CN Tower → Rogers Centre

These two buildings are neighbours. The Rogers Centre's outfield wall sits about 320 metres from the base of the CN Tower, and the walk between them takes two minutes. It is the shortest route on this site, and it is genuinely useful for one reason: over distances this short, the disagreement between different step-counting methods becomes larger than the walk itself.

The route

From the CN Tower's base at 290 Bremner Boulevard, walk west along Bremner. The Rogers Centre's Gate 5 entrance is on your right within 300 metres. In winter, the PATH underground network connects both buildings and adds perhaps 150 metres of indoor walking.

About 320 metres, or 0.2 miles. The straight line is around 280 metres. There is nothing complicated here.

Why the count is unreliable at this distance

Zero point two miles is about 430 steps by the standard conversion. Your phone will probably tell you something different, and the reason is worth understanding.

Accelerometer-based step counters need a few seconds of consistent gait to distinguish walking from other movement, and most implementations apply a short delay before they begin counting to avoid registering fidgeting or vehicle motion as steps. Over a two-minute walk, that startup delay can swallow twenty or thirty steps — a rounding error on a 10,000-step day, but seven per cent of this particular walk. Wrist-worn devices are less reliable again over short distances, because arm swing is less consistent at the start of a walk than in the middle of one.

If you want to see this for yourself, this is a good place to try: walk it twice, once with your phone in a pocket and once holding it, and compare. The gap is usually substantial. There is more on this in our piece on why your phone and your watch never agree.

Two records, one block

The CN Tower was completed in 1976 and stood as the tallest free-standing structure in the world for 32 years, until the Burj Khalifa passed it in 2007. It was built by Canadian National, the railway, on railway land — the original justification was practical rather than symbolic. Downtown Toronto's rapid high-rise growth through the 1960s was degrading radio and television reception by creating reflections, and a single very tall transmission mast solved the problem.

The Rogers Centre, opened in 1989 as SkyDome, was the first stadium with a fully retractable roof that worked. Earlier attempts had failed or been abandoned; this one used four panels, three of which move on rails, taking about twenty minutes to open or close. It was extraordinarily expensive — the final cost ran several times the original public estimate — and it changed the expectations for every stadium built afterward.

The proximity is not accidental. Both sit on the former Railway Lands, a large area of rail yard south of Front Street that Canadian National and Canadian Pacific released for development from the 1970s onward. Nearly everything in this part of downtown Toronto, including the convention centre and the surrounding condominium towers, is built on that same railway ground.

Walking it well

Use the PATH in winter. Toronto's underground pedestrian network is one of the largest in the world and connects both buildings, along with Union Station, so you can reach a game without going outside in February.

If you want an actual walk rather than a stroll between doors, continue south to the Harbourfront and east along Queens Quay to the ferry terminal — about 1.2 miles and 2,580 steps, along the lake, and a far better use of the legs.

Your step count, by height

Step length varies with height by more than 25 per cent across the adult range, so the single figure at the top of this page will not be right for everyone. Here is the same distance for a range of heights, using the standard estimate of 0.414 × height.

Your height	Est. step length	Steps for this route
1.55 m	0.64 m	501
1.65 m	0.68 m	471
1.75 m	0.72 m	444
1.85 m	0.77 m	420
1.95 m	0.81 m	399

These are estimates. If you want a figure that matches your own gait, our guide to measuring your stride length takes about five minutes.

Common questions

How long does the walk take?

Two to three minutes. It is a single block.

Is there an indoor route?

Yes. Toronto's PATH network links the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre and Union Station underground, which is the standard route in winter.

Why does my phone show fewer steps than 430?

Short walks are where step counters are least accurate. Most algorithms need a few seconds of steady gait before they start counting, which costs you a disproportionate share of a two-minute walk.

Try your own route

Enter any two places into the step calculator to get a figure for a walk of your own, or browse all twenty routes and eight articles.