Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

andrewpmk said:
This is why we should extend the Sheppard subway http://goo.gl/maps/xVQx7

Don't post pictures of Sheppard Avenue near the zoo please. This is not the point of the Sheppard subway.
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Thats 750 meters from Don Mills. and as I have said dozens of times, 3 towers do not constitute a justification for a subway extension, its the surrounding density and bus routes which cannot be pictured with a couple of streetview pics.

But if you want to play that game, this is a pic along Sheppard 350 meters from a proposed stop

5oIyaif.jpg



Also, the portion east of Don Mills can be easily handled by LRT. It currently maxes out at around 4,000 PPHD today. Maximum capacity of a surface LRT is 10,000.
 
You can get similar pictures on Yonge Street, just south of York Mills. There will always be a few low density pockets in otherwise high density neighbourhoods. The fact of the matter is, all these condos on Sheppard East are being built very rapidly and 10-20 years ago there were hardly any. Compare this to areas like the Spadina subway extension or Finch Avenue West where there are zero or very few new condos, Sheppard East has a huge number of condos. Not surprisingly there are a lot more west of Don Mills, where there is already a subway, than east of Don Mills, but that would obviously change if a subway extension were built.
 
Do you guys think a station between Lawrence and Eglinton is justified? (Blythwood?) It would be a similar situation as North York Centre (another station added in between existing stations), with no bus routes. I guess it's less politically viable since it slows down travel for those in North York.

The densities seem comparable between North York Centre & Blythwood based on this density map, with NYC being more concentrated around Yonge, but Blythwood having more dense low-rise & mid-rise housing:
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7076/torontodensity3dw1.gif
 
andrewpmk said:
This is why we should extend the Sheppard subway http://goo.gl/maps/xVQx7

Don't post pictures of Sheppard Avenue near the zoo please. This is not the point of the Sheppard subway.
Click to expand...

Andrew, residential developments along corridors don't contribute very much to rapid transit ridership in the suburbs. You could built multiple Mirvish + Ghery's along Sheppard and it still wouldn't have enough people living along it to justify a subway. If you want to use new developments as a justification for a subway, they'll have have to be commercial/office space. Of course, no matter how you look at it, there aren't enough condos or offices along Sheppard to justify a subway.

Now, not all hope is lost for a Sheppard Subway. Suburban subway projects are justified when they have enough ridership on bus routes to feed the subway. This is why Downsview Station and the Spadina Subway is successful. But unfortunately for Sheppard the bus routes don't come close to being able to justify a subway.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Andrew, residential developments along corridors don't contribute very much to rapid transit ridership in the suburbs. You could built multiple Mirvish + Ghery's along Sheppard and it still wouldn't have enough people living along it to justify a subway. If you want to use new developments as a justification for a subway, they'll have have to be commercial/office space. Of course, no matter how you look at it, there aren't enough condos or offices along Sheppard to justify a subway.

Now, not all hope is lost for a Sheppard Subway. Suburban subway projects are justified when they have enough ridership on bus routes to feed the subway. This is why Downsview Station and the Spadina Subway is successful. But unfortunately for Sheppard the bus routes don't come close to being able to justify a subway.
Click to expand...

The lack of job growth on Sheppard since the 1980s is entirely due to the city charging excessively high commercial tax rates and the early 1990s recession. Nevertheless there are significant employment concentrations at Yonge, Victoria Park and STC and these employment areas are not trivial.

The whole idea of having a 5 stop subway where everyone is forced to transfer to a light rail line at the end is bizarre and similar arrangements are very rare in other cities.
 
ehlow said:
Do you guys think a station between Lawrence and Eglinton is justified? (Blythwood?) It would be a similar situation as North York Centre (another station added in between existing stations), with no bus routes. I guess it's less politically viable since it slows down travel for those in North York.

The densities seem comparable between North York Centre & Blythwood based on this density map, with NYC being more concentrated around Yonge, but Blythwood having more dense low-rise & mid-rise housing:
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7076/torontodensity3dw1.gif
Click to expand...
There is also the Alaska condo proposal there (with NIMBY opposition as well). See here: http://uyna.wordpress.com/the-alaska-project/ and in the UT database: http://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/alaska-condos
 
ehlow said:
Do you guys think a station between Lawrence and Eglinton is justified? (Blythwood?) It would be a similar situation as North York Centre (another station added in between existing stations), with no bus routes. I guess it's less politically viable since it slows down travel for those in North York.

The densities seem comparable between North York Centre & Blythwood based on this density map, with NYC being more concentrated around Yonge, but Blythwood having more dense low-rise & mid-rise housing:
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7076/torontodensity3dw1.gif
Click to expand...

Well, that would be interesting as I would consider Blythwood as the northern edge of the Y+E area. The commercial area stops at the Sporting Life south of Blythwood.

Nobody would stop at Blythwood for the commercial or office space there as there is little. Blythwood also offers little in the way of development space for highrises. The stop would only service the low and mid rises in the area. Now should a stop be added there, I'd suspect that eventually the commercial area would pick up, but I don't think it is worth the cost of making and maintaining a station and the added time it would take for travelers in North York. I am also unsure if it would have a positive impact on the retail at Y+E.
 
andrewpmk said:
The lack of job growth on Sheppard since the 1980s is entirely due to the city charging excessively high commercial tax rates and the early 1990s recession. Nevertheless there are significant employment concentrations at Yonge, Victoria Park and STC and these employment areas are not trivial.

The whole idea of having a 5 stop subway where everyone is forced to transfer to a light rail line at the end is bizarre and similar arrangements are very rare in other cities.
Click to expand...

It's quite common for riders to transfer to another mode at the end of the subway line. Paris has number of tramlines linking to the subway. The Norristown High Speed Line connects to the Market Frankford line. Croydon Tramlink connects to the District line at Wimbledon station. Stockholm has a light rail line that connects to a 3 station spur!
 
JayBeeGooner said:
It's quite common for riders to transfer to another mode at the end of the subway line. ... Croydon Tramlink connects to the District line at Wimbledon station.
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It does, but surely most people transferring from the tube at Wimbledon are changing to commuter rail, rather than tramlink. You only have to look at the passenger numbers for Wimbledon station. Tube - 12 million per year. Tramlink - 2 million per year. Commuter rail - 18 million per year.

Unlike Toronto, in a lot of cities, people change to commuter rail at, or near, the end of the subway line. We might see this here one day, at Kipling, Kennedy, Richmond Hill, Downsview Park, Black Creek, etc. The only GO/subway combo that currently has full-day service is Main/Danforth ... it's a shame there isn't a better connection there. I don't think many people realize how short a walk it is. About 300 metres ... about the same as from Union subway station to platform 27 on the south side of Union Station.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Now, not all hope is lost for a Sheppard Subway. Suburban subway projects are justified when they have enough ridership on bus routes to feed the subway. This is why Downsview Station and the Spadina Subway is successful. But unfortunately for Sheppard the bus routes don't come close to being able to justify a subway.
Click to expand...

andrewpmk said:
You can get similar pictures on Yonge Street, just south of York Mills. There will always be a few low density pockets in otherwise high density neighbourhoods.
Click to expand...

Most stations on the sheppard subway has or will have only one bus connecting to it. Example: Bayview - 1 bus, Leslie - 1 bus, Warden - 1 bus, Birchmount - 1 bus, Kennedy - 1 bus, Midland - 1 bus. And as someone previously said, those buses don't even get much ridership in the sheppard area. Meanwhile, York Mills alone gets 10 buses. Despite the low density, this station gets far higher ridership than anything on the sheppard line (excluding terminal stations). Bus connections are more important than density, and Sheppard doesn't do well with either of them.

York Mills - 28,400
Bayview - 9,330
Bessarion - 2,080
Leslie - 5,510


andrewpmk said:
The lack of job growth on Sheppard since the 1980s is entirely due to the city charging excessively high commercial tax rates and the early 1990s recession. Nevertheless there are significant employment concentrations at Yonge, Victoria Park and STC and these employment areas are not trivial.
Click to expand...

Regardless of what the excuse is for lack of growth, there are not enough jobs on Sheppard to justify a subway, and there ever will be. All those offices that currently exist are from the pre-amalgamation era, when North York and Scarborough were former municipalities. I can't find one single large office development that was build or proposed recently on sheppard. I can't even think of one that's being build anywhere in the Toronto suburbs. We are not like the 905. Downtown is where it's at these days.
 
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canarob said:
I don't think any of the modelling took into account the tens of thousands of new housing units planned for Richmond Hill Centre and Langstaff in Markham. While I agree that the DRL should come first (or ideally at the same time), even Steve agrees that there is not enough detail in these models (see below, which is from the comments section).

From a York Region perspective, we can't win. If we try and build dense housing near higher-order transit (and pay for our share of capital and operating costs), we are seen as only encouraging unneeded transit projects, and if we build anything else we are accused of building more reckless sprawl. There is of course a middle ground, such as building denser communities around GO stations, but that only really helps for rush hour commuters and weekend trips downtown. For VIVA (and the rest of YRT) to work in Southern York Region, it really needs to be integrated with the subway (and possibly some of the N-S LRT projects).
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I thought we just had a transit panel where one of the items raised was that transit routes do not drive development and intensification
 
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