Chuck
Senior Member
And on that note, YRT shall officially be renamed TTC - The Second.
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Need Directions from Scarborough to Vaughan on public transit
- Thread starter theowne
- Start date
And on that note, YRT shall officially be renamed TTC - The Second.
ShonTron
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Except YRT is dismal both on paper and in practice, unlike the TTC, where it is often only dismal in practise (with the promise of "FS" on schedule boards).
doady
Senior Member
Personally, I'd much rather use the TTC than YRT any day, but maybe that's just me.
Chuck
Senior Member
What I meant is that VIVA is to the subway as "rest of YRT" is to "rest of the TTC".
Obviously subways will always be better than buses no matter where you are in the world. But whereas the highest order mode of transit in many cities can literally take you anywhere (look at the subway in New York or London, or the Transitways in Ottawa), both the TTC subway and VIVA system in York Region are too narrowly focused to be of practical use unless you live on, and are going to, a destination on Yonge, Bloor, or Highway 7.
Obviously subways will always be better than buses no matter where you are in the world. But whereas the highest order mode of transit in many cities can literally take you anywhere (look at the subway in New York or London, or the Transitways in Ottawa), both the TTC subway and VIVA system in York Region are too narrowly focused to be of practical use unless you live on, and are going to, a destination on Yonge, Bloor, or Highway 7.
CDL.TO
Moderator
Heh. All they need to do is loop VIVA blue from Finch up Bathurst and it would have basically the exact same layout as the TTC subway. If they wanted to go all out they could add a "stubviva" along elgin mills.
doady
Senior Member
IMO, VIVA is not focused enough. That's is why there are so many empty buses. And VIVA itself takes service away from the regular routes, so the concept of VIVA itself is a lack of focus on the part of YRT, and is actually slowing down the ridership growth of YRT compared to Brampton and Mississauga.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Viva Green is a strange creature...it goes from the stubway to a vast office park to the as-yet unbuilt downtown Markham and then does not continue on to the 100,000+ people living east of McCowan, making about 8 turns along the way. The route makes some sense in theory but not at all in practice. Higher order routes in that area make more sense running straight up and down Don Mills or Warden or Kennedy or McCowan, not going diagonally from nowhere to the stubway. But double fares and the lack of a subway network in the east kill the effectiveness of these potential routes.
drum118
Superstar
When was the last time you saw a empty Blue line bus? I have yet see see one and most are near or at peak load to crush loads.
Pink should be kill as 15 riders or less doesn't cut it when you have the Purple. It will never carry the ridership as plan.
Green is a waste and I have been on the many empty buses on that route as the only rider.
Orange is a waste south of York. Been on a few empty buses west of York.
Purple has a long way to go, but in time it will have the ridership to handle artic's loads.
I understand where York wants to go not only with the VIVA as well with YRT, but 30-60 minutes is not going to do it. 15 minute max for the VIVA with the Blue being in the 5-10 minute range.
The VIVA hasn't taken riders off the 99 and the ones they may have have been replace by others. Blue ridership is a lot higher than The GO route as well 99 today compare to when VIVA started up. Having 15 minute service on 7 is better than the 60 minute service.
Green had too many issues from day one and when the bulk of the service is to come from the current empty field, you get poor ridership. In 5-10 years, Green may have the ridership.
The goal of the VIVA was to put service on the road before construction started for the various development to say you don't need that car or the second car when you have 15 minute or less service within walking distance. Known as Transit First. The same headway should be use for the local stop at the same time.
Oakville North new development is being setup as Transit First to the point that the routes and stop location will be shown on all the new development plans to get people to stop buying that 2nd car and leave the car at home. The only problem so far, service is 30 minutes once the road is finish as well there is enough development in the first place to start service. Don't know of any City/Town that plan new development from ground zero and get the developers to buy into to have transit as part of their selling package as well showing the stops and routes on their plans.
The city itself has yet to buy into transit strongly by not providing better funding to expand the system at this time. New routing or service improvement is not going to happen until July 2008 and getting the budget approved for 2008 to do it has yet to happen.
VIVA is being setup as the main backbone of the system with various YRT routes feeding it. There are other YRT routes that will become VIVA routes and they are down the road.
It a lot better in York Region than it was 5 years ago.
Mississauga has yet to deal with ridership growth as it still has the same problem today that were there 5 years ago. Brampton has move ahead a lot faster in that same time frame, but still has away to go.
There is a saying that at any given time there is a bus empty on a section of a route cause by number of reasons, but over all, it all in the eyes of that person. Is the glass haft full or haft empty?
Yes YRT has a number of routes that see close to no riders in the first place and only have to read the report to see this. MT and other system have the same problems also.
doady
Senior Member
The point is, unlike YRT, the low-ridership BT and MT routes are not market as rapid transit and given 10-15 minute service. There is a good reason why YRT has only around 40% cost-recovery while BT and MT have around 55%.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
It's a shame you have to commute that far and for so long. In terms of the best route I'd put my faith in the VIVA service over TTC in York Region. The 905 does a superior job of adhering to time schedules, at least I've never had to wait more than a minute past the scheduled arrival time for a bus. Finch to Carville/16th is like a half hour to 45 mins. So combined Kennedy-Bloor-Finch (25+20) and VIVA Blue should be under 1.5 hours. The 85 is sparsely used west of Bathurst so expect a brisk commute from Yonge to Dufferin.
This is the spawn of an imagined Don Mills subway. Much like the Orange Line this is YRT's expectation of how subways will eventually penetrate their region. And yes the Pink line's utterly a waste as well. The thing I'm looking most forward to is an extension of VIVA services to Bramealea City Centre.
doady
Senior Member
No it isn't...
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Finch to Rutherford/Carrville/16th shouldn't take much more than 15 minutes - last time I took Viva Blue I got to Aurora in not much over 30 minutes.
Viva Green is not an absurdly premature pre-Don Mills subway connector, it is an extension of the stubway.
Viva Green is not an absurdly premature pre-Don Mills subway connector, it is an extension of the stubway.
smuncky
Senior Member
just to clarify, from finch to 16th/carville is 25minutes (+/- a minute or two). it can be upto 45 min when there is a big snow storm like we had last week.
it's never been quicker than 20min and that's during the evening (8pm and on) when it doesn't even stop at some stops like bantry/scott, royal orchard or centre.
it's never been quicker than 20min and that's during the evening (8pm and on) when it doesn't even stop at some stops like bantry/scott, royal orchard or centre.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
It was probably 20 minutes to 16th last time I took it - but I didn't note the time at each stop as I was going, just that it really went flying up Yonge once it passed, oh, Major Mack or so. I haven't been on it enough times to tell if they really stick to a schedule or not.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
Even better! Express buses beat local service TTC in York any day, even if a second transfer's required.
It's in the organic pathway of one though. I wonder what will become of VIVA green once the subway's extended? Apart from a link to Seneca College it doesn't necessarily have much going for it, meanwhile a more lucrative route (McCowan) could access Markville Mall and Cornell as well as downtown Markham and Unionville.