Neptis' Review of Metrolinx's Big Move

[Palma]

Right now, the TTC is entirely funded by the city of Toronto, and will continue to be so after the Vaughan extension is built. Regional thinking = Regional Payment. Or provincial payment.



They are little more then vote buying exercises. Will the Bloor Danforth meet capacity withing the next 25 years? No. Will VCC? No. Will Richmond Hill to Finch? No. Will the Sheppard East subway? No. All these are below capacity extensions designed to get people to vote for the nearest Liberal or Conservative Candidate. Ergo, vote buying exercise. And a flaw in provincial planning policy. So now we arrive here. At this point, we arrive at these options. 1) provincial funding for the TTC 2) Upgraded GO 3) proceed with all these money losing, politically planned extensions. 4) Nothing changes. Maybe number 1 is best. I feel that if all these place want subways they should be paying for them and feel the cost of it.

Downtown has the most subways because it's the densest part of the region. These places are all suburban office parks or malls which may or may not succeed. The Big Move may be a regional plan, but I'm guessing Munro being a Toronto proper blogger wanted to talk about Toronto. Again it's not about throwing the walls up at Steeles, it's about funding extensions for political gain and money loss. You say city borders should not matter because all of a sudden RH and Vaughan are growing and should demand and get everything. That's not how it works, especially when some of those people ran away from Toronto in the first place. The subway is supposed to be for those south of Steeles, because they pay for it. Right now, in 2016, the fare system will not change when VCC opens. It should be if you want the subway, you should live south of Steeles. That's completely fair right at this second.

Totally agree with you and you make the most sense.

 

[Palma]

I don't think you know the difference between a node and a municipality. Try Dictionary.com or wikipedia. Or you could look up "mobility hub" on Metrolinx's site. Or read Places to Grow...Really, there's lots of places you could start. The subway isn't designed to serve all of Vaughan; it's designed to serve VMC.
Also, your numbers are off.

"

Totally disagree with you and you make the least sense.

I had to cut the rest of your nonsense out o comment on this one.

When I said mode I did not mean it in the sense you obviously do. It does not matter if its 300,000 or more. Mississauga has over 660,000 people for sure 50% more than Vaughan. Thats great, a subway going into Vaughan to serve one station VMC.

 

[Palma]

I think we agree about more than we don't T with. (And York Region wouldn't really have "two subways," it would have 5 or 6 stops at its very southern end, but again, I understand the politics and optics of it.)

5 to 6 stops too many

 

[Electrify]

The thing which is annoying is that north of York University, the line should really be elevated. Crossing the hydro corridor and 407 underground is a waste, and there are several examples of elevated rail being integrated into urban developments elegantly, especially if said development revolves around said railway. Also such an extension would be about the same as if the extension was done with light rail, less since a separate rail yard would not be needed.

Seems the SRT has done a really good job jading this city from elevated transit, even if such fears are illogical.

 

[MrsNesbitt]

The thing which is annoying is that north of York University, the line should really be elevated. Crossing the hydro corridor and 407 underground is a waste, and there are several examples of elevated rail being integrated into urban developments elegantly, especially if said development revolves around said railway. Also such an extension would be about the same as if the extension was done with light rail, less since a separate rail yard would not be needed.

Seems the SRT has done a really good job jading this city from elevated transit, even if such fears are illogical.

Not just elevated, but at grade too. Remember Stintz saying that subway is only subway when it's underground a few months back?

 

[howl]

I wonder how things would have been different if Mike Harris hadn't ignored the recommendation of the 1996 Golden Report?

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/speech_oped/12-03-29/the_case_for_regionalism_revisited.aspx

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Totally disagree with you and you make the least sense.

I had to cut the rest of your nonsense out o comment on this one.

When I said mode I did not mean it in the sense you obviously do. It does not matter if its 300,000 or more. Mississauga has over 660,000 people for sure 50% more than Vaughan. Thats great, a subway going into Vaughan to serve one station VMC.

You don't even know what you're talking about. Obviously you didn't mean "node" in the same way I did, which is the way is to say, it's actual meaning. ("Mode," which you've used twice is even more confusing but I assume you were making up a new definition for node+typo rather than a new definition for mode.)

The population of the municipality is totally meaningless. The question is where people are and where they are going and in York Region they are along the border with Toronto. If I live in North York it's absurd to suggest the Bloor-Danforth line is serving my "node," using your liberal definition. Who cares that it's in the same city? The 300,000 people in Vaughan are adjacent to TTC and the greater number in Mississauga are not. (And that's ignoring the 300,000+ in Markham and 200K in Richmond Hill etc. who are perfectly free to cross borders without a passport and use the subway.) All you have to do is look at a map to see how much easier and sensible it is to extend subways north of Steeles than (for example) to take the B-D line all the way to Square One.

If you think it's incomprehensible or superfluous nonsense that municipalities being asked to intensify shouldn't be denied infrastructure that allows them to do so, I'm not sure what value your opinion really has about how many stops a certain line should or shouldn't have or where it should go.

You don't really understand the geography or travel patterns or planning framework of the region (or how to do 2 quotes in a single post) and that's fine, but don't confuse it with an informed or cogent opinion.

I wonder how things would have been different if Mike Harris hadn't ignored the recommendation of the 1996 Golden Report?

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/speech_oped/12-03-29/the_case_for_regionalism_revisited.aspx

They'd be better. Even if not every aspect of it, the general idea of it would have made silly internecine battles easier to manage. They were ahead of their time on that one.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

You don't even know what you're talking about. Obviously you didn't mean "node" in the same way I did, which is the way is to say, it's actual meaning. The population of the municipality is totally meaningless. The question is where people are and where they are going and in York Region they are along the border with Toronto. If I live in North York it's absurd to suggest the Bloor-Danforth line is serving my "node," using your liberal definition. Who cares that it's in the same city? The 300,000 people in Vaughan are adjacent to TTC and the greater number in Mississauga are not. (And that's ignoring the 300,000+ in Markham and 200K in Richmond Hill etc. who are perfectly free to cross borders without a passport and use the subway.) All you have to do is look at a map to see how much easier and sensible it is to extend subways north of Steeles than (for example) to take the B-D line all the way to Square One.

If you think it's incomprehensible or superfluous nonsense that municipalities being asked to intensify shouldn't be denied infrastructure that allows them to do so, I'm not sure what value your opinion really has about how many stops a certain line should or shouldn't have or where it should go.

You don't really understand the geography or travel patterns or planning framework of the region (or how to do 2 quotes in a single post) and that's fine, but don't confuse it with an informed or cogent opinion.




They'd be better. Even if not every aspect of it, the general idea of it would have made silly internecine battles easier to manage. They were ahead of their time on that one.

There should be a great toronto services board like WMATA in DC.


We had one, but it got eliminated.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

There should be a great toronto services board like WMATA in DC.


We had one, but it got eliminated.

It was practically designed to be eliminated. Then we got Metrolinx Board I and Metrolinx Board II.
My hope/expectation is that once the revenue thing is figured out, Metrolinx Board III will bring on some elected officials and act like a GTSB, at least for transit and transportation, which isn't the only issue such a board should deal with, but it's probably the biggest.
The lack of regional thinking is crippling the whole region. Case in point: chunks of this thread. As long as TTC is entirely a TO operation and GO is regarded as "for suburbanites" (even though it has stops in Toronto, but whatever) and everyone has their little fiefdoms funded by "our taxpayers" the ball isn't going to be moved downfield. It's not about merging everyone into some super-entity necessarily, just getting them to acknowledge each others' existence and work better together.

 

[MrsNesbitt]

If you think it's incomprehensible or superfluous nonsense that municipalities being asked to intensify shouldn't be denied infrastructure that allows them to do so, I'm not sure what value your opinion really has about how many stops a certain line should or shouldn't have or where it should go.

The mistake I believe that you're making is falling into the trap of believing that TTC subway is that infrastructure necessary to intensify. Rapid transit is what aids in intensification, and that means that if VMC or RHC received their newly-promised 15 minute GO service, or even LRT extending north from the ends of YUS which could also then go further into York Region if necessary without exorbitant cost, intensification would not suffer. Rapid transit is necessary for those nodes in question. Subways, with their humongous costs (relative to the tiny ridership that Spadina north of Steeles will actually experience), are overkill for them.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

The mistake I believe that you're making is falling into the trap of believing that TTC subway is that infrastructure necessary to intensify. Rapid transit is what aids in intensification, and that means that if VMC or RHC received their newly-promised 15 minute GO service, or even LRT extending north from the ends of YUS which could also then go further into York Region if necessary without exorbitant cost, intensification would not suffer. Rapid transit is necessary for those nodes in question. Subways, with their humongous costs (relative to the tiny ridership that Spadina north of Steeles will actually experience), are overkill for them.

I'm not making a mistake.

One more time - the density in the plans for RHC and VMC are both directly contingent ON THE SUBWAY. One is under construction, the other was announced as a provincial priority six years ago. RHC/Langstaff, in particular, is specifically and explicitly designed to be a transit-oriented community with all its density, jobs and population figures contingent on the subway AND improved GO and YRT/Viva (and the transitway). When they started planning it, they looked at how many people all those transit modes could handle and worked backwards from there. I can't state it any more clearly than that.

VMC is somewhat, marginally debatable but it's also a done deal so that ship has sailed.

All you have to do is look at the Places to Grow map (which I am too lazy to pull up right now) that shows 4 regional nodes running up Yonge (downtown, Yonge-Eg/NYCC and RHC/Langstaff). Three out of four are on the subway and the fourth is 3km north of the border with a design - once again - SPECIFICALLY build around the subway capacity. It lacks the road capacity for any other development so anything less than a subway - LRT, BRT or tandem bikes - means you cannot achieve what is planned.

I could not possibly deny that the Spadina extension will run through some pretty bleak lands to get to its end but the same cannot be said for Yonge. Growth will continue to march north there as organically as in any other district in the GTA. I'm not a "subways, subways, subways," person but when you are talking about what kind of mode should go where, I literally cannot comprehend why you would not build a subway a couple of km on the region's main street to the biggest planned mobility hub and growth node in the entire region. I know it doesn't exist yet but if the 407 Transitway was operational, would that make it more obvious how absurd it is to stop a subway 2-3 km away from a major intermodal hub? Once it is operational, won't it seem absurd to take a subway to Steeles and then transfer to LRT or BRT or a bus or whatever to get up to where all the east/west routes converge?

Isn't the entire fundamental underpinning of both Places to Grow and The Big Move that we want to develop more compactly and create a seamless regional transit network that encourages transit use over auto use, especially in the suburbs? Am I the only one who thinks this? And did I miss it when Mississauga or Brampton or Scarborough/Toronto or Vaughan for that matter hired one of the world's leading experts on transit-oriented development to create a leading edge plan for an area with a remarkable concentration of planned transit along with serious road constraints? I'm the only one who sees the disconnect there, really?

Aside from the DRL, I can't think of another subway that makes as much obvious sense or, if you care about such things, will return as much to the farebox.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

It was practically designed to be eliminated. Then we got Metrolinx Board I and Metrolinx Board II.
My hope/expectation is that once the revenue thing is figured out, Metrolinx Board III will bring on some elected officials and act like a GTSB, at least for transit and transportation, which isn't the only issue such a board should deal with, but it's probably the biggest.
The lack of regional thinking is crippling the whole region. Case in point: chunks of this thread. As long as TTC is entirely a TO operation and GO is regarded as "for suburbanites" (even though it has stops in Toronto, but whatever) and everyone has their little fiefdoms funded by "our taxpayers" the ball isn't going to be moved downfield. It's not about merging everyone into some super-entity necessarily, just getting them to acknowledge each others' existence and work better together.

We have the fiefedoms because of the provincial government. They could solve all this tommorrow. Also places like YR shoot themselves in the foot with 4.00 fares.

I'm not making a mistake.

One more time - the density in the plans for RHC and VMC are both directly contingent ON THE SUBWAY. One is under construction, the other was announced as a provincial priority six years ago. RHC/Langstaff, in particular, is specifically and explicitly designed to be a transit-oriented community with all its density, jobs and population figures contingent on the subway AND improved GO and YRT/Viva (and the transitway). When they started planning it, they looked at how many people all those transit modes could handle and worked backwards from there. I can't state it any more clearly than that.

VMC is somewhat, marginally debatable but it's also a done deal so that ship has sailed.

All you have to do is look at the Places to Grow map (which I am too lazy to pull up right now) that shows 4 regional nodes running up Yonge (downtown, Yonge-Eg/NYCC and RHC/Langstaff). Three out of four are on the subway and the fourth is 3km north of the border with a design - once again - SPECIFICALLY build around the subway capacity. It lacks the road capacity for any other development so anything less than a subway - LRT, BRT or tandem bikes - means you cannot achieve what is planned.

I could not possibly deny that the Spadina extension will run through some pretty bleak lands to get to its end but the same cannot be said for Yonge. Growth will continue to march north there as organically as in any other district in the GTA. I'm not a "subways, subways, subways," person but when you are talking about what kind of mode should go where, I literally cannot comprehend why you would not build a subway a couple of km on the region's main street to the biggest planned mobility hub and growth node in the entire region. I know it doesn't exist yet but if the 407 Transitway was operational, would that make it more obvious how absurd it is to stop a subway 2-3 km away from a major intermodal hub? Once it is operational, won't it seem absurd to take a subway to Steeles and then transfer to LRT or BRT or a bus or whatever to get up to where all the east/west routes converge?

Isn't the entire fundamental underpinning of both Places to Grow and The Big Move that we want to develop more compactly and create a seamless regional transit network that encourages transit use over auto use, especially in the suburbs? Am I the only one who thinks this? And did I miss it when Mississauga or Brampton or Scarborough/Toronto or Vaughan for that matter hired one of the world's leading experts on transit-oriented development to create a leading edge plan for an area with a remarkable concentration of planned transit along with serious road constraints? I'm the only one who sees the disconnect there, really?

Aside from the DRL, I can't think of another subway that makes as much obvious sense or, if you care about such things, will return as much to the farebox.

There is nothing in MoveOntario2020, the Big Move, or the greenbelt plans that says it's contingent on the subway. All they want is for places like RH, Vaughan, Markham, Aurora and Newmarket is to densify. Lest we forget the Langstaff is a GO station! Speaking of which, that has more capacity and through alignment can be linked up at bloor. Then again many, many people in YR work in the financial district.

 

[howl]

We have the fiefedoms because of the provincial government. They could solve all this tommorrow. Also places like YR shoot themselves in the foot with 4.00 fares.


There is nothing in MoveOntario2020, the Big Move, or the greenbelt plans that says it's contingent on the subway. All they want is for places like RH, Vaughan, Markham, Aurora and Newmarket is to densify. Lest we forget the Langstaff is a GO station! Speaking of which, that has more capacity and through alignment can be linked up at bloor. Then again many, many people in YR work in the financial district.

I think you're probably both right in some sense. Whenever a developer proposes a new development they have to prepare a traffic study to show that there is still capacity in the road system for the cars their development will introduce. If their development pushes the road system over the threshold into gridlock they don't get approval. That is often the limiting factor in how many units they can build. When there is transit available they can assume a certain percentage of future residents and employees will use transit instead of cars, which means they can build more units. I imagine a certain amount of the RH/Landstaff area could be built now based on the capacity in the existing roads, GO and the VIVA BRT, however full build out is not possible until the subway is extended north. The transportation network must be in place first. I know there are developers sitting on land in Mississauga just waiting for the Hurontario LRT to be built so they can maximize their density. If they were to move forwards now, before the LRT is built, their density allotment would be severely restricted since the roads are already near capacity.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

There is nothing in MoveOntario2020, the Big Move, or the greenbelt plans that says it's contingent on the subway. All they want is for places like RH, Vaughan, Markham, Aurora and Newmarket is to densify. Lest we forget the Langstaff is a GO station! Speaking of which, that has more capacity and through alignment can be linked up at bloor. Then again many, many people in YR work in the financial district.

This is like talking to a bunch of walls - or at least people who don't know any of the actual facts of the issue they are ostensibly debating.

Read up. get back to me. I'll post some hilights.

http://www.metrolinx.com/mobilityhubs/en/map/mobility_hubs_map/MHP_RichmondHill-LangstaffGateway.pdf

RICHMOND HILL-LANGSTAFF is identified as an Anchor Hub in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area (GTHA). It is
located on the border of the Town of Richmond Hill and the City of Markham and includes Langstaff GO Station on
the Richmond Hill Line and the York Region Transit/VIVA Richmond Hill Centre Bus Terminal. As defined in The Big
Move, this hub is planned to integrate subway, Express Rail, Rapid Transit and local bus service.

http://www.calthorpe.com/langstaff

The Langstaff site enjoys an unprecedented level of planned and existing transit service, a level unique perhaps to non-downtown North American urban areas. This local and regional connectivity will provide future residents of the Gateway with access to all the services, amenities and attractions of the Greater Toronto Area. The various transit services all converge on the Transit Hub, a multi-modal transportation facility that will span the highway to connect more directly with development in both Markham and Richmond Hill.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/colu...it_hubs_to_shape_urban_pocket_in_markham.html

We've had a 50-year experiment with sprawl," Calthorpe argues. "Now it's over. Everything's changing. There's a huge demographic shift happening. If you include externalities and eliminate subsidies, sprawl is not affordable. The key to unlocking the potential is transit."
But as Calthorpe also points out, successful transit is regional transit. That's surely true at Langstaff. Cut off by hydro easements, highways, railway tracks and cemeteries, the missing connections to the external world can only be created through transit. Extending the Yonge subway to Hwy. 7 is critical to the project, as are the locations of the new stations.
"If you want to get people out of cars," says Calthorpe, "you've got to get them close to transit. And transit must be there to support walkability, not the other way around. Destinations have to be nearby."

Oh, but what do I or this "Peter Calthorpe" fellow know in comparison to y'all talking about how the extension makes no sense and how Places to Grow and The Big Move merely make some general comments about densification and certainly nothing about a subway at this exact site?

Contingent.
On.
The.
Subway.

Not an LRT. Not a BRT. Not some truncated line 2 km away and definitely not from Finch. I know we've had things so back-asswards in the GTA for so long so busy trying to maintain a good state of repair that the idea of "planning" often seems impossible but this is planning. If you want to argue why this line or that line doesn't work or make sense - as (to veer towards the actual thread) Munro does - at least understand the planning context in which you are operating.

You can try opine that this project is impossible or a pipe dream or whatever else you want but the importance of the subway is not a matter of opinion. This is precisely a microcosm of what The Big Move and Places to Grow are trying to do and if you can't make it work here, you're not going to make it work somewhere else.

(Oh, and Howl is right about developers requiring a transit study and, as I said, they did things differently here. IBI Group did the study for this [feel free to Google it] and do you want to guess what they said? They said that this community can actually work AND produce a 65% non-auto modal share. Do you know how they found this would be possible? I'll give you a hint: It rhymes with gubmay. Only 1/3 of the 15K units planned for the Langstaff site are available prior to the subway, FYI.)

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I think you're probably both right in some sense. Whenever a developer proposes a new development they have to prepare a traffic study to show that there is still capacity in the road system for the cars their development will introduce. If their development pushes the road system over the threshold into gridlock they don't get approval. That is often the limiting factor in how many units they can build. When there is transit available they can assume a certain percentage of future residents and employees will use transit instead of cars, which means they can build more units. I imagine a certain amount of the RH/Landstaff area could be built now based on the capacity in the existing roads, GO and the VIVA BRT, however full build out is not possible until the subway is extended north. The transportation network must be in place first. I know there are developers sitting on land in Mississauga just waiting for the Hurontario LRT to be built so they can maximize their density. If they were to move forwards now, before the LRT is built, their density allotment would be severely restricted since the roads are already near capacity.

I can agree with this. I feel that part of the reason the subway is being demanded is because they knew well all those condos would put more people on the road then Yonge between Steels and 7 could handle. I feel like the TTC is being backed into a corner because of this.

This is like talking to a bunch of walls - or at least people who don't know any of the actual facts of the issue they are ostensibly debating.

Read up. get back to me. I'll post some hilights.

http://www.metrolinx.com/mobilityhubs/en/map/mobility_hubs_map/MHP_RichmondHill-LangstaffGateway.pdf


http://www.calthorpe.com/langstaff



http://www.thestar.com/opinion/colu...it_hubs_to_shape_urban_pocket_in_markham.html



Oh, but what do I or this "Peter Calthorpe" fellow know in comparison to y'all talking about how the extension makes no sense and how Places to Grow and The Big Move merely make some general comments about densification and certainly nothing about a subway at this exact site?

Contingent.
On.
The.
Subway.

Not an LRT. Not a BRT. Not some truncated line 2 km away and definitely not from Finch. I know we've had things so back-asswards in the GTA for so long so busy trying to maintain a good state of repair that the idea of "planning" often seems impossible but this is planning. If you want to argue why this line or that line doesn't work or make sense - as (to veer towards the actual thread) Munro does - at least understand the planning context in which you are operating.

You can try opine that this project is impossible or a pipe dream or whatever else you want but the importance of the subway is not a matter of opinion. This is precisely a microcosm of what The Big Move and Places to Grow are trying to do and if you can't make it work here, you're not going to make it work somewhere else.

(Oh, and Howl is right about developers requiring a transit study and, as I said, they did things differently here. IBI Group did the study for this [feel free to Google it] and do you want to guess what they said? They said that this community can actually work AND produce a 65% non-auto modal share. Do you know how they found this would be possible? I'll give you a hint: It rhymes with gubmay. Only 1/3 of the 15K units planned for the Langstaff site are available prior to the subway, FYI.)

I don't support BRT/LRT or any other situation. Finch, 7 or nothing for me.