In the UK not all traffic lights have sound only some do, but all of them have a tactile knob at hand height which spins when it is safe to cross.

The pavements have tactile paving so you can feel through your shoes when you're approaching particular things - for example there are raised dots when you are near a pedestrian crossing, raised lines when you are near hazards like stairs.

The public transport in London is very accessible - in the buses there is an audio announcement before every stop, and then an announcement of the bus's destination. On the tube there are also audio announcements, and while getting around the stations can be overwhelming at first there are usually staff around to help. In the rest of the country the public transport is more hit and miss, for instance in my city you just have to ask the bus driver to tell you when you get to your stop and hope he/she remembers. Throughout the country buses are free for blind people, and you can get a discount on the train.

In lifts, it is a bit more common to have raised numbers on/by the buttons rather than braille. In general I don't encounter a lot of braille here at all, although my local museum does have braille descriptions by all of the exhibits. Utility companies are required to send you your bills in braille if you ask them to. Legally braille has to be on the packaging of all medicines and on any hazardous substances like bleach.

If you are registered blind you can get support from the local council - both practical support from the disability team and monetary support for things like making your home more accessible.

Socially there are lot of blind hobby groups - sports, choirs, film/book clubs, etc. Although it will depend where you are in the country.

I live in Canada, in Ottawa, in fact, and have lived in Toronto, too. I happen to think life here is pretty good.

Toronto is the better city for public transit (I miss Toronto transit). It’s big and diverse, so there are lots of services and amenities. But it also means there’s a lot of people, and travelling to different parts of the city can take time (it took about an hour for me to commute to university, for example).

Ottawa is smaller. It’s a nicer city. Walking downtown by the Parliament buildings is lovely. Drivers here tend to be nicer, too. Transit is good in and around the downtown core, but gets trickier in the suburbs. With Toronto, I didn’t have to plan transit routes, because a streetcar or bus came every couple minutes. In Ottawa, that’s true of the train, and transit way busses, but not true of local routes. My local bus only comes once every half hour, but I can walk to the train station so it’s not so bad for me.

Canada is lovely but the weather is a total lump of misery. It's about minus a thousand degrees most of the year and I find snow a total pain with cane travel so I couldn't live there. I really love Toronto and it's a shame it isn't fifteen hundred miles further south!

I'm an O&M instructor in Toronto. Most of the major cities in Canada have reasonably good transit systems, although the cost of Toronto has gone through the roof. Most major cities are also in the process of adding the Audible Pedestrian Signals (APS) to the traffic lights as well, although not all of the intersections have them yet.

In Canada it will definitely depend on the city or area.

One suggestion I have is perhaps to cross-post this in the Ottawa sub. The Ottawa sub is really friendly and they may be able to give some ideas about accessibility, traffic, and public transport.

It may be good to ask the Ottawa sub if there is a local association for people who are blind. You could then contact that local association directly and they would be best equipped to tell you the pros and cons of the city.