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

[allengeorge]

At this point I just want to see all 4 projects built, flaws and all. Future transit prognosticators can analyze them for all their issues. Meanwhile, the rest of us can just go ahead and use them. Hopefully someday people will figure out a way to address the problems.

 

[Rainforest]

Curious to see where they end the 5 clark bus. I imagine still at steeles if that's the only bus terminal going in.

Going to Steeles Stn is one option. Or they can combine #5 with #2 and create one continuous route, which passes by the Clark Stn.

 

[ARG1]

I agree: there are many great things about the Ontario Line by itself, from platform screen doors and fully-automated operation to modern rolling stock. My only concerns for that line are that the stations should be future-proofed for longer trains, and have higher frequency off the bat. My observation is that a lot of the concern voiced here is the impact its above-ground alignment has on future GO service and VIA HFR service. I can totally understand that: not protecting for the future can result in way more expensive projects down the line.

The EWCE actually poisoned a lot of debates, because it felt like an obvious double-standard, especially given the low-density neighbourhood it traversed.

Finally, I think that the the economics of the EWCE and YNSE could be improved with a lot more aggressive zoning, which of course, isn’t happening.

YNSE is being heavily upzoned around RHC, so that's definitely the case for YNSE.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

That is the sales pitch. The reality is that the tunnel is no shorter than before and the original plan spaced out stations over the length of the line maximizing its benefit. The original plan was to have a station built into the bottom of a developments right in the middle of a new Richmond Hill Centre.

But you're missing the point, actually - the tunnel is, relatively speaking, a sunk cost (no pun inteded).
The savings are coming from taking 2 underground stations ($250-$400M each) and putting them above ground.
As for the locations of the 2 stations, the Langstaff site has moved to a site that will promote MORE intensification and the difference with the RHC station is negligible at best. Whether it's literally in the basement of some building or a 30-second walk doesn't make any funcitonal difference and I think it will become clear over time the extent to which even more money is being saved by these locations. Read what the government is doing Ontario Line with the Transit-Oriented Communities program, for starters.

Now, there are two competing nodes. The subway line, GO transit, and bus routes from all over York region take people to a station in the middle of highway 407 south of a hydro corridor and a transfer to take one stop, or a walk that is the distance that justifies building a subway extension and station supposedly, will be required to get to the new urban core which was supposed to be the primary employment hub.

I think this is trying to see a worst-case scenario and kind of misunderstanding the land use planning issues here.
Firstly, they are not competing. One is in RH and one is in Markham and they each have plans that are complimentary,
Neither do the GO ("express service to Union" for $X) and TTC subway (slower service through the core for $y) compete in any respect. They are, again, complimentary.
It's true that 450m is relatively close spacing but it seems less so when you appreciate how harsh a barrier the highways and hydro corridor are. They are two halves of a whole that require their own stations/nodes. That was always the plan and the north-south distance hasn't changed much.
There is no single, primary employment hub. There were always 2 cores, even before the subway plan.
There will be employment uses both just south of Bridge Sation and around High Tech. None of this has really changed since the intiial TPAP and putting the Bridge station where is actually eliminates one of the key challenges Markham had: how to get people from their massive development under the highways over to the station up at High Tech (or west, over to Yonge Street).

As for Cummer, yes, it had some decent numbers and if they were building one more station, that'd be my pick. But, as has been discussed here before, the reasons Clark was favoured are clear: I forget the exact % (it's a few pages back) but there were very few new residents/riders on Yonge who could walk to Cummer who were not already walking distance to Steeles or Finch. Clark, on the other hand, benefits from its isolation and spacing between Highway 7 and Steeles. There are always trade-offs.

There is no magical savings from going above ground..

There's nothing magical about it: clearly there are savings when every underground station costs hundreds of millions of dollars and every surface station is a fraction of that

there is savings from getting rid of stations, from building a station on property owned by the government wedged between Highway 7 and 407, and the strong motivation to find enough money to put a station at High Tech because well connected developers own property there. The goal of all of this was to create more development ready land at the expense of benefit to the transit user. At no point was there a question that High Tech would be included... just look at who owns land around there.

I don't have to look; it's all Metrus, which is the DeGasperis family
But more to the point, by Provincial law (Places to Grow, via the Planning Act), it's a designated urban growth centre, so that seems to be relevant too. And, again, don't assume that some of that development money won't be coming back to taxpayers. That's fundamentally what the province is trying to do now, at every station. The more development, the more return on investment; at least in theory.

I think people here have a general sense of what upzoning/development is planned for these 2 stations (though, back in the day, I had to post the renderings of Langstaff and RHC a dozen times to make the point). I don't think that's the case with the broader public (forget TORONTO, I don't think most local residents really know!) and certainly the Ben Spurrs and David Hains of the world weren't out there providing that context yesterday. It's not going to appease people who are determined to get their backs up any time they hear about a suburban subway but I think there will be eyebrows raised when people see what's actually planned and getting built around these 2 stations. People will be thankful Clark is only adding a few more riders when they see what's going on north of it

 

[EnviroTO]

The savings are coming from taking 2 underground stations ($250-$400M each) and putting them above ground.

Previously there was one station to serve Richmond Hill Centre and it wasn't really going to be underground from a cost of construction perspective because the line was surfacing at the CN corridor. The building of the foundation for any buildings in the area would have dug deeper than a surfacing subway tunnel. It could have been a one stop shop for the commercial / office hub, the bus connections, and GO transit. Without those things the ridership at this terminus station will never be as great as it could have been and the people flowing through the buildings in the area will never be as high as it could have been. It was going to be a Union Station or Shinjuku station of Richmond Hill, but will now be a North York Centre station for Richmond Hill.

Yes, the Longbridge/Langstaff station would have been an underground station but it also would have had much less overlap in service area... and that station could have been built on a diagonal west of Yonge in an empty lot so the costs we are talking about are not the same as building an underground station hemmed in between existing high-rises and under an active street, pipes, and sewers. Actually with transit oriented development this station also could have been build largely by digging out the foundations of a pit that would need to happen anyways to have a building on top of it.

The costs of underground stations really only apply when you need to create a deep underground cavern under a functioning city. Building then in open lots where building will go... that doesn't really change the economics much.

 

[ARG1]

Previously there was one station to serve Richmond Hill Centre and it wasn't really going to be underground from a cost of construction perspective because the line was surfacing at the CN corridor.

Wait what? There was never any plan to surface the line at any point. As a matter of fact, the original plan for the MSF was for it to literally be the first underground MSF on the entire subway network. Option 3 changes that to a surface option.

The building of the foundation for any buildings in the area would have dug deeper than a surfacing subway tunnel. It could have been a one stop shop for the commercial / office hub, the bus connections, and GO transit. Without those things the ridership at this terminus station will never be as great as it could have been and the people flowing through the buildings in the area will never be as high as it could have been. It was going to be a Union Station or Shinjuku station of Richmond Hill, but will now be a North York Centre station for Richmond Hill.

That's a weird choice of comparison since last I checked North York Centre had direct connections to nearby highrises and developments. Granted I do understand the point you're trying to make, however I don't believe that the station necesserily needs to be underground for direct connections to happen, and considering how heavily the province is banking on the whole "Transit Oriented Communities Concept" as a way to move some of the cost burdens onto developers, I fail to see how it wouldn't have direct connections to nearby developments.

Yes, the Longbridge/Langstaff station would have been an underground station but it also would have had much less overlap in service area... and that station could have been built on a diagonal west of Yonge in an empty lot so the costs we are talking about are not the same as building an underground station hemmed in between existing high-rises and under an active street, pipes, and sewers. Actually with transit oriented development this station also could have been build largely by digging out the foundations of a pit that would need to happen anyways to have a building on top of it.

The entire point of Langstaff/Longbridge was to be a massive park and ride station, nothing more. While there was some development planned east of it, none of it was actually integrated into the station since they favoured parking structures and lots. In the IBC, part of the reason they're favouring Option 2 and 3 is because they're more designed around specifically serving the Langstaff redevelopment area, and Option 3 would have the station even more centralized in that cluster.

The costs of underground stations really only apply when you need to create a deep underground cavern under a functioning city. Building then in open lots where building will go... that doesn't really change the economics much.

If what you say is true then I ask what is Metrolinx' motivation for pushing Option 3? According to Steve Munro and a lot of people on twitter who oppose the YNSE and the other current subway projects, Doug Ford is building these massive suburban subways for the purposes of appeasing his developer friends, but if that's true, that would imply that they would have an even bigger reason to pursue the original alignment. Moving the alignment to the surface and making it theoretically more difficult to connect nearby developments seems to imply that the motivation has more to do with trying to cut corners and save money, and as the IBC states - given the funding envelope, moving the alignment to the surface and having 2 surface stations is apparently enough to allocate funding for another underground station. However you're also stating that because these stations will be built in shallow underground lots that the costs of the subway stations don't apply? Your statements seem to be heavily contradicting eachother.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Without those things the ridership at this terminus station will never be as great as it could have been and the people flowing through the buildings in the area will never be as high as it could have been. It was going to be a Union Station or Shinjuku station of Richmond Hill, but will now be a North York Centre station for Richmond Hill.

I think Arg1 has already done a fine job here: you're simply wrong about a few things. But'll simply concur:
-RH Centre was never above ground;
-Station costs are a HUGE factor and were a driving factor in the new alignment.
-One other thing to bear in mind is topography. Langstaff Gateway is designed to ramp up over the rail corridor to what is today ground level, will be below ground when the subway is built and, yes, there will be underground connections to buildings.

Since I've also seen the Toronto urbanist folk get all hot and bothered, over and over again, I will say that Steve Munro has actually been (relatively speaking) a supporter of the line. He has taken issue with many of the specifics and said the downstream impacts need to be addressed but unlike most of that crowd, he grasps that a subway to Richmond Hill makes sense on a broad level.

It's true that the terminus of the line was pitched as "Union Station North" but there was never a coherent plan for actually having the GO, subway, transitway and local bus service in a single facility. That was always going to be a challenge and, as discussed, particularly from Markham's perpsective, where they had a big "concourse" to get people the distance to that station. What we have now is basically achieving that at Bridge and, yes, it's in the middle of the highway but for the Munros of the world, it's a far more sensible way to handle all the transit service. And for the Mes of the world, it's a better way to achieve density in Langstaff Gateway (and ridership, obviously).

You know, it would probably be funny for me to go back to all the posts I was making back in 2010ish, when a lot of people here had little to no grasp of the RHC and LG plans or the fundamental logic underpinning each. Oh, how we loved to argue the subway shouldn't (and wouldn't!) go north of Steeles, certainly not at first. Oh, how some people loved to argue there was just no reason to go all the way up to Richmond Hill.

Over the next year or two you're going to see those plans become reality. Richmond Hill, for example, is finally putting together their Secondary Plan for RHC, Do you think it will envision less density than they imagined in the 2010 Official Plan or a heck of a lot more? Look around the GTA at what's going on with highrise development. Look at all the 50-storey towers at VMC and the 60-storey proposals coming down the pipe for Yonge and Steeles. Yeah, I suspect the latter.

And I can think of one dude here, in particular, who really just did not care to get it. Oh, he liked to argue and to mock me and call me names, especially about the sci fi "pods" that the Langstaff Gateway plan envisioned as a means for shuttling people from the neighbourhood to the distant subway station. But now it's 2021. That station has moved to the centre of the development and the TTC and Metrolinx are piloting the use of autonomous vehicles at the Rouge Hill GO station. And we're still 8-9 years from the subway actually opening.
The joke ain't on me.

Now the subway is real and soon, as these decade-old, blue-sky plans start turning into actual planning applications, the detailed plans and the scale of what was envisioned will become clearer to everyone. It should be an exciting ride!

 

[syn]

Remind me why we're penny pinching with the Ontario Line again? We must be flush with cash if we can build this and other under-utilized subway stations on the YNSE and EWLRT.

In reality, we are flush with cash. No reason we couldn't build to maximize capacity on the OL.

Suburban transit projects are more politically advantageous for them so they'll spend whatever necessary to ensure people in those areas are happy. Returns on these investments are measured in terms of political return, not the effectiveness of the infrastructure.

We even see it in these threads - any opposition to the OL is met with derision (even when the complaints are valid), while it's felt that it makes sense to bury suburban expansions for the benefit of local residents.

The 'we need save money' narrative only applies to the OL, and it certainly appeals to the base of the current government.

 

[EnviroTO]

The original plans always had the line surfacing in the rail corridor north of Richmond Hill station. Every dotted line of potential extension north was shown in the rail corridor.

Building stations deep under empty or underutilized land using cavern excavations or other expensive techniques doesn't make sense. The area is going to see high rise development, to build a high-rise you need to dig deep, building the subway station in the open pit that exists to build a high-rise is not significantly more expensive than building it at the surface.

 

[EnviroTO]

However you're also stating that because these stations will be built in shallow underground lots that the costs of the subway stations don't apply? Your statements seem to be heavily contradicting each other.

I'm saying that the high costs of underground stations doesn't apply when you have a shallow tunnel under empty lands that are ready for partnership with development... correct. What was the contradicting statement? I missed it.

 

[ARG1]

The original plans always had the line surfacing in the rail corridor north of Richmond Hill station. Every dotted line of potential extension north was shown in the rail corridor.

Building stations deep under empty or underutilized land using cavern excavations or other expensive techniques doesn't make sense. The area is going to see high rise development, to build a high-rise you need to dig deep, building the subway station in the open pit that exists to build a high-rise is not significantly more expensive than building it at the surface.

It went near the corridor yes, but at no point did it actually surface at the corridor, it was always going to be underground.

I'm saying that the high costs of underground stations doesn't apply when you have a shallow tunnel under empty lands that are ready for partnership with development... correct. What was the contradicting statement? I missed it.

My point was that if what you're saying is true, then Metrolinx's engineers would've long realized this, and this would've been the preferred plan hands down. Doug Ford wants to pander to Southern York Region because its a major swing voting block, and he also wants to heavily pander to developers to push his Transit Oriented Communities idea. The contradictory part of your statement is that if what you said is true, given the motivations of the PC leadership, I would've expected them to be completely on board Option 1, no questions asked, yet this seems to not be the case. My question to you is if what you're saying is true, why do you think Metrolinx and Doug Ford are seemingly pushing for Option 3? My only answer at the moment is that one of your assertions about Option 1 is completely wrong, whether its related to cost or connectability to nearby developments and other transit modes. In fact I'd wager that the major reason they want Option 3 is because Bridge Center would allow them to relocate RHC Terminal to Highway 7 and Highway 7-Connector Road which is a much more accessible and useful Bus Terminal than the existing RHC Terminal, and would theoretically allow for a 407 Transitway/REM to more directly connect with the subway.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

It went near the corridor yes, but at no point did it actually surface at the corridor, it was always going to be underground.

Yeah, there are plans for a rail yard to to the north; I think that's perhaps what's being referenced here? So, sure, the subway was going to surface, but only after the stations. The dotted line to the north was for a future, hypothetical extension but there's no sense that if such an extension happened, it would be at grade.

I'm saying that the high costs of underground stations doesn't apply when you have a shallow tunnel under empty lands that are ready for partnership with development... correct.

I don't think this is really makes any difference. If the deal with the developer nets you, let's say $100million. And if an underground station costs $500M and an above-ground station costs $150M, it's still always going to be a better deal to build above ground. The way you're imagining the deal isn't really how it works. It's not doing the construction or diggint the pits at the same time it's more, as I understand it, coordinating planning and ultimately construction, to ensure the development and station work together. The developer benefits from the Province's leverage and the Province benefits by getting some money back.

So far we only have the Ontario Line examples as as sense of how this will all work, but Yonge is only a few months behind so we may have a sense what this will look like for Bridge and High Tech before the year is out.

 

[ARG1]

Yeah, there are plans for a rail yard to to the north; I think that's perhaps what's being referenced here? So, sure, the subway was going to surface, but only after the stations. The dotted line to the north was for a future, hypothetical extension but there's no sense that if such an extension happened, it would be at grade.

As mentioned earlier, as far as I'm aware the plan for the MSF was fully underground. I remember how it was being marketed as the "first fully underground MSF on the Subway Network".

 

[44 North]

And I can think of one dude here, in particular, who really just did not care to get it. Oh, he liked to argue and to mock me and call me names, especially about the sci fi "pods" that the Langstaff Gateway plan envisioned as a means for shuttling people from the neighbourhood to the distant subway station. But now it's 2021. That station has moved to the centre of the development and the TTC and Metrolinx are piloting the use of autonomous vehicles at the Rouge Hill GO station. And we're still 8-9 years from the subway actually opening.
The joke ain't on me.

Why you're always deflecting on this? The visionary who crafted the Langstaff plan quite literally said there should be a PRT system - a pod system on a track. Not in the street.

 

[GenerationW]

In reality, we are flush with cash. No reason we couldn't build to maximize capacity on the OL.

Suburban transit projects are more politically advantageous for them so they'll spend whatever necessary to ensure people in those areas are happy. Returns on these investments are measured in terms of political return, not the effectiveness of the infrastructure.

We even see it in these threads - any opposition to the OL is met with derision (even when the complaints are valid), while it's felt that it makes sense to bury suburban expansions for the benefit of local residents.

The 'we need save money' narrative only applies to the OL, and it certainly appeals to the base of the current government.

Sure, blame Doug Ford for the city's stupidity. We should have a proper DRL up and running right now, and with all the federal funding now available, we could now be planning extensions to Steeles and maybe the airport. Instead the Einsteins from downtown said no for decades, and now Doug Ford is actually planning their transit.