Potholes along Bloor Street West, near Royal York Road in Toronto. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun files

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Arriving in Munich last spring after a flight from Toronto, I was immediately struck by the city’s lack of potholes. There aren’t any, even in the oldest part of the city. Munich is amazingly clean, too, with beautiful buildings, museums and the Englischer Garten (bigger than New York’s Central Park). Despite Germany’s recent economic challenges, you feel you are in a vibrant city.

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Not so with Toronto. Driving down streets like Bathurst or Davisville, we’re whipsawed as we veer to avoid car-jarring potholes. Our own residential street, in bad need of repaving, gives us daily roller-coaster thrills.

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Toronto’s potholes call to mind the “broken window” theory originally devised by James Q. Wilson and George Keeling in 1982 as a metaphor for and explanation of disorder in American neighbourhoods. While Wilson and Keeling related their concept to crime, potholes are emblematic of a city’s deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate public services.

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Only 69 per cent of Toronto’s thoroughfares are deemed to be in “good” or “fair” condition. And fair is not saying much since it includes roads with cracks and small potholes. In the next decade, over half of Toronto’s roads won’t even be in fair condition.

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Toronto’s subway, which has expanded in recent years, is critical to relieving road congestion. Subway fares, which unlike in many other cities are not based on distance travelled, cover only a third of operating costs. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is notorious for frequent security and other stoppages and crime, with 975 assaults registered so far in 2026.

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Not all is bad with Toronto, of course. Like many large cities, it has a lively sports and culture scene. Its big, ethnically diverse population enables families to enjoy a wide variety of activities. But housing is expensive and traffic congested, with many Torontonians undertaking extraordinary long commutes to work or shop.

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Overall, “Toronto the good” has become “Toronto the mediocre.” The city expects its operational spending to climb to $19 billion in 2026, 25 per cent more than in 2023, when Mayor Olivia Chow and the current council were elected. Property taxes, which cover about a third of revenues, rose 17 per cent from 2023 to 2025, though this year their increase was kept to 2.2 per cent, presumably to avoid an election backlash. Yet despite tax increases that make life less affordable for many, the potholes continue to multiply.

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It isn’t just a decaying transportation system that ails Toronto. In her recent book, Beyond Good Enough, former city councillor and chair of the TTC Karen Stintz lays out several policy ideas for pursuing excellence, not mediocrity. One of her main arguments is that municipal policies are driving out the middle class, who cannot afford to live in Toronto. It’s a problem for many large cities and only strong leadership can address it.