Newmarket

i know its not in Toronto, but...

there's something really great going on in Newmarket. YRT (york region transit) and Viva are building dedicated bus lanes along Davis Drive, East of Yonge street to the Hospital at Roxburough Rd. The zoning bylaws along the two streets have also been changed to allow for dense mixed use buildings and no front yard parking lots.

the stops will be in the center of the street, sort of like the St Clair streetcar is now.

this is a very interesting development for a town that has been deeply dedicated to cars for the last seventy years (public transit here has been terrible here ever since the interurban streetcar line was ripped out in the 1930s)

As of right now, a lot of the properties have been bought by the town along Davis Dr. , and several (dont worry, none were good) old buildings have been torn down, with several more to go in the next few days. construction is set to start once they are all gone. (they have to widen the road to build the new lanes).

information can be found at vivanext.com, under rapidways / davis drive.

also, i have taken a few pictures of what it looks like right now, if anyone could tell me how to put them up?

just fyi ... to start - they buses will only be using the lanes on the side - they're not going to implement the full scale BRT for a while on this stretch last I heard.

Secondly - like always, these sites will most likely sold to developers so we can't really say what they will end up looking like.


To me ... this is the problem with 'York region' what a waste of money - everyone needs a fair piece of the pie but priorities are so out of wack ... this is nice and all but so many more sections of Yonge / Hi-way 7 need the right of way first ... and as I said this won't even be the right away.

And again, who's even going to take advantage of this until the entire street gets redeveloped - Viva blue is really the only busy bus route in this area.

Also, why not do this on Yonge ... there are many many parking lots a long the street in Newmarket that could easily be ripped up and developed.

If I were god I would prohibit growth of newmarket and just let it decline. That growth should be further south. Why sprawl north from aurora? They could go back down to aurora. Or even better, they could put that growth back to toronto.

Their growth is the region's loss. Just let it be mostly farmland once again.

Newmarket is a bit different from other towns in York Region. Until sprawl spread north in the 1940s, Newmarket was actually the biggest village north of Eglinton. It has a large Victorian district, and back in the day could easily function as it's own separate city independently of Toronto - much like Oshawa. Whereas nearby Aurora is just a suburb of Toronto, Newmarket has a much different relationship with the surrounding area as it functions as the "urban" centre for a huge swath rural York Region and southern Simcoe county.

I would argue that Newmarket is a good candidate for intensification, certainly much more worthy than Aurora, Oak Ridges, Bradford, or any other smaller towns in that part of the GTA. It's focused enough that it could conceivably develop a decently sized walkable area, and would be a natural choice for younger people or retirees in the area looking to live in a more city like setting.

Interestingly, Newmarket is one of the few municipalities fully built out, making it statistically the third most densely populated municipality in Ontario.

And remember, too, that Newmarket has its own employment and industry--as does Aurora, for that matter (like, Magna, duh). So to bluntly dismiss them as "sprawl" hits short of the mark...

Newmarket has it's own employment industry? HA! While it may have some small industrial zones, most of the people who live in Newmarket/Aurora work in either south York Region (south of 16th) or in Toronto. There have been huge new subdivisions build in the last decade but barely any new employment has shown up in town. It is pure sprawl and is the reason why many of York Region's N/S arteries are so congested all day. Take a drive up Bayview, Leslie, Bathurst. They are super busy all the way up from Toronto to Newmarket. These are people driving down to work/shop/play.

Yes, Newmarket is the urban centre for north York Region, but if it is to continue to be an urban centre, it needs to get more 'urban'. Why not build a proper downtown with some mid-rise office buildings and some compact development around transit like the GO Station or along Yonge street served by VIVA.

Right now, Newmarket functions as a cheap housing spot for those priced out of homes in southern York Region. For the cost of a condo downtown, one can get a nice house in Newmarket.

Why support building in newmarket and such farflug places? Toronto should get that growth. Put a urban growth boundary on them, to castrate their growth. The sprawl should be reeled in, for it is too costly to do so.

An urban growth boundary will force development to be in already built up areas, and it would also attract it back to Toronto, rather than take it out of Toronto.

Newmarket will grow because it is in the provincial mandate as a growth centre. All growth cannot go just into Toronto proper. Some types of business cannot afford the high property values in the city and simply require more space at a much lower cost. So there should be growth in other cities and Toronto. The growth just has to be better managed. Newmarket should grow but its sprawl should be stopped immediately. There should be mixed use zoning and higher densities out in place. That will allow the town to be more independent as a functioning city than simply a subdivision. The idea is for Newmarket to be the next Kitchener / Waterloo, which is a self-sufficient city on it's own which actually pulls a lot of committed into it for work because it us a regional centre. Since GO has purchased the line all the way from Toronto to Barrie, Newmarket could certainly become a good transit hub for northern York Region if the growth is managed properly. The same is true for Toronto as well. With all the recent growth downtown, the city desperately needs a new e-w subway line to allow for fast travel between the booming areas and to relieve the major chokepoints on the subway. We can't have everyone live and work around Union Station, so growth should be spread around between the major growth nodes and all connected by transit. Now that would be utopia, or at least something to aim for.

The whole it's built out / one of the densest is really just skewed measurements - to start, there are tons of new subdivisions going up throughout so there's quite a bit new land left interspersed. Secondly, town/city limits change all the time - quite typically larger towns annex nearly by towns and growth that way so it's quite silly to draw a line and call an area 'built out' for that reason.


Anyway, to me it seems somewhat more practical (from a transportation point of view) to keep the focus on the inner 905 - Markham / Richmond Hill Vaughan / Brampton ... rather then set these boundaries rather arbitrarily.

For those who don't know - it actually does sort of serve currently as a hub for the north GTA (mainly the areas just north and south of it) not so much employment wise but commercially (there's some industry, particularly warehousing as of late a swell), with the largest mall in the area by far and a plethora of big box stores.
Moreover, a lot of York Region's government is housed there including the courts.

So that may be merit enough and one could argue it's too late now i.e. it would have been better if 20/30 years ago we really put the focus further south - yes it has always existed for some time but so have many places to the north actually.

In terms of business tax - that's wrong - it doesn't have the lowest in the 905 - land value wise, maybe but this is the exact sort of thing we're trying to stop no! Given time (and with this plan) the lowest land value will be a little bit north and then north of that / so on so forth ...

A few points:
-There IS an urban growth boundary, but it's north of Newmarket. You can't force people to live in Toronto so the question isn't whether people are going to live in the suburbs but HOW they're going to live there. Given how built-out it is, intensification is natural for Newmarket. I'm a bit surprised anyone would suggest otherwise.

I mean:
"Why support building in newmarket and such farflug places? Toronto should get that growth."

Right...luckily we don't live in a dictatorship.
I always find it weird when people seem to be against rapid transit and smart growth in the suburbs, as if we don't know the alternative.

And I think Taal is off on a few things.
Firstly, they are building BRT lanes along Hwy 7 as we speak. They're just a bit behind Davis Drive, primarily because it's a much shorter stretch. Yonge Street south of Hwy. 7 was going to be first BRT lane, until the province announced they'd rather do a subway. Now it's in limbo.
Next up is western Hwy 7 and north on Yonge Street.
So, nothing weird there.

Secondly, the density figures aren't "skewed." It's 85K people in an area that's really only 3-main-streets by 4 main streets. It's got about 2X the population of Aurora (which is the same size) and is mandated to grow to about 100K by 2031. Very few of those people are going into new subdivisions.

Thirdly, I'm not sure where you heard the BRT are side lanes.
The region has always said it will look like this...


There's nothing "arbitrary" about the boundaries. they're called municipal borders. Just look at the Places to Grow maps. York Region has overall growth targets and so do each of its munis. While Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill are taking the brunt of it, Newmarket (and East Gwillimbury, even moreso) are doing their share in the north. Nothing odd about that. It also has a huge, regional hospital where the bus lanes are going. And a GO station.
It will connect to the Viva line on Yonge Street, creating an L-shaped intensification zone almost all the way down to Mulock Drive.
Drawing "arbitrary" lines is a big part of planning, you know.

So, it's not really clear why several people here are either advocating growth elsewhere or going off on wild tangents about Toronto.

If you want to nuke Newmarket and just put people in the south of York Region (or Toronto!), I guess we can try that. But if you accept that not everyone's going to fit in Thornhill I don't see why you wouldn't want to also intensify in the 'urban north.'

I can't find the link but I'm fairly confident to start it will only be a BRT on the left side.
Moreover, while the BRT may begin in a few other portions - this is all part of phase 1, there is a phase 2 which includes other portions of Yonge and Hi-way 7 - and I'm arguing they should take precedence over a route which today sees very limited bus traffic.

Secondly, again, there are still large swaths of land that are being turned into subdivisions as we speak in the town - and this will continue - I don't see full built out for sometime to come ... that's not to say intensification cannot happen on Davis.

Lastly, I actually disagree with you comment that 'not everyone can fit south of Aurora or Richmond Hill ... I think they can ... if we had a lot higher desensitizes.

At the end of the day I have no problem with any of this - but the priority of this section of BRT does irk me quite a bit ... again if they're building everything else at the same time then sure but I don't think that's the case.

taal said:

Secondly, town/city limits change all the time - quite typically larger towns annex nearly by towns and growth that way so it's quite silly to draw a line and call an area 'built out' for that reason.

Click to expand...

Maybe in municipal structures like Houston or Calgary. However, the actual limits of Newmarket have been effectively "fixed" since York became a Regional Municipality four decades ago. So, Newmarket proper is approaching the build-out threshold--any "expansion" henceforth would be leapfrogging into East Gwillimbury, Georgina, etc...

First, about the location of the BRT lanes, here is what the Viva website says:
The rapidways will extend for 2.6 kilometers east along Davis Drive, from Yonge Street to just past the hospital. Viva service will continue another 1.5 kilometres east to Highway 404, operating similarly to existing Viva in the curbside lane.

I presume that's the confusion; a median lane from Yonge to the hospital and then curb lanes from the east of there, which makes a lot of sense.

As for annexing, actually, Newmarket did annex a small piece of EG a few years ago...I forget the details. But, yeah, the borders are pretty fixed now.
I know there are still subdivisions going in but a lot of what is left is designated for employment. Newmarket is effectively built-out (even if not literally so), especially in comparison to the southern municipalities.
If you're concerned about the growth going there you should be even more concerned about EG expanding from about 22K people 5 years ago to nearly 90K by 2031.

You're right that Davis is "Phase One" along with Hwy 7 east. As I said above, Yonge south was supposed to take precedence but got pushed back; the section north of 7 is next, along with Hwy 7 west. I presume the logic for doing Davis now was that a) the hospital expansion has increased traffic in the area b) it placates the northern municipalities for a bit c) it is a shorter, cheaper stretch to do in the short term.
Before the province slowed how fast the money is coming the whole thing was supposed to be done in 5 years. When you bear in mind that the growth nodes in Markham and Vaughan are barely there (or not there at all) it makes sense that the already-existing neighbourhood was prioritized. It seems less obvious now that it will take 10 years but still....

TJ O'Pootertoot said:

First, about the location of the BRT lanes, here is what the Viva website says:
The rapidways will extend for 2.6 kilometers east along Davis Drive, from Yonge Street to just past the hospital. Viva service will continue another 1.5 kilometres east to Highway 404, operating similarly to existing Viva in the curbside lane.

I presume that's the confusion; a median lane from Yonge to the hospital and then curb lanes from the east of there, which makes a lot of sense.

As for annexing, actually, Newmarket did annex a small piece of EG a few years ago...I forget the details. But, yeah, the borders are pretty fixed now.
I know there are still subdivisions going in but a lot of what is left is designated for employment. Newmarket is effectively built-out (even if not literally so), especially in comparison to the southern municipalities.
If you're concerned about the growth going there you should be even more concerned about EG expanding from about 22K people 5 years ago to nearly 90K by 2031.

You're right that Davis is "Phase One" along with Hwy 7 east. As I said above, Yonge south was supposed to take precedence but got pushed back; the section north of 7 is next, along with Hwy 7 west. I presume the logic for doing Davis now was that a) the hospital expansion has increased traffic in the area b) it placates the northern municipalities for a bit c) it is a shorter, cheaper stretch to do in the short term.
Before the province slowed how fast the money is coming the whole thing was supposed to be done in 5 years. When you bear in mind that the growth nodes in Markham and Vaughan are barely there (or not there at all) it makes sense that the already-existing neighbourhood was prioritized. It seems less obvious now that it will take 10 years but still....

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for that!

I still haven't found the link - but rest assured, it exists - it was on a YRT site, they stated for the first couple years the BRT will run on the outside lines (I don't recall the mixed traffic part) and then later they'll convert.

But you really hit the head on the nail with what irks me ... Davis is ... meh, somewhat busy, at times (people always like to think their area is the busiest) but Hi-way-7 and parts of Yonge are magnitudes of times worse ... on top of that, thousands currently use these stretches daily - Davis has practically 0 ridership in comparison!

Hi-way 7 is a huge employment area, why the heck with that not take priority ... it really makes no sense ....

At the end of the day the answer is politics ... for those unaware there's a huge amount of politics that goes on inside york region ... unlike Toronto they don't have the media hounding them either so a lot goes on behind the scenes that most people have no idea about

There's huge amounts of politics everywhere, media covered or not. Davis Dr. is a logical place for the VIVA "Rapidway" to connect Yonge St. with the healthcare centre, the Historic Downtown, and the GO Newmarket Train Station. The Rapidway will also encourage intensification along Davis. I've only heard of VIVA buses on Davis using the curb lane east of the hospital, as TJ said. Dedicated centre median lanes have been the preferred option since the get go. There are detailed cross-sections and designs on the VIVANext website that show this.

However, the majority of growth is expected to be along Yonge St. The opportunities to intensify Yonge St with mixed-use, high-density developments are incredible. The Region and Town has already identified Yonge St. as an urban centre. The Town is undergoing a Secondary Plan review to develop policies for the Yonge Street Regional Centre. Check out this Visualization Study that was prepared for and endorsed by Newmarket Council. Will Newmarket develop like envisioned? Who knows, but it won't be for awhile. But that's not to say that they shouldn't plan to accomodate future growth in this manner.