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

[tsm1072]

I had a look at the Richmond Hill Centre Secondary Plan (Here) to see how the new proposed stations may integrate into the eventual development sites over the next 30 years. Here is a slide with an overview of what they would like to do:

The new High Tech station ends up being fairly centrally located in the development area. If they go with the proposed plans, you will hopefully have a station with storefronts, offices, and residential packed tightly up against the ROW, hopefully with a few extra pedestrian crossings north and south of Hight Tech Road. This will primarily be a walk-up station, so limited parking for the shopping areas should be all that is required.

Bridge station is mainly a transfer station and the walk-up station for Langstaff. Ideally, they remove the parking from the hydro corridor, and it acts as a nice large park. Using the hydro corridor and stormwater pond should provide more than enough green space for the area and provide and somewhat pleasant walk-up to the north entrance of Bridge station. Commuter parking will be important to integrate, and I think the perfect use for the deadspace between Hwy 7 and the 407. They can have parking space the whole distance from the 407 off-ramp in the west, to the Cedar road extension in the East. You can make it a multi-level lot near the station, and probably fit some parking under the bus terminal.

The re-alignment of stations to use the rail ROW definitely opens up additional development space, and hopefully will force better pedestrian access across the ROW so the whole area doesn't end up feeling divided down the middle by the tracks.

It's not mentioned in the IBC how far north of high tech the new yard will be, but I hope they allow space for a grade-separated MUP from 16th Ave all the way to Bridge, similar to the West Toronto Rail Path. This is an opportunity to provide some high-quality pedestrian and bike access to stations that aren't just painted lines on a road.

 

[syn]

I blocked that dude many moons ago and can't see his posts but I'm sure he has nothing to say I'd find interesting.

That's unfortunate he's an excellent poster.

 

[Sagaris88]

As I said, I can see you have a bee in your bonnet about this cemetery and others. I mean, you've got some very passionate and lengthy thoughts.

You'll just have to accept it: no one is expropriating 200 acres filled with 1000s of dead bodies, at an active cemetery owned by the Catholic Church. No chance. None. Zip. Zilch. Just accept it and move on.

You're also very glib about the government power to take private property so I hope no one comes to take your house just because they think it's worth a lot of money.. It's not off limits to urban planning. It's off limits to the Expropriation Act, which requires that it be absolutely necessary for the government to take land. That power will be used dozens of times (hundreds, even!) to build this subway but it can't be used just because the land is valuable.

The good news is that there is nothing to stop someone, including you, if you have the resources, to make the church an offer, buy it and do what you want. Because we live in a democratic, capitalist country. But there is zero chance the government will do it and it's kind of appalling to consider one that would. Please, let it go.

Well, there's a lot less bees in the cemetery because of monoculture than if it was a naturalized park space. But I do find it funny that pointing out the much studied environmental consequences of cemeteries is apparently me having a "bee in my bonnet". Oh no, the environment, how dare I.

Seems like you are only shutting down the idea of repurposing cemetery land is because it's difficult. Yeah I know it's difficult, but that doesn't means it's not a good idea. 15,000 residential units is much better usage of land than 2,000 burial plots.

And again, I don't know why you are jumping to conclusions that any transferal of land from the church to developers or the city has to be done through expropriation. Deals can be made. You are the one who brought up expropriating the entire cemetery, not me. I'm also not the one who said the government has to buy the whole cemetery to build condos as if a government is the one building condos, just enough to build critical infrastructure. Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

[Sagaris88]

How about realigning Highway 407 south to next to the cemetery so that development can occur on both sides of Highway 7?

Good idea to connect the communities on either side of the highway but if we are going to the hassle of realignment, I'd rather we just bury it between Yonge and Bayview. Because if you just realign the highway, you'll have roughly the same area of development space in the first place, so realignment would just have the purpose do connecting the two communities and is that a good enough reason for the cost of realignment? As ARG1 said that there is no real major benefit. Burying the highway would atleast increase development area and connect both sides of the highway together. But again, that's a massively expensive undertaking that isn't particularly immediately needed. Maybe in the future.

 

[Sagaris88]

Oh was that when I called you out for manically spamming the board with lies lol

It's honestly really funny and kinda sad that someone has to block someone on a forum that is, comparedly to other topics, as dry and technical as transit infrastructure.

 

[aquateam]

It's honestly really funny and kinda sad that someone has to block someone on a forum that is, comparedly to other topics, as dry and technical as transit infrastructure.

Personally, I stick to the Transportation and Infrastructure part of the forum because it's less likely to become emotional/political, but I've seen some debates here get very heated. A few people have been banned for their behaviour.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Now if it were a pet cemetery, they would avoid it...

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Seems like you are only shutting down the idea of repurposing cemetery land is because it's difficult. Yeah I know it's difficult, but that doesn't means it's not a good idea. 15,000 residential units is much better usage of land than 2,000 burial plots.

It's really simple: someone else owns the land and you don't get to decide what to do with someone else's private property. In our country, the government can't just sieze private property for any old reason.

And I'm not jumping to any conclusions. As I also said, there is absolutely nothing to prevent someone, including you and any given consortium of companies and friends, from purchasing it. But you have to have to things you don't have right now: a willing seller and someone with deep enough pockets to buy it. Doesn't it stand to reason that if one of the biggest development corporations in the country was assembling land in the growth centre, they'd have bought that land (when it was a lot cheaper than now) if it was available? They didn't buy it, ergo I conclude, it's not being developed (and, for what it's worth, I disagree that it's a "better" usage of land or "a good idea" for any number of reasons, including the lack of existing green space - public or private - in that area).

So we can all talk wonderfully about how maybe there should be apartments in Central Park or how the Toronto Zoo should be turned into a mall or there should be a subway stop on Centre Island or colonies on the moon and indeed, all these "difficult" things may actually be possible, but what's the value wasting time and effort discussing virtual impossibilties? If you were starting from scratch, you wouldn't put a huge cemetery beside a subway station, but it's there. The cemetery lands are not changing hands in the context of this subway being built, regardless of whether they're amazing or terrible for the environment and irrespective of any ideas for "better" uses anyone here has. Indeed, they are very much outside of the concrete Growth Centre boundaries that constitute where the Province has dictated the growth should occur, just as there are lands in and outside the Greenbelt.

So, yeah, when you're spending hundreds of words about why Cemeteries are Bad for the Environment, it's not really material to a forum about the subway, is it?

It's honestly really funny and kinda sad that someone has to block someone on a forum that is, comparedly to other topics, as dry and technical as transit infrastructure.

It is indeed sad. If I thought it worth re-hashing in any detail I'd suggest someone who repeatedly calls a fellow poster a liar on such a dry and technical forum shouldn't even have the privelege of posting more at all. Just an opinion, though.

 

[W. K. Lis]

They could extend the cemetery by creating new burial plots over the subway. The deepest they would go down with burial plots would be on average 2 m (6 ft.). With some buffer space, the subway tunnels would be lower than that.

 

[afransen]

They could extend the cemetery by creating new burial plots over the subway. The deepest they would go down with burial plots would be on average 2 m (6 ft.). With some buffer space, the subway tunnels would be lower than that.

It is absolutely possible to tunnel under a cemetery without disturbing any graves. This is just about optics.

 

[Undead]

It's honestly really funny and kinda sad that someone has to block someone on a forum that is, comparedly to other topics, as dry and technical as transit infrastructure.

Personally, I stick to the Transportation and Infrastructure part of the forum because it's less likely to become emotional/political, but I've seen some debates here get very heated. A few people have been banned for their behaviour.

You know what they say about opinions and aholes!

 

[Allandale25]

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[TJ O'Pootertoot]

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I continue to be fascinated by the 407 Transitway which has a complete EA but which isn't even mentioned in that blog. Maybe it would confuse people or muddy the waters.but the eventual connection to that line is one of the biggest advantages to the Bridge Station location. No one was really happy with the route that it was going to take it way off the highway, basically up to High Tech, and back.

 

[tsm1072]

I continue to be fascinated by the 407 Transitway which has a complete EA but which isn't even mentioned in that blog. Maybe it would confuse people or muddy the waters.but the eventual connection to that line is one of the biggest advantages to the Bridge Station location. No one was really happy with the route that it was going to take it way off the highway, basically up to High Tech, and back.

I wonder if the construction of this station will be enough of a push to start building a section of the transitway. They can hopefully build the Highway 407 station to Bridge station section to open shortly after the subway, with a new GO station at Concord. Another "easy-win" section and station would be from Trafalgar to the 403-407 interchange, connecting with a Mississauga transitway extension.

 

[Sandpit]

I wonder if the construction of this station will be enough of a push to start building a section of the transitway. They can hopefully build the Highway 407 station to Bridge station section to open shortly after the subway, with a new GO station at Concord. Another "easy-win" section and station would be from Trafalgar to the 403-407 interchange, connecting with a Mississauga transitway extension.

What benefit is there to the 407 transitway at this point? Any time savings from not having to get on and off the highway to service stops will be negated from having more stops and slower speeds on the transitway.