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

Cobra said:
You're too smart to play this dumb.
I know you get my point...you just won't admit it.
Perhaps but as of today, your 50k new residents aren't there. It's York Region job to figure out how to move these people, not Toronto.
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First, some of those residents are there. Two condo towers are already up and 2 more are in the works. Again, simple geography dictates that's already more than the SSE corridor will ever see because they've chosen to put the entire intensification/ridership onus on a single station. As I said above, the irony remains that it's "easier' and "makes more sense" to build the line that won't generate new ridership because the system can't handle it. That's not a good long-term plan in terms of transportation or economic development, however.

I guess I don't get your point. From where I sit, the traffic is obviously everyone's problem. If 20,000 people move into Markham and half of them start driving down into Toronto to work, that's not York Region's job to deal with; not on their own. And since we'd all rather those people used transit, seems counter-productive to throw up roadblocks like a double fare, a "YRT subway" or whatever other cockamamie notions are out there. Besides which, the various YR municipalities have done plenty of transportation study work in the area but you can't achieve success in a vacuum.

Hey, look - here's a recent time York Region and Toronto looked at traffic issues in the Yonge-Steeles corridor, almost as if they have a common interest!

Then build your own subway like the New Jersey Path to Steeles. If it was this viable, York wouldn't need Toronto but York knows full well that Richmond Hill Centre to Steeles doesn't warrants the billions required to build it.
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Now who's too smart to play dumb? Where would they get the money to do so? Same place as Toronto - feds and province and their own property taxes. Same difference. And they'd still have to interface with TTC. You haven't solved the capacity issue or anything else. Honestly, I can't think of anything that makes less sense than this absurd "why don't they build their own subway?" nonsense.

No- that's not true. Canoes down German Mills Creek to the Toronto border might make less sense.

Seriously - explain to me how YR funds a YRT subway and how operations work as it interfaces with TTC which has, totally separately, expanded its 416-only subway to Steeles. Does the PATH train magically transform into the A Train once it reaches Manhattan? (We also don't have anything remotely like the Port Authority and the PATH isn't a "New Jersey" subway, but whatever; it's not like anything else is comparable either. Except that Steeles Avenue is awfully similar to the Hudson River, right?)

They were dumped on us by the province who won't help fix them. Then you have the 905 using them. If you're unhappy with the tolls, then stay home. However cities around the world who installed them haven't really saw a decrease in car traffic.
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I don't object to the tolls - and what Wynne did was BS - but you can't have it both ways. You either accept that people from Markham use Toronto's roads and vice versa or you don't. As I said, my preference is regional funding and regional authority. If it's going to be reduced to this sad dog-eat-dog mentality, that's fine, but Toronto's sacrificed the high ground on transit planning.
 
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Cobra said:
They are just pointing out the obvious
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Not sure it's obvious
The federal and provincial Liberals are tied very tightly together.
If you upset the Provincial, a vindictive Federal government may not be cooperative.
Also, if for some reason the Liberals win in 2008, they will not be kind to Tory.
 
innsertnamehere said:
please tell me where you propose to fit this at grade subway line.
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You could do it Bloor-Danforth style: draw a line on the map in the next block past Yonge Street. Try to align the corridor with existing public assets like parallel side streets and laneways to minimize expropriation. Expropriate and demolish any houses that are in the way. Build a trench or cut-and-cover tunnel with parks and commuter lots on top.
 
junctionist said:
You could do it Bloor-Danforth style: draw a line on the map in the next block past Yonge Street. Try to align the corridor with existing public assets like parallel side streets and laneways to minimize expropriation. Expropriate and demolish any houses that are in the way. Build a trench or cut-and-cover tunnel with parks and commuter lots on top.
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Huh. Looking at the map, it actually wouldn't require all that much expropriation of houses. You could feasibly tunnel(/mine) until after Cummer and have it trenched to Doncaster north of Steeles. Wouldn't really work past Doncaster though, making TBM still the desirable option.
 
Cobra said:
All I'm saying, is that a new EA would be in order to apply the same criteria we use for subways on the Richmond Hill project. Feel free to point out where I'm wrong or misreading or want to debate this, respectfully of course.
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Respectful debate is hard to come by in this thread. There's been updated numbers and reports since the one you're quoting, but they're not very good in that they make some blatant exclusions of aspects of the RTP (namely omitting things like planned GO improvements from the side-by-side modelling). When reading all the reports the takeaway is that the ridership north of Steeles drops significantly once other projects come online or are factored in (roughly between 2021 and 2031), even while considering best-case development. Not really a takeaway since it's acknowledged a couple times. And obviously those dates are a lot closer today than when the subway was proposed. What doesn't decrease over time though is Yonge's capacity issues and the necessity for some kind of subway paralleling it to the east.

So agreed, more reports and cost estimates would be a benefit for a fair debate. We're seeing it done everywhere else. No other option save for BRT lite was even considered, and obviously nobody here is arguing we should build that or nothing. What I don't agree with tho is handing the subway system over to Metrolinx...they'd probably fasttrack a subway to Del Duca's door or something.
 
I don't think a solution with an LRT-to-subway transfer at Steeles is desirable. I used to like that option, but after more thinking, can see a number of drawbacks in it:

1) It does not eliminate the need to build the Relief line first. Even if the condo forest at RH centre is supported by LRT rather than a subway station, it can still bring enough new riders to swarm the downstream Yonge.

2) There would be some cost savings, but perhaps not that much. The Finch to Steeles fragment would still be a subway with its cost. The "fixed" costs, such as the launch site and the bus mega-terminal at the end, would still be there. Furthermore, LRT would have to be underground at the subway interchange (volume), then again in the Yonge and Centre area (historic Thornhill, no room for 2 surface LRT lanes), and then again at RHC (volume, plus the location of GO station off Yonge). After all of those are subtracted, the surface LRT segments wouldn't be that long.

3) There would be no saving for the City of Toronto; it would still have to pay the municipal portion of the Finch-to-Steeles subway.

At the same time, the loss of direct connection between the subway and the Hwy 407 / Hwy 7 transit corridors is bad from the network perspective.

So, my preference is to postpone Yonge North altogether and advance the Relief line first; but once the Relief line is under construction, go for the proper Yonge North subway.
 
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Yah, I fully agree with all of that too. Yonge North is not the corridor to be cheaping out on, just like the DRL is not the subway line to be cheaping out on.

I don't know how we are getting into this mindset in the region where the desirable subway expansions are pushed to the back of the priority order as we look for ways to reduce their costs sacrificing their utility, while building/proposing tunnelled subway expansion to suburban parking lots, brownfields and industrial parks.
 
The irony at this point is that the longer it goes without being built the more the capacity issues grow and also the more the population growth north of steeles continues. Delaying that extension is obviously curtailing or redistributing that growth, for now. But there are still new 905 riders getting in the TTC at Finch. (some, who live west of Yonge, will presumably try the Spadina extension once it's open) It's a huge Catch 22 created by how little infrastructure we've built up keep up with growth.


The governance issues are just the proverbial Mento in the already overflowing bottle of Diet Coke.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
First, some of those residents are there. Two condo towers are already up and 2 more are in the works.
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Wow... Then Dupont Street needs a subway :eek:

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
I guess I don't get your point. From where I sit, the traffic is obviously everyone's problem. If 20,000 people move into Markham and half of them start driving down into Toronto to work, that's not York Region's job to deal with; not on their own. And since we'd all rather those people used transit, seems counter-productive to throw up roadblocks like a double fare, a "YRT subway" or whatever other cockamamie notions are out there. Besides which, the various YR municipalities have done plenty of transportation study work in the area but you can't achieve success in a vacuum.
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Well, Toronto did look at extending the subway to Steeles. That's the city's way to address traffic on Yonge south of Steeles knowing full well that there would be no point for YRT and GO buses to drive on Yonge. What happens north of Steeles isn't the city's mandate to fix. York have options to address that, that's not the TTC or Toronto's job to do it for York Region. I really don't know what's so hard to understand about that.

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Hey, look - here's a recent time York Region and Toronto looked at traffic issues in the Yonge-Steeles corridor, almost as if they have a common interest!
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It says York Region Transportation department. I don't see the city of Toronto logo.

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Now who's too smart to play dumb? Where would they get the money to do so? Same place as Toronto - feds and province and their own property taxes. Same difference. And they'd still have to interface with TTC. You haven't solved the capacity issue or anything else. Honestly, I can't think of anything that makes less sense than this absurd "why don't they build their own subway?" nonsense.
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Toronto shouldn't have to pay for the O&M north of Steeles nor being force to pay to build a subway they clearly don't need. If YRT is so convinced that a subway is viable, it would have been planned as such but it would bankrupt York Region due to low ridership. The ridership even as of 2031 isn't even close to warrant a subway.

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Seriously - explain to me how YR funds a YRT subway and how operations work as it interfaces with TTC which has, totally separately, expanded its 416-only subway to Steeles.
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I don't have to explain anything in regards to YR funding a subway. The subway plan is crazy and ridiculous, for the same amount of money, YR could have LRT lines almost all over the place linking YR cities and their centers together.

As for LRT meeting the subway at Steeles, you can do it like Lionel-Groulx in Montreal
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TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Does the PATH train magically transform into the A Train once it reaches Manhattan? (We also don't have anything remotely like the Port Authority and the PATH isn't a "New Jersey" subway, but whatever; it's not like anything else is comparable either. Except that Steeles Avenue is awfully similar to the Hudson River, right?)
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People transfer to NYC subway. That's all. Also, Steeles station wouldn't be only a Toronto station but it would also be a York Region Station. But again, you keep conveniently ignore the fiscal aspect of the subway into Richmond Hill. The O&M would be on Toronto's laps, sure we get the higher fares from Richmond Hill but that ridership is so fuc*** low north of Steeles that it makes no sense to proceed.

At least a YRT LRT would be fair as either Metrolinx takes care of the O&M or York does.

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
As I said, my preference is regional funding and regional authority.
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Until that happens, Torontonians will always oppose subways leaving it's borders when you have parts of the city with no rapid transit
 
Cobra said:
Well, Toronto did look at extending the subway to Steeles. That's the city's way to address traffic on Yonge south of Steeles knowing full well that there would be no point for YRT and GO buses to drive on Yonge. What happens north of Steeles isn't the city's mandate to fix.
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Sure, but by the same logic the DRL and Yonge Extension to Steeles aren't the provincial government's mandate to fix. If the city wants to build a transit system that only serves its own needs, they're free to fund it entirely on their own with their own revenue tools. If they want help from other levels of government to pay for it, they have to build it in a way that's acceptable to those other levels of government.
 
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