TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
What's the difference between extending the subway to Highway 7 and the Richmond Hill extension? On the subway extension the proposed Langstaff/Longbridge station is on Yonge just south of the 407, while the proposed Richmond Hill terminus is on just north of Highway 7 near Langstaff GO station.
Honestly, I don't understand this Q....is it one of semantics? to be clear, the proposal now on paper is for the existing GO to become RER and for the subway to terminate in the same place. Langsaff/Longbridge would have all the parking facilities and serve the east end of Langstaff while the subway/Go terminal would be the main transit hub.
It’s very easy to skew data to get the results needed to justify a particular project. It’s nothing new, and it’s been going on for quite some time. That’s why we have such a threadbare system, with continual extensions to barren fields built in place of lines needed decades ago.
That's the least of the reasons. We have a threadbare system because no one wants to pay for it and because some people (ahem) would rather have short-sighted, 'me-first', 'my-municipality-only' projects than taking a step back, actually looking at where people are going, where the best places to intensify are and building accordingly. to a degree, this is reminding me of a debate I've been having with a friend of mine wherein he implies that climate change isn't really happening, the data is skewed etc. At the end of the day, we all see what we want to see, I suppose.
I wouldn't have guessed there are people out there who think it makes more sense to appropriate a golf course than to build high-order transit along Yonge Street (ew, in the SUBURBS?!) but I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.
I’m not arguing that it’s a natural transit hub, nor am I arguing against development or intensification. It very much is a hub, it should be developed, and railed transit should be built. I’m simply arguing that an underground heavy rail mass transit system (i.e – a subway) is not commuter rail. And that a ‘light’ RT system, supplemented with greater investment in RER, can theoretically provide much better use of dollars spent than a multi-billion dollar piecemeal extension of a subway – particularly in a suburban realm.
No, I am arguing it's a natural transit hub! You're damned right the subway isn't merely commuter rail. The RER can help people from York Region get to Union Station but it's useless for everything else. The SUBWAY will allow the 10s of 1000s of other people to make local travel along Yonge Street and, if they like, commute to jobs that are everywhere except around Union. Who knows, some people might even go the other way!
You go on and on and on about how much subways cost, like the anti-Rob Ford. You get what you pay for is the deal. Give them an LRT if you want; they'll just get less density than with a subway. You seem to dismiss the correlation saying, "Well, an LRT will give them all the density they really need."
Where an arbitrarily-named “growth centre” differs from the Greenbelt is that the Greenbelt is legislated that it can’t be built on. A growth node is merely a place zoned as higher than normal density. And even without zoning “centre” lands for very high-density growth instead of realistic mid-high growth, there are many locations and arterials around York Region that can develop and allow its population targets to be met. The municipal boundaries wouldn’t have to move one inch north. And besides, YR still has ample unbuilt designated expansion lands before they reach the Greenbelt. Simply put, growth can and will occur outside of vaguely identified “centres” without having to sprawl. Toronto is a good example.
We are either talking past one another or have fundamentally different understandings. You are wrong about how much land YR has to build on without "going one inch north" and even the development industry says as much. You either understand the overall effort to constrain growth and intensify development along transit lines or you don't. In short, your math is wrong and even if it wasn't York Region has ALREADY opened land to the north in Markham and Vaughan. Fact is, the allocations have already taken place and the official plans approved by the province and they direct growth to those centres.
I'm not sure why you think Toronto is a good example, especially since (with varied degrees of success) it's been following a centres-and-avenues strategies since the 80s and it's the heart of what Jennifer Keesmaat is doing there now. Toronto is also effectively built out, which is why there's so much intensification now.
And I’m not opposed to integration. Transferring between modes or vehicles is a common practice and by no means systems aren’t “integrated”. As for claiming that a light RT on Yonge north of Finch somehow clashes with highly ambiguous terms like “transit-oriented culture/development”... I don’t really get that. I look at many suburban highrise developments in and around the inner GTA (even if next to a subway station), and I can’t see a transit-oriented culture, nor do I see TOD. Ample parking always abounds.
An LRT does not clash with TOD. But it means less of it, obviously I think. And, as I said, going from Finch (or, worse, Steeles) to 7 on an LRT and then transferring to Viva, having already come off the subway, is not seamless, QED. Anyway, it's all academic because the IS no plan for an LRT and there IS a plan for the subway.
On a per km basis, this Yonge extension would be one of the most expensive transit projects in the world, track-for-track. Just as Eglinton is, and the DRL will be (if built).
I don't buy that. First, the subway is pegged at $3B for roughly 6km which, yes, is about $500M/km which, obviously, is a lot more than LRT would be but given that it's Yonge Street, not by that much. But Eglinton and the DRL and Yonge are all tunneling under a mature city and that's why the costs are relatively high. It sure ain't more per km than the 2nd Avenue subway in New York. Stop going on about costs and look at what bang you get for your buck. What's the current ridership? What's the projected ridership? What's the development potential along the alignment? Do these things align to justify a subway?
Again, you get what you pay for. Build for the future or build for the past...
And it’s a bit fallacious to claim that if a subway isn’t built to RHC then we’ll have more suburban sprawl elsewhere. Even with RHC having a subway, YR will still sprawl on unprotected lands and land currently ID’d for expansion. But the legislated Greenbelt lands should remain protected - hopefully. And alternately, if the subway isn’t built this future will still very much remain; albeit with RHC lands zoned as slightly lower density than they would’ve been with a very costly and overbuilt subway on Yonge. Long and short, YR’s population targets will be met.
It's simplistic but not fallacious. The province has handed down the growth allocations and, based on past trends, they are underestimating how many people are coming. The question is where are those people going to live and work and how are they going to travel. If they're not going to be living in a central location like Yonge/7, expect more cars and more "suburban" living. You said above YR can accommodate growth without opening new lands and here you acknowledge that in fact that's not the case. The less transit you build, the more people will have cars seems like an obvious equation to me. Based on your math, the DRL is the only subway that could possibly make sense in the GTA.
You're trying to have your cake and eat it too, I think.
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