Pace (9)

It seems to me, the pace of the city is set my the Toronto trams.
They pretty much occupy every major street North-South and East-West, but particularily East-West. They take up the center lane of each of those major streets, which means in a 4 lane street, the passing lane is taken up by the tram. And then, when they stop to pick people up, which is practically every block, they cannot move off to the side and so they ALSO block the right lane. Ergo cars can't pass that way either because, well ... you would have to run people over to get through. They can't, and don't seem to, be able to move very quickly either. So basically in a crowded, busy city two lanes, each way are slowed down by the trams. Then during traffic and busy hours, the trams still get stuck behind cars.
Seems to me, and I have no romantic attachment to them, that they are a bit of a less efficient system. I used to use the trams in Melbourne and loved them, but they occupied select streets only and the streets were wider to accomodate them or so it seemed.
This mornings I made an early treck out to the closest Loblaws, or so I thought was close. What are fairly big streets in TO, with not too many stops lights took ... 15 minutes, mostly due to the Trams.