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

[Rainforest]

...
-Obviously the planning on Yonge is much further ahead. I do not think Yonge should proceed without the DRL proceeding but I also do not think it should have to wait for the DRL to start construction, much less open
-This is because, on opening day, there will not be a massive spike in ridership. The main immediate effect will be a lot less people driving down to Finch Station and a lot less buses on the road; both good things.

...

-I would hope the DRL proceeds about 2-3 years behind Yonge though even 5 wouldn't be the end of the world. I think waiting the 10+ years for DRL to become reality to move forward with Yonge (obviously) is a mistake given where the work and planning are at.

I think this is pretty reasonable. As long as DRL has committed funding, and the design work for DRL has started, we can afford to push Yonge North ahead and complete it a few years before DRL.

ATO on Yonge line, as well as SmartTrack, should help a bit. They wont' solve the capacity issue for long term, but may be able to provide for a few years of growth; after that, DRL should be completed as a long-term solution.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I think this is pretty reasonable. As long as DRL has committed funding, and the design work for DRL has started, we can afford to push Yonge North ahead and complete it a few years before DRL.

ATO on Yonge line, as well as SmartTrack, should help a bit. They wont' solve the capacity issue for long term, but may be able to provide for a few years of growth; after that, DRL should be completed as a long-term solution.

The DRL and the Yonge extension should be completed together, or with the DRL ahead.

 

[WislaHD]

The Yonge Line is packed, but it is only actually over-capacity at Yonge-Bloor at the moment. Once the Crosstown opens, ridership patterns will change reducing the load on line 2 and therefore reducing the pressure at Yonge-Bloor as well.

Combined with the opening of Spadina line (taking passengers who would otherwise transfer onto Yonge), ATO on Yonge, and SmartTrack, we may well have a little breathing room if the Yonge North extension happened first.

 

[nfitz]

Wat? I'm almost certain the TTC has said no such thing.

The TTC is dowing studies on the Relief Line with the City of Toronto.

In the January 16, 2015 SmartTrack Work Plan from the City Manager it clearly states that Planning for the Relief Line will continue, however SmartTrack may delay the timing of the Relief Line near the bottom of Page 23 of the report.

Combined with the opening of Spadina line (taking passengers who would otherwise transfer onto Yonge), ATO on Yonge, and SmartTrack, we may well have a little breathing room if the Yonge North extension happened first.

Neither the City of Toronto nor the TTC are going to proceed with the Yonge North extension without a timeframe on the relief line.

 

[44 North]

as you perhaps know, is designed for a future upgrade to LRT. So, in this sense they very much planned with the money they had (through the province), an upgradable, future-LRT system

A BRT->LRT non-rapid transit conversion would still be a mistake IMO. What I’m referring to is an idea which was never studied (by YR or by Metrolinx): A grade-separate Light Metro-type system capable of being interlined with any future LRT project. I’ve seen the reports, it was never looked at. We went from local plans for BRT->(potential in-median type conversion) LRT, to a 2007 Prov subway promise, to a subway priority.

Now that EA is done and, obviously, the money has yet to materialize and so they are, very unfortunately, left in limbo by the vagaries of politics and the lack of appetite for revenue tools.

$4bn is a shit ton and doesn’t really exist atm. And $500M/km is an obscene amount that is not sustainable for continued subway expansion. But the real clincher is Yonge’s capacity issues. Without that, I'm pretty sure it’d be well under way by now.

And, FWIW, Metrolinx subsequently backed-up that a subway could be justified based on ridership as it was already well into LRT territory and the projected growth pushed it into the subway threshold.

Just like they did with Vaughan Metropolitan Centre...
Fully grade-separate light rail, with 4 car trainsets run at short intervals could easily carry whatever load will exist. Ridiculously high-end estimated 2031 SB peak ridership from Steeles: ~18,800. Again, this is a high-end estimate that didn’t factor in significantly improved and a realigned RH line (or RH-DRL). The 2031 base ridership model merely gave a 15% allocation to GO, assuming it will have:

-15min freq,
-non-electric,
-continue with current circuitous valley routing,
-no fare integration,
-no interchange with B/D or Eglinton, or any point b/n Sheppard and Union.

This is rather substantial. With RER or RH-DRL in place, projected peak ridership on this Yonge extension could literally be cut by thousands and put well back into LRT territory. This be thy “missing linkâ€.

any solution has to seamlessly connect Finch and 7 at this point
....
Practically, the practical move is to figure out the subway at this point.

Has to? Not really. Particularly if like discussed, an interlined RH RER DRL is shortlisted in the next Relief report. Again, plans change. Or morph in response to other plans. Toronto’s history is a testament to that. Network 2011, Let’s Move, MoveOntario 2020 (which had a few flawed and short-sighted election promises). And now The Big Move, which again is not written in stone.

All things considered, Yonge North will continue to be “figured out†for quite some time. For how long is anybody’s guess. But definitely longer than the public, developers, investors, and stakeholders would like. Because this extension is tangled in a multi-municipality web of local politics, and as part of a subway line inherently rife with problems, the project was mired before it even started. Nobody wants that.

Reply if you want, I don’t really care anymore. My stance isn’t merely focused on the Yonge corridor. Whenever there are transit plans that seem to skip over the realistic, flexible, and affordable rapid transit options that exist between street-running operation and astronomically-priced $500M/km all-underground subways; I will question them. But TBH Yonge North is definitely more logical than other past subway promises.

**
This pamphlet is interesting, and has some sweeping statements not unlike those made in this thread:
http://www.vivanext.com/files/PastMeetings/YongeExtension/1105_Addendum.pdf

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The TTC is dowing studies on the Relief Line with the City of Toronto.

In the January 16, 2015 SmartTrack Work Plan from the City Manager it clearly states that Planning for the Relief Line will continue, however SmartTrack may delay the timing of the Relief Line near the bottom of Page 23 of the report.

Neither the City of Toronto nor the TTC are going to proceed with the Yonge North extension without a timeframe on the relief line.

So that's what the City Manager said. The City Manager isn't the TTC.

 

[nfitz]

So that's what the City Manager said. The City Manager isn't the TTC.

The City Manager is more in tune with the direction of the city than the TTC.

TTC is collaborating with the City on SmartTrack.

Do you see much activity at http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects/Future_Plans_and_Studies/Relief_Line/index.jsp or http://regionalrelief.ca/ ?

Besides, it's clear from http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/ that the City is the lead on the Relief Line. Where nothing has happened in 7 months - http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/news

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

The City Manager is more in tune with the direction of the city than the TTC.

TTC is collaborating with the City on SmartTrack.

Do you see much activity at http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects/Future_Plans_and_Studies/Relief_Line/index.jsp or http://regionalrelief.ca/ ?

Besides, it's clear from http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/ that the City is the lead on the Relief Line. Where nothing has happened in 7 months - http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/news

Nobody ever mentions it but it's worth citing Metrolinx's larger Yonge relief study which is ongoing too. There are a LOT of balls in play. It almost makes you wish we had a powerful regional transit authority capable of funding and properly sequencing the construction of new elements of a regional transit network!

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/reliefstudy/

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The City Manager is more in tune with the direction of the city than the TTC.

TTC is collaborating with the City on SmartTrack.

Do you see much activity at http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects/Future_Plans_and_Studies/Relief_Line/index.jsp or http://regionalrelief.ca/ ?

Besides, it's clear from http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/ that the City is the lead on the Relief Line. Where nothing has happened in 7 months - http://regionalrelief.ca/city-of-toronto/news

We won't have any news on RL until at least spring. That's when the first stages of Yonge Relief Network Study and Relief Line Project Assessment will be released.

 

[GenerationW]

We won't have any news on RL until at least spring. That's when the first stages of Yonge Relief Network Study and Relief Line Project Assessment will be released.

After which they'll conveniently decide to punt the DRL to an indeterminate future date.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

After which they'll conveniently decide to punt the DRL to an indeterminate future date.

And then a committee! To review the punting and/or the previous study they decided to punt!

Seriously, at some point money is coming down - Wynne already earmarked, is it $11B for transit/transportation? Someone's hand is going to get forced.
I think the "ideal" situation I imagine is the $3B+ for this extension coming down (be it from Wynne or Harper or both), forcing Toronto to accelerate the DRL. It would be nice to think some sort of systemic change will happen sooner rather than later (i.e. actual revenue tools, actual powers for Metrolinx) but, looking at what's there now, it's all about who has got the money.

York Region doesn't have Bill Fisch as chairperson anymore and I don't know if the new guy is up to the sort of lobbying Fisch could do. What I definitely don't want to see is nothing happening, especially if the DRL gets pushed back because of SmartTrack. These things are all complimentary and it's pathetic how we always proceed in this small-scale, piecemeal fashion. Move on Yonge in 2016, get the DRL rolling by 2018. SmartTrack almost certainly won't be done in the 7 years Tory envisioned but call it 10 and we could have all 3 projects done in 2025, give or take. I daresay that those 3 projects alone would lead to fundamental changes in how people use transit, especially in the citys' edges and just-outside-416 zones, and all for the better. (obviously Eglinton, Sheppard and some other things could be operational within this timeframe too). That would be amazing and achievable progress in 10 years, especially compared to the last 10 years and ESPECIALLY comprared to the 10 years before that.

It might not be realistic but a guy's gotta dream...

 

[Edward]

Agreed! A good dream.

 

[xtremesniper]

It's always a bit funny when downtowners come onto this thread and start blabbing without properly reading themselves up first. But somehow by some amazing grace TJ O'Pootertoot has enough patience to wade through the mud.

The only thing I'm going to add is this: I'm totally fine with LRT. I loved Transit City before Ford came in and literally sat on it. I think LRT makes sense in a wide variety of scenarios (hello Scarborough!), and I'd love to see it built up in a number of major arteries in Toronto and certainly York Region has an eye on it for the next phase of the VivaNext project (assuming the ridership grows).

That said, we're talking about Yonge Street here. Not some sub-standard, sometimes utilized route that maybe reaches some portion of the population. No. This is Yonge freaking Street. A street that you can literally see from the sky with no other reference point other than the huge and ridiculously obvious span of density that follows it from the lake to Richmond Hill. It also happens to be a street that has the TTC's primary and oldest subway route.

So why in the world would we see that the intensification has now continued doing what it has since the founding of Toronto, and turn around and say "yeahhhhh... so we're going to draw this line here because neeeyahh".

No. That's just a load of crap. We are seeing growth happen, and we know that this is a street with a very long history of being the central focus of all things Toronto. I swear to God if I have to go from bus to LRT to subway in the span of a few KM just to get to North York Centre, we would have seriously failed as a city -- nay, a region -- to plan accordingly and do the right thing.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Well said, xtremesniper. I'm also very down with LRT in the right context (ahem, Scarborough, and I supported Transit City which, by the way, had a couple of lines that were going to come up into York Region) but people keep acting like this is some new suburban spur line that's been dreamed up. Even if you throw Places to Grow clear out the window, it's still obvious (even with the amazing growth going on downtown now) that Yonge Street is the key corridor of the entire region and that intensification will continue to march north. I think that would be happening organically, even without the new legislation (obviously NYCC predates it by a generation) but the Growth Plan and Big Move reinforce that, focus it, and make it all that much more likely.

So, it's not about digging a line to nowhere and hoping condos will spring up, it's about providing an infrastructure backbone to get ahead of what we know is coming (and, newsflash, we're not ahead of it). I understand that if you live your life south of Bloor, Highway 7 might seem like the Moon but Yonge and Highway 7 isn't that by a long shot. Maybe the growth centres won't emerge quite as hoped -- NYCC mostly works, but it's not quite what was hoped, for example -- but the potential that's there is remarkable and trying to save a few bucks, trying to lowball transit instead of building for the future, isn't a good enough excuse. If you're a bettin' person, you have to admit that capacity issues, cost and all those other quibbles aside, extending the Yonge subway is the surest best in the whole Big Move.

That's why I ask people to do the mental exercise of imagining that the city limits are actually up at, or even north of Highway 7. The entirely natural growth is patently obvious and, yes, it raises questions of regional governance, transit planning etc. (no one should or is asking TO to shoulder the financial burden of another municipality's growth) but that just makes it a microcosm of the challenges we're seeing everywhere now.

 

[44 North]

It's always a bit funny when downtowners come onto this thread and start blabbing without properly reading themselves up first. But somehow by some amazing grace TJ O'Pootertoot has enough patience to wade through the mud.

I take it you’re referring to my posts. So...where was I proven wrong? Or “babbling without reading up first� I believe any perceived issue seemed to lie in other posters’ inability to grasp the terminology I used. Through several posts I was extremely specific about what I meant when referring to GRADE-SEPARATE light RAPID transit. Although prior to Yonge North there were plans for BRT and potential LRT conversions – which I didn’t ever deny; there was no plan for a light rapid transit YR metro system. Buses or LRVs hitting traffic lights every few hundred metres is not a Metro, or grade-separate RT.

My point was always clear: I’m in favour of rapid transit, and I support a mode that fits the niche between in-median buses/LRVs, and ungodly expensive $500M/km heavy rail systems/extensions. A light metro has all the benefits of subways (speed, high capacity, upzoning, development, etc); but way more flexibility and enormous opportunities for cost-savings. Trenched, in-median, elevated, bored, cut/cover. In other words, infrastructure variability that is no longer realistically achievable with extensions of Toronto’s subway system. Such a system is just as good as a subway, extensions are affordable and can be interlined with other local/regional LRT lines (e.g a 407 LRT Transitway), and it’s in no way lesser transit. Another bonus is that it could’ve been built without the current delays brought about by extending another municipality’s line w/ notorious capacity issues. IMO what I find to be actual ‘lesser transit’ is the unimodal tunnel vision and continued short piecemeal suburban subway extensions that break the bank, and come at the cost of other priorities elsewhere.

And I agree with your other point that this is Yonge Street, and it’s naturally deserving of something better than lowrate BRT (or BRT->LRT conversion). That’s why it’s a bit confounding that prior to 2007 there were no plans by YR to build rapid transit of their own (real, grade-separated RAPID transit). But somehow after a Prov election there was an immediate necessity for high-frequency 6-car heavy rail underground subways – with obscenely large estimates of ~20,000 peak hour ridership.

Re: your point about transferring at Finch. That’s a valid PITA for anyone. But the Prov has come to the realization (as they have a few times over the decades) that improved commuter rail is the best option for medium/long-haul transit users who otherwise rely on local-service rapid transit. We’re doing it with SmartTrack, we’ll soon be doing it with Lakeshore E + W, and with or without Yonge North we’ll be doing it with the Richmond Hill line. An improved RH line with a shorter and faster route is very likely to be shortlisted in the Relief studies. Such a line would more or less solve the PITA transfer at Finch (not to mention slash the ridership projections of a subway on Yonge).

Well said, xtremesniper. I'm also very down with LRT in the right context (ahem, Scarborough, and I supported Transit City which, by the way, had a couple of lines that were going to come up into York Region) but people keep acting like this is some new suburban spur line that's been dreamed up. Even if you throw Places to Grow clear out the window, it's still obvious (even with the amazing growth going on downtown now) that Yonge Street is the key corridor of the entire region and that intensification will continue to march north. I think that would be happening organically, even without the new legislation (obviously NYCC predates it by a generation) but the Growth Plan and Big Move reinforce that, focus it, and make it all that much more likely.
...
That's why I ask people to do the mental exercise of imagining that the city limits are actually up at, or even north of Highway 7. The entirely natural growth is patently obvious and, yes, it raises questions of regional governance, transit planning etc. (no one should or is asking TO to shoulder the financial burden of another municipality's growth) but that just makes it a microcosm of the challenges we're seeing everywhere now.

Right, because there’s no other form of transit in existence that allows for upzoning to high density. The only option available is an extension of a 6-7 car heavy rail all-underground subway system. And nice insinuations that it’s virtually unattainable for YR to accommodate future growth without this extension. Medium-density mixed use projects, infill, identifying other arterials, proactive rezoning attempts...? That’s just crazy talk.

And in other words, it’s fine that the transit system owned and operated by the people of Toronto for almost a century will be watered down...so long as three other smaller municipalities can put off realistic growth management practices while attempting an overly ambitious ad hoc fix to many decades of non-TOD auto-centric sprawl. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander...so long as the gander gets to be piggybacked by the goose.