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

[xtremesniper]

Yes, HD, especially when two of the municipalities quoted have significant amount of land that is undeveloped and farmland (Markham and Vaughan), thereby skewing the numbers a bit

Right. I think most people in the 416 seem to forget (or just don't know to begin with) that development in York Region's border towns start from the south end and then goes up north. I bet you anything if the average person drove across Steeles going northbound into York Region and didn't notice the Welcome to Markham/Vaughan/Richmond Hill signs, they wouldn't even notice that they crossed a border for at least another 15 minutes of smooth, uninterrupted driving, and even less so for Richmond Hill, since that town is very vertical oriented.

On another note, I just saw this: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_34519.aspx

Notice the last line there? Apparently buses come in from Vaughan and GO Transit to Finch Station. I'm getting really tired of Toronto thinking that Vaughan is the entire York Region.

 

[BMO]

I'm going to suggest a moratorium on "what I'd like to see instead of a Yonge extension" discussions because they are well beyond pointless and going on and on.

IT doesn't matter if you want to see bus rapidways on Yonge and a DRL; doesn't matter at all. Even if David Miller wanted a DRL it wouldn't matter. The ship has sailed.

There is literally nothing you can say here or to Metrolinx or to your MPP that's going to cause them to kill the project and zip the DRL or any other pet project to the top of the list.

You think there isn't enough density at Hwy 7 no matter what's planned for 5, 10, 15 years from now? Doesn't matter either. The province disagrees. Disagrees a lot.

Looking back a few pages I see people saying "why not build a subway to Buffalo" or "subway lines become useless after a certain length" and while the latter is likely true, it's not in this case. In fact, those statements proceed from the false assumption that all these York Region riders are going from Hwy 7 to Union or King. Couldn't it be they're going to Lawrence? Or Eglinton? Bloor? Is THAT length useless?

Have you SEEN how long the subways are in New York City or London? Is there anybody who rides them end to end? Does that mean they're useless?

Almost everything Amphibius wrote below is, frankly, silly - starting with the idea of going to all the effort of building an extension, just to take it to Steeles. This after he admits that density doesn't even taper off until Clark!

Should we stop all our transit infrastructure "a brisk bus ride" from its logical terminus? Does it not matter at all that multiple other transit services are converging just a few km north of there at Hwy 7?

With all due respect, nearly every attack on the subway extension is proceeding on false premises. As others have pointed out: ridership won't cripple the system, a new extension does not have to operate at capacity to be justified, even without NEW riders it will provide huge help to traffic in the south of York Region and north of Toronto it will take hundreds of buses and thousands of cars off the road, the planning regime to justify any PERCEIVED density shortfalls is well along, including HUGE plans for the Markham side of Yonge/407 and nearly-as-huge plans to remake the RH Centre lands (pictured a few posts back as a pointless blank slate), AND building the Yonge extension is the best chance of Torontonians have of ever seeing a DRL built or Yonge/Bloor getting renovated.

OH - and, the environmental project report is done so they can start digging as soon as they have money.

I think this thread should change direction and talk about the extension and the future, not more of this coulda-woulda-shoulda stuff. That's my hopeful rant...

sooo true, we should be happy that ANY extension as made it this far in the planning process and that it is very likely to get built, i'm sure we would all be happy if any other lines were extended as well

 

[Amphibius]

Thanks, RR191, that was very well said.

And, to add, nothing gets more tiresome than some guy who quotes density statistics willy nilly. Density alone tells you nothing about transit ridership.

"Willy nilly." Haha.

Sorry you feel that way. I'm at least trying to bring factual, unbiased points into the discussion. Density tells you a lot of transit ridership actually, because the passenger loads of feeder buses mean little when they can be rerouted to any given point the transit operator sees fit.

It is the walk-in yield of the RHC extension that truly determines whether it's a worthwhile investment. So unless 80% or greater of those 35,000 new 407 Lands residents will wind up utilizing the subway; it is grossly unnecessary to expand the network that far north, especially when there's a parallel commuter-rail/S-Bahn service capable of carrying passengers to the exact same southern terminus as the YUS line can.

Today's conditions are all fine and good, but they do not reflect what is planned to occur in the 5, 10 or 25 year range. You can quote Stats Canada until the cows come home but unless you have a time machine to the 2031 census then it means nothing.

Are there better uses of money? Yes. There will ALWAYS be better uses of money in the eyes of someone who wants to look elsewhere. Doesoes that mean it's not a worthwhile project? No.

You said it yourself - areas can urbanize and grow. Why is Richmond Hill Centre and the Yonge Street corridor so different?

Okay. Has it occured to you that if RHC has an increased poplation by 2031 so too will all the aforementioned UBCs I brought up? Only diff they'll have 3x to 6x as many residents by then; making extensions/expansions to Downtown, Eglinton-Crosstown, Mississauga and Scarborough all the more critical. No one is saying that RHC shouldn't get a subway extension some day, and in the meantime extending the line to Steeles Stn would at least alleviate the most congested section of the corridor from excess bus traffic.

Finch to Richmond Hill Centre via subway= 12 minutes
Steeles-Centrepoint to Richmond Hill Centre via VIVA Blue= <10 minutes

See? There's no real time advantage, only relocating the transfer point further up the road.

The Highway 7 corridor has density clusters, agreed, but these aren't directly off Yonge Street (Beaver Creek, Markham Centre, Unionville, Markville, Cornell). These easily could feed into the Sheppard, Scarborough and DRL lines via express bus and LRT routes. So apart from the Promenade (23 Thornhill Woods, 88 Bathurst would feed directly into Steeles Stn regardless), Hillcrest Mall area and the planned community around the 407; there's not much intensification around the Yonge Street corridor north of Steeles as rationale. So unless the 407 Lands suddenly transform into the next Mississauga City Centre-type condo/office/civic/retail/recreational tower clusterfuck, I do not see the point, not for another couple of decades anyway; when MCC and SCC with higher populations TODAY are still so cut off from the subway network and extensions to Steeles Avenue would at least bring the subway within 10 minutes of VCC/RHC.

I won't debate this with y'all any further since I detect some unilateral opposition to my viewpoints, but I just wanted to hash out my complete thought process on this matter.

 

[Epi]

Finch to Richmond Hill Centre via subway= 15 minutes
Steeles-Centrepoint to Richmond Hill Centre via VIVA Blue= <10 minutes

See? There's no real time advantage, only relocating the transfer point further up the road.

I feel these are kind of arbitrary made up numbers. It takes 10 minutes to drive from Steeles to RHC in the middle of the night due to stop lights. During rush hour it's easily ~20 minutes.

I don't see why it would take a subway 15 minutes to travel 6km and 5 stops, that's just completely wrong.

 

[Amphibius]

I feel these are kind of arbitrary made up numbers. It takes 10 minutes to drive from Steeles to RHC in the middle of the night due to stop lights. During rush hour it's easily ~20 minutes.

I don't see why it would take a subway 15 minutes to travel 6km and 5 stops, that's just completely wrong.

Isn't the average duration 3 mins per 2kms? So that times by 3 plus with station layovers at 5 intermediates it would be roughly 11-12 minutes and the time it takes to surface at RHC, so still around the same time range as surface transit.

As for the BRT/LRT, I'm recommending that it'll be 10 minutes provided that York implements measures such as transit signal priority, queue-jumping at intersections, bypass shoulders, and/or dedicated bus lanes; such that the ride is uninhibited and the LRT via the underground megaterminal slated for Steeles Stn could provide a seamless cross-platform interchange for customers.

 

[RedRocket191]

@ Amphibius

1) Yes, it did occur to me, but I debate the 3-6 times density figure. There's simply no room. Even if you're right, I never said don't built to those locations though. We can handle more than one worthwhile project at once.

2) My calculations are showing 10.5 minutes between RHC and Finch, based on 40km/h average speed.

 

[Amphibius]

^^ Alright, fair enough. What a lot of people forget anyway is that in order to build the RHC subway, the DRL must come first to alleviate B-Y. I'd be content with a Hwy 7 extension if it meant the Downtown core gets a proper E-W subway line within the next decade.

 

[jaycola]

Regarding Richmond Hill density...
I don't know from Stats Can Stats but I think about half of Richmond Hill is locked up in the Greenbelt, whereas none of Mississauga is within the same.
If they take all of Richmond Hill and not just the land within the development zone, I am sure the density figures would be rather skewed.

 

[xtremesniper]

Travel time from Steeles to RHC should be closer to 6 minutes, because you have to realize that most people only really care about how long it will take during rush hour conditions, and there is a great bottleneck just north of Steeles where Yonge goes from 3 lanes to 2 lanes. I've been stuck in ridiculous traffic on the Viva Blue before, which a subway would not experience. Not only that, but winter weather would make matters only worse for surface routes. Ever been stuck on the bus as cars (and some other buses too) spin out on the downhill/uphill portion of land near the Ladies Golf Course?

And Amphibius, it's fine that you're stating your opinion, and you make some good points, but I don't know if you really understand what the purpose of the RHC station would be. It's really truly not about who lives right next door. RHC is and probably continue to be the transit hub of York Region. You have just about every noteworthy/relevant bus/train route from YRT/Viva and GO converging on this one location. So yes, there is a huge percentage of ridership that would enter the subway at this point from feeder routes, just like Finch Station operates right now. Do you honestly think ridership at Finch mainly comes from people who live nearby? I'd put money down on that.

Regardless, that's the purpose of the RHC station. Longbridge Station, on the other hand, is where the park-n-ride people and those living in the new 35,000+ development will live and use. That's the station that would rely on people either living nearby or driving in.

 

[Disparishun]

The Highway 7 corridor has density clusters, agreed, but these aren't directly off Yonge Street (Beaver Creek, Markham Centre, Unionville, Markville, Cornell). These easily could feed into the Sheppard, Scarborough and DRL lines via express bus and LRT routes. So apart from the Promenade (23 Thornhill Woods, 88 Bathurst would feed directly into Steeles Stn regardless), Hillcrest Mall area and the planned community around the 407; there's not much intensification around the Yonge Street corridor north of Steeles as rationale.

1. The Promenade and the various condo towers and City Centre project in and around it are centred on Bathurst, not Yonge. Perhaps you are thinking of the big development to take the place of the old Hy & Zel's plaza (now probably better known as the Galleria plaza)?

2. With respect to other intensification around the Yonge Street corridor, I think you are quite wrong. Apart from the Galleria plaza, most of the landholders on this corridor are basically waiting for the details of the Yonge subway plans to get concretized -- and, now, for the credit crunch to abate -- to move forward and unlock the tremendous value in their land.

That's why all the car lots remain, why there are no long-term tenants taking departed one's places in the sprawly ex-Chapters plaza at NW Yonge/Steeles, and so forth. Roy Foss alone is sitting very pretty on this one -- but there have gotten to be a dozen smaller versions of Roy Foss in and around there which basically form a giant land bank.

3. I do wonder what will happen with all of the old apartment buildings on the east side of Yonge, between Clark and Royal Orchard. They would be great candidates for some of the reskinning we are hearing so much about lately. But surely it will become economically rational for some of the owners of those (or are they condos? don't know) to look into redevelopment?

 

[xtremesniper]

That reminds me... I remember reading a few months back (via a zoning sign posted up on various locations near the area) stating that the Yonge and 16th intersection on the south-east side will soon be built up with quite a few (I think I remember reading 4 or 6) high res apartment buildings. I don't recall reading about that anywhere but on those signs, so I'm not sure about the details... But the signs are probably still there, on the south side of 16th, east of Yonge, and on Yonge, south of 16th.

 

[Disparishun]

That reminds me... I remember reading a few months back (via a zoning sign posted up on various locations near the area) stating that the Yonge and 16th intersection on the south-east side will soon be built up with quite a few (I think I remember reading 4 or 6) high res apartment buildings. I don't recall reading about that anywhere but on those signs, so I'm not sure about the details... But the signs are probably still there, on the south side of 16th, east of Yonge, and on Yonge, south of 16th.

This?

 

[xtremesniper]

This?

That's exactly it. Thanks!

*keeps on hand for the day when it's time to push for an extension of the subway to 16th Ave* haha

 

[scarberiankhatru]

That's exactly it. Thanks!

*keeps on hand for the day when it's time to push for an extension of the subway to 16th Ave* haha

An extension past RHC has some merit but a main problem is that there's no obvious place to end it...like, why stop at 16th when you can go to Major Mack? If York Region really turns Hwy 7/407 into the main E/W transit corridor, RHC becomes an even better terminus point and you'd need a really good reason to extend it to another good terminus point. Perhaps, one day, Yonge will see a massive boost in travel from points to points within York Region, which would be a counter to the inevitable "the Yonge line is too long" argument. Highways are really the main dividing lines that split up urban regions, and the 407 also happens to be a Richmond Hill/Markham/Vaughan split, which contributes to RHC being a good threshold to cut off the subway and begin whatever else north on Yonge. The Yonge corridor's "subway terminus breakpoints" are mostly pretty obvious - Bloor, Eglinton, Sheppard, Steeles (but only because of the fare boundary), Hwy 7 - but it gets pretty fuzzy north of there.

 

[Second_in_pie]

An extension past RHC has some merit but a main problem is that there's no obvious place to end it...like, why stop at 16th when you can go to Major Mack? If York Region really turns Hwy 7/407 into the main E/W transit corridor, RHC becomes an even better terminus point and you'd need a really good reason to extend it to another good terminus point. Perhaps, one day, Yonge will see a massive boost in travel from points to points within York Region, which would be a counter to the inevitable "the Yonge line is too long" argument. Highways are really the main dividing lines that split up urban regions, and the 407 also happens to be a Richmond Hill/Markham/Vaughan split, which contributes to RHC being a good threshold to cut off the subway and begin whatever else north on Yonge. The Yonge corridor's "subway terminus breakpoints" are mostly pretty obvious - Bloor, Eglinton, Sheppard, Steeles (but only because of the fare boundary), Hwy 7 - but it gets pretty fuzzy north of there.

That's why I think it would make a lot of sense for part of the Subway to be a sort of upgraded Viva Blue. If they put a transfer at a station with a Go station on an Express Richmond Hill line and made stations more convenient, it might actually alleviate some of Yonge. Highway 7 would be a great place to do this, because it would connect with Viva Purple and Langstaff. The only problem I see is that it might be inconvenient for residents in Thornhill without Fare Integration, so that problem will have to be overcome before any more extensions.