Toronto Ranked 3rd in Politeness and I say BULL

Toronto the polite Survey ranks us third, behind N.Y., Zurich as most courteous cities

It’s the city many Canadians love to hate, so detractors may be surprised to learn Toronto ranks as the third most-polite city in an international survey.

Canada’s biggest city places behind New York and Zurich in the Reader’s Digest survey of 36 cities, released yesterday.

Undercover reporters — an equal number of men and women — recorded more than 2,000 tests of behaviour to come up with the list. Seventy per cent of those tested in Toronto took a moment to do the courteous thing, compared to 80 per cent in New York and 77 per cent in Zurich.

Montreal was the only other Canadian city on the list, and ranked 21st, just below Amsterdam and slightly more polite than Helsinki and Manila.

Fifty per cent of Montrealers tested were courteous.

Toronto-based freelance writer Ian Harvey, one of the undercover testers for the magazine, said people shouldn’t be surprised that big cities were the top three most courteous places.

“Courtesy is the social lubricant that allows us — in these densely packed urban areas — to get along with each other,” he said. “And without it, we’d be at each other’s throats.”

He said he’s travelled the world and Torontonians have always struck him as being polite.

“(They) are the only people in the world that will apologize when somebody else bumps into them,” he said.

[via Metro]