YRT/Viva Construction Thread (Rapidways, Terminals)

[salsa]

I thought the bridge widening west of Keele was completed on the South side already and now it's in the home stretch doing the North side? Can anyone confirm?

I think you are right. My bad.

 

[salsa]

The Davis Drive rapidway in Newmarket opens for service this Sunday.

http://www.newswire.ca/news-release...opens-in-the-town-of-newmarket-555850911.html

 

[cplchanb]

The Davis Drive rapidway in Newmarket opens for service this Sunday.

http://www.newswire.ca/news-release...opens-in-the-town-of-newmarket-555850911.html

WTH.....ddnt somebody report earlier that it was far from done....did they suddenly go 24/7 work?! either way its good news....they are early by 2 days from what they posted
on their schedule

 

[MisterF]

^If Highway 7 is anything to go by, they do work in the middle of the night pretty often. They will often start work at around midnight or 1 am.

 

[salsa]

Yesterday I walked the entire length of Davis Dr to check out the new Viva rapidway.

According to the VivaNext website, the project is close to 80% complete, with landscaping, streetscaping and other finishing touches to be completed in the spring. One thing that is a little different here compared to Highway 7 is that, except at intersections or curbside bus stops, the sidewalks are concrete instead of brick. But nevertheless, the quality of landscaping in York Region are extremely generous for a suburban road. Most downtown streets in North America don't look as good as this.

Longford station.

A number of new retaining walls have been constructed after the road widening. Ideally these walls should be knocked down when the properties get redeveloped, but to their credit each wall has a unique design and look fairly decent. All of them have the same black fence at the top, except for the white retaining wall (3rd photo).

Question: why do some planters have a double-height wall next to the road while others don't? Furthermore, this planter also has angled edges while the other planters have vertical edges. Just curious what's the reason for that.

The bridge over this little creek has the same black fence as the retaining walls.

Main station.

 

[salsa]

Despite all the work done on Davis Dr, the Barrie line is still not grade separated so in a few years we will have more construction to look forward too. It won't be simple either. The new viva station is quite close to the tracks, so raising or lowering the roadway is probably not much of an option. I guess the train tracks will be lowered to go under the road.

Keith bridge is aesthetically pleasing and even comes with ornamental street lights.

I'd say it turned out exactly as promised.

Southlake station.

The sidewalks here are not finished yet.

Just east of Southlake, the bus lanes start to transition to mixed traffic. From here on, it's curbside only just like the rest of the Viva network.

Leslie street.

And the final stop is the GO transit commuter lot at highway 404.

In part 2 of my post, I provide my thoughts on the bus service in the Viva service thread.

 

[cplchanb]

thanks for the photo update! its nice to see that theyve managed to recycle the G1 stations up here and not dump them in the trash. I guess once Silver and Yellow get launched they will use the old stations too.
Time will tell whether this project will be an investment for the future or a misguided shortfall like Line 4.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Thanks for the pictures - I haven't seen the Davis stretch in a while.
So far it appears YR has been on-budget and at least more-or-less on time and the design has really been top notch. Hopefully it will achieve the desired results.

 

[cplchanb]

Thanks for the pictures - I haven't seen the Davis stretch in a while.
So far it appears YR has been on-budget and at least more-or-less on time and the design has really been top notch. Hopefully it will achieve the desired results.

On that note though, from my experience travelling on Hwy 7 daily, the lack of a right turn lane is proving to be quite a setback as YRT bus stops and turners are jamming up the right lane.
This is especially apparent during the rush hours. Perhaps on their future phases they should consider this as a lesson learned and incorporate a turning/busstop lane

 

[ssiguy2]

They seem to have done a really good job on the streetscape with these BRT lines.

 

[BMO]

looks great thanks for the photos Salsa

 

[MisterF]

One thing that is a little different here compared to Highway 7 is that, except at intersections or curbside bus stops, the sidewalks are concrete instead of brick.

Highway 7 is actually the same. The sidewalks are primarily concrete.

 

[salsa]

Highway 7 is actually the same. The sidewalks are primarily concrete.

I didn't realize. It's been a while since I've been in Markham, however I was in Vaughan less than a month ago and the new sidewalks there appear to be entirely brick. Maybe it's like that only in Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, while everywhere else is mostly concrete?

 

[Adjei]

This looks pretty lackluster compared to what was done on Highway 7, where are the bike lanes?

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

This looks pretty lackluster compared to what was done on Highway 7, where are the bike lanes?

Hmmm, it looks like some segments are (so far unpainted) bike lanes and others are sharrows?