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

[Second_in_pie]

Excellent points, lesouris. I think that a reason enough for extending the B-D to MCC is because MCC is really the downtown of another city. I think that there's a lot of potential to start developing and having reverse-commuting up to offices in downtown Mississauga. At the same time, it would of course serve Mississaugans that live in Mississauga.

Of course, the Milton and Midtown corridors should be brought to full use by then, hopefully with fare integration and the works as well. Again, same with the Richmond Hill line. If Bloor gets extended, then I think that a) a Hurontario subway becomes viable, especially if there's more development in MCC and b) it might make some sense to rename our subway lines! If it becomes the B-D-D then that's both a mouthful and a perfect opportunity to rename it to either the Green Line or the District Line!

 

[drum118]

Yonge & Bloor is 24 km to MCC versus 20 km to Yonge & Highway 7. Hardly a significant difference, considering there's a lot more people who'd be served by a MCC subway.

I agree with Anth, people have this kind of mental block when it comes to Mississauga. This may be partially due to Mississauga trying to be distinct from Toronto (whereas Markham, Thornhill, Richmond Hill, they don't really have any identity). The Toronto subway map probably also has something to do with it. The distances are a great deal more compressed on the N-S lines due to the way we write (left to right) and because MCC is on an E-W axis, the stops have to take up more width for the names of the stations (plus on the actual subway trains, they have more width than height to deal with where the ads and maps go).

And whoever mentioned Kipling only being 15 minutes away from Union by GO? Yes, this is true, if you take one of the six (soon to be seven) morning trains during rush hour. GO buses don't serve Kipling. They don't even serve Dixie on weekends. I wish Milton had more service, but if and when that does happen, that has no bearing on whether a subway should go to MCC or not. They're completely different issues, and serve completely different markets.

Just as an example, my sister's friend lives near Dufferin station. She could take the GO bus to Union, and then backtrack on subway back to Dufferin. But that's just going in a big-ass circle. So she has to take at least two buses to get to Kipling/Islington (38 and 1 was my recommendation to her) followed by a 20-ish minute subway ride. Not too bad, but still a PITA. I should know, my ex lived near Dufferin as well. So GO really doesn't help in that situation. For all the talk about a Hurontario LRT, I rarely used that corridor. For me it was always east-west traveling, not north-south. If you added up all the people headed toward the subway, whether they be on Bloor, Dundas, Burnhamthorpe or Rathburn, you'd see there's more demand to get to the subway than there is to get to Brampton. The only people going to Brampton are Bramptonians returning from Square One.

If you look at the ridership of 1, 3, 26, 20, it not that high heading into/from Islington compare to what take place within the city itself. 25,000 MT riders use Islington weekday and you need to add all the MT routes that use Islington to get that number. That still 12,000 more riders than what YRT-VIVA carries from Finch.

Bulk of riders on 19 is between Bristol and Queenway. About 2,500 riders travel to Brampton.

Mississauga has a greater chance to carry far more rider than the York extension at the end of the day. There is only 2 location on the Yonge extension that can see high density development and that RHC and Clark south.

Unless someone wants to bull doze Thronhill protection land, that would be a 3rd location.

If the subway follows Dundas as I have proposed, the whole street up to Hurontario would see 5 to 7 times if not more if done right in density than what proposed on Yonge.

 

[Disparishun]

If you look at the ridership of 1, 3, 26, 20, it not that high heading into/from Islington compare to what take place within the city itself. 25,000 MT riders use Islington weekday and you need to add all the MT routes that use Islington to get that number. That still 12,000 more riders than what YRT-VIVA carries from Finch.

No. YRT ridership out of Finch station is about 40,000.

Mississauga has a greater chance to carry far more rider than the York extension at the end of the day. There is only 2 location on the Yonge extension that can see high density development and that RHC and Clark south.

No. Steeles and Langstaff/Longbridge will be very significant development nodes, both to exceed one of the two (Clark) you cite along the 4-kilometre extension you are talking about.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Once GO is ramped up, a Bloor extension would also be a fairly redundant service between Cooksville and Kipling, with a subway stop potentially near Dixie, too. Throw in Dundas West and GO can take care of a huge amount of the medium and long distance trips. The Richmond Hill line - well, GO in general - is far less of a substitute for the Yonge extension than GO is for a Bloor extension another 12km or so into Mississauga. It should be extended to Sherway, though.

If the subway follows Dundas as I have proposed, the whole street up to Hurontario would see 5 to 7 times if not more if done right in density than what proposed on Yonge.

So Dundas would be lined with ~50-200 storey towers?

 

[unimaginative2]

And whoever mentioned Kipling only being 15 minutes away from Union by GO? Yes, this is true, if you take one of the six (soon to be seven) morning trains during rush hour. GO buses don't serve Kipling. They don't even serve Dixie on weekends. I wish Milton had more service, but if and when that does happen, that has no bearing on whether a subway should go to MCC or not. They're completely different issues, and serve completely different markets.

But regional rail and subway don't have to serve different markets at all! Unfortunately, I think the mental block appears to be with the subway mode. I'm as much of a fan of subways as anybody, as I'm sure everybody knows, but I think regional rail would offer much better service to Mississauga than a subway. If you go to Europe, regional rail is a higher order mode than a subway, just as a subway is a higher order mode than light rail.

Obviously a few commuter trains a day isn't a substitute for a subway. The difference between regional rail and GO commuter service is the difference between a dial a ride bus and a subway. The only thing they have in common is that they run on standard gauge rails. Regional rail trains are just like subway trains, except more comfortable, and they run just as frequently as subway trains. They're also much faster, because they don't have to make every local stop. I'm sure that if I proposed a special express subway along B-D to Mississauga, everybody would support it. That's exactly what regional rail is: an express subway. Between stops, it doesn't matter if the rails are directly adjacent to the local service.

Think about it. I'm assuming you're not familiar with RER or S-Bahn services, so just imagine subway trains running along the Milton line, just as frequent as a regular subway. Then imagine that the Milton line is diverted so that it runs right to MCC. Then take that subway train and make it wider with more comfortable seating. Think about this (I've provided more detailed figures in other posts): imagine you're in Square One and you want to go to U of T. If they simply extended the B-D subway to MCC, you'd have at least 22 stops. That's going to take 35 minutes, at least. Then imagine that instead of a subway extension, we have real regional rail. You get on the train and ride only four stops to Dundas West subway station. That'll only take you eleven minutes with electrification. Then, you switch to the subway and ride seven stops. It's a nine minute trip. There you go: nineteen minutes travel time plus at most five minutes for a transfer. That's an ten minute time savings at least. What's the disadvantage here?

Here's another example of the advantages. Let's say you're in Streetsville instead of MCC. With the subway extension, you'd have to ride the local bus to MCC and then transfer to the subway. That's a 25 minute bus trip plus 35 minutes on the subway for a total of 55 minutes with a 5 minute transfer. With regional rail, you'll be at Dundas West in less than 20 minutes, and at U of T in at most another 14. Not only is regional rail faster for everybody, including people at MCC, it serves a much larger area of the City of Mississauga.

 

[kEiThZ]

^ It'll be much easier for people to understand this after GO has electrified Lakeshore and starts running something akin to regional express. At that point, I suspect that subways will loose some of their lustre. That said, I still think Bloor-Danforth extensions to MCC and STC make sense. There’s still a lot of riders in MCC who would benefit from a subway connection with the west-end of Toronto.

 

[Anth]

What's the disadvantage here?

1) How would you get to the important intersections of Hurontario/Dundas, Tomken/Dundas or even Dixie/Dundas? What about in the middle of winter?

2) If you aren't driving, Milton line stations are placed poorly for serving East Mississauga along Dundas, not to mention Hurontario to MCC.

3) No direct connection to Sherway.

4) Can't rationalize eastern MT routes to feed into rapid transit with only two awkwardly placed stations between Square One and Kipling.

We know what RER and S-Bahn are; the problem is that even best-case-scenario regional rail still won't be the whole solution. It looks great on paper, but when you actually imagine walking from Dixie Station to Dundas and then somewhere just east or west of there (or to a local transit transfer point), it's quite unappealing.

A Bloor extension may not be at the top of the priority list, but again, that doesn't mean it isn't merited. Once upon a time even the TTC thought it worth studying.

 

[unimaginative2]

1) How would you get to the important intersections of Hurontario/Dundas, Tomken/Dundas or even Dixie/Dundas? What about in the middle of winter?

I'm not sure that those intersections are really all that vitally important, but Hurontario and Dundas would be connected to the line by a couple stops on the LRT, and Dixie and Tomken's intersections with Dundas are all of a block from the railway line. I'm not sure what the winter would have to do with anything.

2) If you aren't driving, Milton line stations are placed poorly for serving East Mississauga along Dundas, not to mention Hurontario to MCC.

The section along Hurontario would be served by the LRT much more effectively than by a couple subway stops. The regional rail route would also have at least one stop directly under Hurontario. There is plenty of debate on whether the subway should even go along Dundas, so I'm not sure the Dundas corridor is really all that vitally important. Since most people at MCC, along Hurontario, and even at Dixie and Dundas would ride the much faster and more comfortable regional rail service, do you really think there are enough people at Cawthra and Dundas alone to justify a subway route?

3) No direct connection to Sherway.

A subway extension to Sherway would be reasonable, especially with much of it on the surface in the rail corridor.

4) Can't rationalize eastern MT routes to feed into rapid transit with only two awkwardly placed stations between Square One and Kipling.

I'm not really sure why the stations are that awkwardly located, or how the subway stations would be much better located.

when you actually imagine walking from Dixie Station to Dundas and then somewhere just east or west of there (or to a local transit transfer point), it's quite unappealing.

Frankly, there's nothing at Dixie and Dundas. If a subway were to be even remotely worthwhile, the whole area would have to be redeveloped. I think everybody can agree with that. If you're going to redevelop the whole area anyway, what difference does it make whether it's concentrated right at the intersection or a block south at the rail corridor? We need to get away from this road-centric model of development and move toward a transit-station-centric model of development.

We know what RER and S-Bahn are; the problem is that even best-case-scenario regional rail still won't be the whole solution.

Okay, but if you're familiar with RER and S-bahn services, please seriously explain to me, aside from the relatively few people living right along Dundas in eastern Mississauga, who loses from regional rail? Wouldn't it be better to serve a huge swath of Mississauga with express rapid transit service rather than building a subway that will take an extremely long time to get anywhere? Does it really make sense to have two rapid transit lines almost exactly paralleling one another making almost exactly the same stops?

A Bloor extension may not be at the top of the priority list, but again, that doesn't mean it isn't merited. Once upon a time even the TTC thought it worth studying.

But that's because the TTC is trapped in not-invented-here syndrome too. They couldn't possibly conceive of the idea of regional rail. For them it's streetcar, bus, subway. That's it.

 

[Anth]

Okay, but if you're familiar with RER and S-bahn services, please seriously explain to me, aside from the relatively few people living right along Dundas in eastern Mississauga, who loses from regional rail? Wouldn't it be better to serve a huge swath of Mississauga with express rapid transit service rather than building a subway that will take an extremely long time to get anywhere? Does it really make sense to have two rapid transit lines almost exactly paralleling one another making almost exactly the same stops?

No one loses from regional rail; I'd love to see it in the Milton corridor for exactly the reasons you've given. I'm just saying that it alone isn't enough to hit points of interest between Hurontario and Kipling without significant inconvenience and it's hard to add stations to what would be a crosstown express service.

The current plan (i.e. regional rail Milton + Hurontario LRT + Dundas East LRT) is workable, but messy with huge "blocks" to walk between transit services, additional transfers and backtracking. That translates into a lot of extra walking and waiting to reach points along the same corridor, which is even less appealing in the winter. I'd prefer a continuous local rapid transit option (subway) *plus* an express crosstown option (regional rail), but maybe that's asking for too much

Also, people don't need to live directly along Dundas for it to sustain rapid transit, especially with Sherway as a waypoint. However, I do like your point regarding the transit-station-centric model of development.

Anyway, I don't mean to overestimate the importance of the corridor compared to Yonge, but I think it tends to be vastly underestimated here.

 

[unimaginative2]

I completely agree that the corridor will be one of the busiest in the GTA. I'd say it should be at least as high priority as any of the other suburban rapid transit extensions. My only question is the need for a parallel subway and regional rail service. What stations would the subway serve that regional rail wouldn't? The area that they would pass through isn't substantially built up today and would rely on redevelopment for most of its walk-in ridership. If that's the case, what's the difference between stops at Dundas and stops at the rail corridor a block away? I definitely support more transit to Mississauga and I'm willing to be persuaded.

 

[Epi]

We need to change around how we think of transit service if we're really to embrace regional rail.

You shouldn't be 'walking' to a regional rail station in the first place, unless you happen to live in some of the newer developments that regional rail manages to create. In a true regional rail system, transit would be directed at major rail stations (the way we direct transit to subway stations now). As such the bus terminates there, so does LRT and so does... subway service.

In that way, rail becomes a true express service connecting major nodes, and then any concerns of actually getting to that station are not important because transit will naturally gravitate towards that station anyway.

 

[Mr.Colley]

Very good way to look at things Epi, But it would take still a lot more for the system to be set up that way, Do you think this could happen right off the bat or would this be phased in over time?

 

[taal]

No. YRT ridership out of Finch station is about 40,000.

Really? How so?

Blue = 16,000

Then there are a couple of 3-4K ones, how does that == 40,000?

 

[Dan416]

imagine you're in Square One and you want to go to U of T. If they simply extended the B-D subway to MCC, you'd have at least 22 stops. That's going to take 35 minutes, at least. Then imagine that instead of a subway extension, we have real regional rail. You get on the train and ride only four stops to Dundas West subway station. That'll only take you eleven minutes with electrification. Then, you switch to the subway and ride seven stops. It's a nine minute trip. There you go: nineteen minutes travel time plus at most five minutes for a transfer. That's an ten minute time savings at least. What's the disadvantage here?

I've highlighted the problem with your line of reasoning. Under the current system, that'd be a double fare, so I'd avoid that kind of a transfer at all cost. And of course, Milton doesn't stop at Boor/Dundas West. It's questionable whether it EVER will.

I'm not against regional rail. I take GO more than I take the subway. But if I'm taking GO, I refuse to pay a double fare and take the subway after. GO goes to Union. If from Union I have to take the subway, I won't take GO at all, I'll drive to Kipling and take the subway from there.

There is a demand for a subway west of Kipling. A million people live just west of Toronto. It seems silly to ignore them. We can talk romantically about the joys of real regional rail and talk about Europe all we want, but this isn't Europe, and things aren't ideal. Regional Rail would be up to GO anyway, not the TTC. In the meantime, MCC needs a subway link.

 

[drum118]

Really? How so?

Blue = 16,000

Then there are a couple of 3-4K ones, how does that == 40,000?

You beat me and I don't have access to a couple of backup drives with the data I used for my report early this year.

Blue carries just under 16,000 for the ""WHOLE"" route will 99 is about 1,500.

Max numbers can be carry by Blue at peak time at crush load is 550 from Finch.

I said on Opening day of the extension, ridership would be 1,250 at peak time.

I used 3, 5, 10, 25% increase of ridership per year until 2031 as well a few other factors in and came up with about 7,500 peak riders from Steeles.

If I factor in GO total fare intergration and using REX on the RHC line, ridership at peak time would fall to 5,000 at best. Well below subway level and in LRT range.

LRT is only require north of Steeles.

YRT 16,000 vs MT 25,000 today riders shows Mississauga has and will have more riders using the subway at one point.

No I do not see 50 200 stories building on Dundas. If you look at the 1,000 to 1,500 feet on either side of Dundas today, you can put in a lot of development in that area from 427 to Hurontario St with no problem under 40 stories using 6-10 story street edge with taller section set back and space at good distance from each other. The area between 427 and Dixie can happen now as there is a lot of empty land there now.

I would love to see some 200 floors buildings, but it would be nice to see at least one 100 fl now and be the first city to have it.

25 200 fl building on either side of Dundas is not bad and that would work out to be 1 every 500 m.

I want to do a 100 fl one as a step down at Sq One with a big sign at the top and call it Hazle City. Sq One would be under it, not as it stands today.