I sure wouldn't want to drive them every day for these reasons.
@@Waltherppk78 OH I know right!! Those terrible far left weirdos who fought for and finally got Universal Healthcare for all Canadians!! Now they want governments to ensure that all Canadians can have cheap, reliable childcare so their parents can work and earn a decent wage. What are they going to want next? Good care for senior citizens and a strong support system for disadvantaged people who have fallen on hard times? Perhaps a system to ensure children have enough to eat. Those horrible pinko commies and their weird ideas!!!
@@paulburley7993 Moderate Liberals in Canada and those weirdos are two different things. Oh and bro, every communist society on the planet had a slave class to do all the dirty and bullshit jobs.
@@boratb258 back in the 60s the “moderate liberals” of today WERE the far left weirdos of that time. You numbskulls can’t understand that history is just humanity becoming more left leaning. Conservatives cling to the past
As a senior with a car, I chose to ride a mountain bike most of the time and generally drive less than 1000 km per year. We do have choices and the opportunity to go in that direction. Also no smartphone. It is up to you, and not everyone else.
I remember watching the Uncle Bobby show. He always called it the MacDonald-Cartier Freeway. I doubt anyone under 40 even knows that name today. As kids, we often called it the "4-nothing-1"
Just sucks having to go anywhere today. Can't even visit a simple plaza without having to go through an adventure making a left turn either in or out of it and then parking in the cramped up parking lots
Funny how it’s all the same number of lanes everywhere, just literally a million times the cars today, it really shows how much of our money politicians have pocketed over the last 50 years.
I can still remember being late for work and at a few minutes after 9:0am was exceeding the speed limit down the Don Valley Parkway. Try that today....:0)
It looks like the old service road interchange in west Oakville. You can see the Bronte Creek bridge in the upper portion of the shot. Back then, Burloak Drive didn't cross the QEW, so if you wanted to get on the QEW (if you lived in southeast Burlington like I did) you had to take the service road from Burloak, east about 2km to this interchange. When they finally built the Burloak interchange, this one was kind of redundant and was gone not long after.
I remember driving from Toronto to places like Niagara Falls and Fantasy Island, NY. Getting stuck at the lift bridge meant a long wait. Does anyone remember a popup snack stand at the roadside by those bridges, or am I dreaming?
Toronto is the cesspool of Canada in every which way. Canada itself is becoming a cesspool due to the housing crisis, food prices, unavailability of primary care physicians and I could go on ad infinitum. The new generation can't afford a house, they can barely afford an apartment. What a horrific place to live we have become. The music that went along with these clips and commercials are really interesting and nice. We could use a little more of that.
i remember getting lost in toronto and my dads map was so weird it showed the 401 as macdonld cartier freeway and no one we asked knew what the heck we were asking lol
Was it just me or did the sound go off there for the last couple of minutes. Other than that, it was s great video, especially figure out where the locations shown exist today.
... and as soon as 'the best transportation system in the world' was built..... we beat our chests for the next 50 years yelling 'WORLD CLASS CITY' while occasionally yelling 'NOT IN MY BACKYARD' when the government of the day wanted to build more onto it to handle the ever increasing strain and demand.
Those roads were so barren of other cars!! Man, traveling back then would have been peaceful, even on the major roads compared to days traffic. Taking a long drive would have taken a lot less time!
I frequently travelled through Toronto with my family in the 80’s…I can assure you it was not smooth sailing. Construction, repairs, road/traffic flow design and clearing of accidents was less efficient and there were more vehicle breakdowns. I would say it was better….but not much. ✌️
@@andyburch1819 I grew up in a small town in the 70's and 80's. Life was VERY different there than in the city. The only thing i saw or heard of the city was what i heard from others, or saw on tv, until i was an adult and visited Toronto for the first time in 1986, but only for a month. I headed back to the country!
Thats the way its supposed to be, what happened was they stopped building roads and stuffed millions more people in. Now look at the disaster we have and Toronto is broke as ever, and people think this is good leadership LMFAO
Wow, what a place to be. Sure looked beautiful. Check out hamilton, unbelievable. I need a time machine. Not even to the 70s, the 90s would be fine too.
3:00 'congestion was becoming a dirty word in the language...' By now, it's safe to say we've pretty much run out of dictionary to describe GTA traffic
