People from Toronto

[ChisJo]

Last week, I found out that Fiance was getting transferred to Toronto. We've been just kind of dealing with the shock of having to move to the other side of the country (and a city 4 times the size of where we live now), but now that we are over that, we are starting to look at where to live. Can anyone help me???

I have only been there once in my life and I am, truly, petrified of the sheer size of this place. I remember praying for my life on the 401. I remember thinking how lost I felt everyday and the size of the subway system. But, I trust my fiance when he sais this is an opportunity that he cannot give up and that we should take it. So, in approximately 3 months, we will be relocating from Edmonton to Toronto.

Here are some priliminary questions, if anyone can help...

1) We would love to live in the outskirts (like a suburb)...any suggestions? We don't know where the office is going to be located, so if you like a certain area, feel free to offer me that suggestion, as long as it has good access to the city. I want a safe and secure area, and newer developments as well.

2) How easy is it to take the subway system? Is there access from the subburbs, or is it only within Toronto city limits? Is it easy to understand how to use it (here in Edmonton, we only have 1 line that goes north to south)? Also, is there park and ride at any of the locations?

3) What is your local newspaper? I guess I need to start looking for jobs. Any website suggestions?

I'm gonna start with this and go from here. Like I said, it is going to be a huge change for me. My Fiance is extremely excited...he cannot wait. We know that once we are settled, we will be happy with the change, but for now, it's unsettling to not know anything about this city (even more so because I live in Canada and feel like I know nothing!).

Thanks in advance....Jo

 

[disneynovic]

We live 1 hour north of downtown Toronto, but it is only 30 mins to DH's work in Markham. You really should wait to see where your fiance's office will be before you decide where you want to/can afford to live. My little town has only a population of 16,000, with mostly new homes. Newmarket has many new homes and a great mall for shopping. I love where I live, and have been here more than 10 years. It is very family oriented and I feel comfortable and safe in my town.
The subway is only in TO city, but there are GO trains that connect Newmarket, East and West Gwillimbury for example, and GO buses as well.
Personally, we didn't like living in TO city ourselves, and only lasted one year, before moving to the outskirts.
Good luck with the move,
Deb

 

[Ham Ham]

Welcome to the GTA. No sense in recommending places until you know where you will be working. A lot of companies have their offices West, North and East of T.O.

Example if your fiancé works in West Mississauga you could live & work in Guelph. 30 minute drive.

Let us know when you have more info.

At least with the increase in you house values in Edmonton prices here won't be a shock.

The GTA has a lot of great areas to live and is no where neat as dangerous as folks think. As for the 401, 20 lanes can be intimidating to anyone. You'll do just fine.

I hope You fiancés decide to locate outside of the downtown core. Housing will be cheaper for you.

IMHO the Toronto Star is the best paper. They and the Globe have a weekly careers section.
The Star Careers
The Globe Careers
What is your skill set?

We'll have to have a Dis meet to welcome you to the hood.

Just think you can start taking advantage of the low US air fares to MCO.

 

[drag n' fly]

Hey at least you will be closer to WDW!

 

[amw]

Here are some priliminary questions, if anyone can help...

1) We would love to live in the outskirts (like a suburb)...any suggestions? We don't know where the office is going to be located, so if you like a certain area, feel free to offer me that suggestion, as long as it has good access to the city. I want a safe and secure area, and newer developments as well.

2) How easy is it to take the subway system? Is there access from the subburbs, or is it only within Toronto city limits? Is it easy to understand how to use it (here in Edmonton, we only have 1 line that goes north to south)? Also, is there park and ride at any of the locations?

3) What is your local newspaper? I guess I need to start looking for jobs. Any website suggestions?

Welcome to the GTA

Like all the previous posters have mentioned, you really need to know where your fiance will be located. If he's working downtown, you'll need access to Go transit (The subways only service Toronto proper. The Go train system is what you'll need for the burbs.) My husband travels for work, so we like access to the toll 407 Hwy. (We're in Markham.) I grew up in TO, and still tend to avoid that stretch of 401

All the Go stations tend to have park N Ride for free -- at least they do on our Markham line. There's another line that goes to the East to burbs such as Pickering/Whitby/Oshawa (they're located off the 401). And there's another line that goes North to Richmond Hill/Aurura/Newmarket like disneynovic mentioned. I don't know the west-end at all.

I like the small town of Stouffville, one train stop north of Markham, with easy access to Hwy 404. But, you do really need to know how far you DF's commute time would be based on his work location.

Good luck in your planning

 

[mommylo]

Hi ChrisJo, I agree with Disneynovic, it really depends on where your finance will be working. You really don't want to live in one end of the GTA and he works at the other end. There are a lot of new subdivisions all over the place. The good thing is if you live in the north end of the city, we have the toll highway 407 which runs from Whitby/Oshawa to close to Hamilton now so you don't have to be on the 401 if you don't want to. Keep asking questions here. Good Luck in your search.

 

[mermaid&cinderella]

I agree, wait until you find out where the office will be. There are many suburb cities that are great. So let us know when you find that out and I'm sure we'll help you with some of the best cities! The subway system is only in Toronto and its actually really easy, its only 2 lines. But there is a GO train systems that goes into the subrurbs and into Toronto, really easy to get into TO. The best newspaper is The Toronto Star.
How exciting!!!!!

 

[twinmum]

Hello and welcome to the "big smoke"!!! I've always been a big city girl (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, New York City and back to Toronto), but that 401 still gets my heart pounding sometimes. All those lanes are intimidating!

But that's because, unlike the previous posters, my family and I live in the centre of the city. Seriously, I live 15 minutes from the financial centre where I work (when I need to go to a client, mostly it's from home!), 10 minutes from the Eaton Centre, and 10 minutes to the 401 if we're heading up north skiing etc. All our activities and errands are within 15 minutes of home...in fact, i rarely cross over to the other side of Yonge Street because everything is so close! Our neighbourhood is very family oriented, there's lots of trees, the kdis play out in the street and we can walk to the bus/subway. We love it here. When I go out to do errands, I run into friends on the street. I think you'll find that Toronto (the GTA) is really made up of lots of neighbourhoods - you just need to find the one that suits you best.

I have the same advice as the other posters - find out where your DF will be working, then have your home and career search lead from there. The last thing you want to do is inadvertently end up with a rotten commute! I do believe they are avoidable. What work do you do?

I know it's a big change, but hopefully you'll find yourself nicely settled in no time. Just think - you'll find a great neighbourhood in the middle of a city that overs so much in terms of entertainment and activity!

Welcome!

 

[ChisJo]

one poster asked what my specialty was....Sorry, for some reason I thought I mentioned it, but reread my post and realized that I hadn't.

I'm an RN, have worked in Peds and am now working towards my OHN certificate. I really don't want to go back to working in a hospital...I'm trying to get away from that due to a back injury. I am hoping to work more in the industrial world with my degree. If anyone is a nurse from Ontario, I really have a ton of questions (especially about licensing!?!?!?)

Thanks everyone....by the end of the week, we'll know more about locations and I will have WAY more questions at that point.

 

[ChisJo]

Hello and welcome to the "big smoke"!!!

Why is it called the "big smoke"?

 

[retiredkid]

Just to give you a little background info.

It depends on what you mean by suburbs.
The 'City of Toronto' is much larger now than it was 10 years ago.
What is now called the City of Toronto was back then called Metro Toronto.

Metro Toronto consisted of five cities and one borough
City of Toronto - downtown core
City of Scarborough - East of the core
City of Etobicoke - West of the core
City of North York - North of the core
City of York - smaller city, West of the core
Borough of East York - East of the core

They then amalgamated all of the above into the City of Toronto.

GTA = Greater Toronto Area. This includes the surrounding cities of today's Toronto. Including Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering, Newmarket, Hamilton, Woodbridge, Missisauga. Way too many to mention. Just Google GTA to learn more.

The only reason I am giving you this info is this. If your impression of Toronto is the busy downtown core, Hwy 401, concrete and streetcars, all of the above former cities have lovely residential areas, beautiful parks, and yes, lots of commercial and retail everywhere. Again, as all pp have said, when you know what your work location will be, it will help narrow things down. In the meantime, maybe you can Google each of the above 'former' cities (ie Etobicoke Ontario) to learn more. I hope this helps a little.

 

[twinmum]

Hello again! I probably should have avoided using "The Big Smoke" for 2 reasons - first, Toronto's air isn't that bad, and second, I'm dating myself because now that I think of it, I don't think I've heard anyone use it in years, certainly not anyone under 40 years old!

According to Wikipedia, here's where it came from:

The Big Smoke – originally a nickname for London, England, presumably imported by British immigrants

But really, would you have felt better if I'd used "Hogtown"?

Let us know when you know more - there are some terrific places to live around here!

Twinmum

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

Welcome to Ontario - Lots of great advice and suggestions have already been given - just remember that with that scary 401 you have access to some great places to live that are within an easy drive to toronto - it's not all concrete and highway! Don't look at just the cities immediatly around TO!
I've lived here all my life and still can't/won't drive on the 401!!

 

[DearDaisyinDurham]

Hi Jo!!
You will be our GTA neighbor soon!! Yay!! I think you'll love Ontario. I grew up in the midwest (Iowa) and for me moving here felt very much like coming home. I love the GTA, Ontario and Canada, all of it that I've seen so far.

The best thing for me to get over my fear of the 401 was that we had doctor's appointments scheduled that I had to drive to, and that cured me quickly. Although I do love the GO train for going downtown as well, it's wonderful to be able to take the 401 now without fear (well a little bit of healthy fear but hey).

One huge advantage of being here IMHO is living so close to both the gorgeous cottage country and also the Niagara region.

I agree with Ham Ham, let's have a GTA Dis meet for you when you arrive.

And I also love the Toronto Star (their horoscopes are stellar).

Hugs
xoxoxoxoxo

 

[misslissa]

Welcome to Ontario!

I kind of know the feeling. We moved very quickly from Niagara Region to Toronto, and it was huge for us. We were actually so much in a rush that we signed a lease and moved into a condo rental without even seeing it. We loved that it was in Scarborough, right at the end of the subway line to the east. It was close to everything and was out of the downtown area, but still gave us easy access to downtown. We rented from delrentals.com, it might be a good site to check out. We were happy with them and rented from them for 1.5 years.

Now, we have bought a home and moved to North Whitby (east of the city, more economical) and DH commutes to the downtown core (about an hour), I commute to Markham, about 35 mins for me (north of the downtown core).

401 does take some getting used to, but you can do it!

My sister is a nurse and used to work as a VON. http://www.von.ca/ I know that there is a lot of driving involved in this job. Oh, also... a good job site is http://www.jobbank.gc.ca/ or http://www.torontojobs.ca

Good luck to you... and I can't wait to hear where you'll be relocating to!

 

[MaMudduck]

Why is it called the "big smoke"?

In the "olden" days the farmers that lived outside of Toronto (in the "burgs" now) use to refer to Toronto as the "Big Smoke" because the closer they traveled to Toronto they could see the smoke rising from all the coal burning factories in the downtown core of Toronto (this also included the cargo ships at the TO docks) Hamilton really should be the "big smoke" now. Which would be the same reason why they called London the "big smoke"

"Hogtown" was the again from the farmers that would came to T.O. to sell the Hogs at market (auction)

I grew up in all of the burgs of T.O., yes bigger than what your use to but you'll also find winters warmer here.

 

[ChisJo]

you'll also find winters warmer here.

You have no idea how excited I am about warmer winters....I hate cold winters. I say every winter that i'm moving to Hawaii....I hate -30 degrees. I don't mind if there's snow, it's that brutal bitter cold that I hate. Looking forward to a winter without that....

 

[mkmommy]

Winter- One thing to remember, it is a damp cold and not a dry cold like Alberta. I moved from Calgary and I actually prefer the winter there. I love living in Ontario as there is so much to do, but I found winters more bearable in Alberta, you just put on lots of layers and go in Ontario the cold seems to go thru everything.

 

[calliemom]

Hi!
I haven't read all of the replies here, but it looks like your getting a great deal of good advise.
I am an MLS junkie. The mls.ca web site allows you to click around various areas of the gta and beyond to get ideas of real estate pricing. If I can help in any way please pm me and I will be glad to help. Once you have an address of a property that looks of interest , simply go to maps.google.ca and put the address to get a better idea of location. You can even get a close up satelit image to see if the neighbours have a pool, or if there is a shopping mall or gas station in your back yard.
I'm sure you know that every city has its "sketchy" area's, so you'll really have to be careful about that.
As mentioned, feel free to pm me with any detailed questions and best of luck!

 

[damo]

Why is it called the "big smoke"?

Wow, I've lived here for 30 years and have never heard that!


Winter sucked this year. Hopefully it won't ever again.