Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)

[Cobra]

London's Canary Wharf is a relevant case study. Took a long time for that project to work out, but it did. It's about patience, persistence..... and good transit.

- Paul

People expecting STC and NYC to be Canary Wharf but without the fraction of the transit available there is laughable and makes me laugh every time people comments on those areas as failures. What do you expect? Canary Wharf has no stub. The Jubilee Line was well designed and works well with the DLR giving proper choice and alternatives. Now the Crossrail is going there.

City planning poorly handled those areas for decades and it's good to see that they are now addressing this seriously.

STC can become like NYCC and Fairview. That alone would be a success to what it is today. No one expects it to be a business Centre

 

[Palma]

NYCC is along Yonge and the others have already mentioned what I was goign to in that STC cannot be compared to Canary Warf due to its location and being moe central to London

 

[Cobra]

NYCC is along Yonge and the others have already mentioned what I was goign to in that STC cannot be compared to Canary Warf due to its location and being moe central to London

STC doesn't have to be Canary Wharf nor can it be, but revitalize the area so it looks like Yonge and Eg or NYCC? That's realistic. Not much was going on at NYCC when they had no rapid transit, fyi

 

[TheTigerMaster]

People expecting STC and NYC to be Canary Wharf but without the fraction of the transit available there is laughable and makes me laugh every time people comments on those areas as failures. What do you expect? Canary Wharf has no stub. The Jubilee Line was well designed and works well with the DLR giving proper choice and alternatives. Now the Crossrail is going there.

And Canary Wharf is directly adjacent to Central London, not 25 km away. It's the biggest factor in its success that you conveniently omitted.

I don't care how many transit connections you build, Scarborough Centre won't ever be anything like Canary Wharf. We're comparig about a 10 min trip to Central London from Canary Wharf to a 40+ minute trip to Downtown Toronto from Scarborough Centre. Canary Wharf is basically part of Central London, which is a huge advantage for businesses looking to locate there - - a negligibly short 10 minute trip on the DLR will take their employees to whatever meetings they need to attend in Central London. Meanwhile, Scarborough Centre is so far it might as well be in a whole separate city. It's such a ridiculous, borderline comical comparison to be making.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

When it was initiated, it was in an area that was considered desolate and unmarketable for both residential and business use. Originally it was thought unlikely (by all except the proponent) that employers would want to locate there because it was at a distance from the London business center. The 10-minute transit link didn't exist (it now has a direct line) and cycling really wasn't viewed as how one wanted to commute, as the territory in between was in a state of urban blight. It was also at a distance from London's commuter train termini. There was a glut of commercial real estate space in London at the time and urban planning was tilted against, rather than promoting, the site as a new business center.

Those conditions were reversed over time, and the site has flourished. The proponents went bankrupt along the way, but the site is now high value.

How in the world would we go about creating a 10 minute link, or anything approaching that speed, between Scarborough Centre and downtown? GO RER surely isn't going to approach those speeds. A 10 minute trip between Scarborough Centre and Union would necessitate average travel speeds of 132 km/h. It's not a practical target.

 

[OneCity]

How in the world would we go about creating a 10 minute link, or anything approaching that speed, between Scarborough Centre and downtown? GO RER surely isn't going to approach those speeds. A 10 minute trip between Scarborough Centre and Union would necessitate average travel speeds of 132 km/h. It's not a practical target.

I don't think he was comparing exact location or speed but basically stating with attention to detail and commitment to investment you can turn an area around.

 

[crs1026]

How in the world would we go about creating a 10 minute link, or anything approaching that speed, between Scarborough Centre and downtown? GO RER surely isn't going to approach those speeds. A 10 minute trip between Scarborough Centre and Union would necessitate average travel speeds of 132 km/h. It's not a practical target.

If a ten-minute connection to downtown is the single defining stimulus required to trigger a satellite city center, then absolutely, STC doesn't have it.

Of course, neither does NYCC or the eventual Six Points center in Etobicoke. Or Mississauga Town Center. They have all grown or shown promise to some degree. Even the Shipp Center at Islington and Bloor has good occupancy, somebody must be willing to rent office space there.

Really, I was just trying to be helpful. Somebody asked, is there a precedent for a full city center to be built at a distance from downtown, and how did that go. Canary Wharf is the only one I could think of. If it doesn't fit, I'm not pushing the point. But I'd say, look a little more at what other factors might be at play, that 10 minute connection isn't Canary Wharf's only attribute. STC may be able to muster enough positives to attract commercial development.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

As a PS - while it has been a few years, back around 2008-2009 I worked on a project that was looking for high quality commercial office space in Durham Region. There was precious little available - the Bell building in downtown Oshawa, the office towers next to Pickering Town Center, and that's about it. The solution looked to be smaller buildings close to the 401, some of them renovated factory or warehousing space. Had there been office towers going up at STC, that would have been jumped on as a possible location. I have moved on to other things and don't know if much has changed since then, but I don't see many new towers out that way. Clearly 90% of businesses prefer to be downtown, but the other 10% might present enough demand to make a larger STC viable.

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If a ten-minute connection to downtown is the single defining stimulus required to trigger a satellite city center, then absolutely, STC doesn't have it.

Of course, neither does NYCC or the eventual Six Points center in Etobicoke. Or Mississauga Town Center. They have all grown or shown promise to some degree. Even the Shipp Center at Islington and Bloor has good occupancy, somebody must be willing to rent office space there.

Really, I was just trying to be helpful. Somebody asked, is there a precedent for a full city center to be built at a distance from downtown, and how did that go. Canary Wharf is the only one I could think of. If it doesn't fit, I'm not pushing the point. But I'd say, look a little more at what other factors might be at play, that 10 minute connection isn't Canary Wharf's only attribute. STC may be able to muster enough positives to attract commercial development.

- Paul

The only other example I can think of is Oakland, California. Separated by the relativley large San Francisco bay, it is a 30 minute transit trip between Oakland and San Francisco, so the distance between the cores is comparable to the distance between SCC and Downtown. Oakland appears to have a rather formidable downtown area, for a city of 400,000.

Oakland and San Francisco was settled simultaneously in the 1850s. This differs from Scarborough, which wasn't built up to a significant extent until the 1950s, during the beginning of the suburban-era, and long after Toronto had been built up. This means that Scarborough wasn't built with the small block sizes appropriate for dense development.

Oakland and San Francisco also do have the large SF bay in between them. It is my understanding that a bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland was not completed until 1936, nearly a century after those two cities had been formed. I hypothesis that this would've added tremendous pressure for Oakland to naturally form its own downtown core, as a separate and distinct city from San Francisco, since there would be no convenient or quick way to travel across the Bay to Downtown San Francisco from Oakland. Would Oakland have developed its own downtown core, if there were an abundance of quick and convenient routes between Oakland and Downtown San Francisco, or if the SF Bay had not existed?

Oakland (foreground) & San Francisco skylines

 

[Cobra]

As a PS - while it has been a few years, back around 2008-2009 I worked on a project that was looking for high quality commercial office space in Durham Region. There was precious little available - the Bell building in downtown Oshawa, the office towers next to Pickering Town Center, and that's about it. The solution looked to be smaller buildings close to the 401, some of them renovated factory or warehousing space. Had there been office towers going up at STC, that would have been jumped on as a possible location. I have moved on to other things and don't know if much has changed since then, but I don't see many new towers out that way. Clearly 90% of businesses prefer to be downtown, but the other 10% might present enough demand to make a larger STC viable.

- Paul

Good comment and if I may add,

STC doesn't need to be an office cloister like downtown and the future East Harbour. Why not a dense residential and commercial area? Richmond Hill are certainly making their case based on that for a subway. STC can become a more affordable Yonge & Eglinton giving more choice to first time buyers and young families. Isn't it better to invest in STC to offer that instead of just letting those people leave the city and take their tax dollars somewhere else?

 

[UD2]

We need to stop promoting centrally focused business districts, that creates way too much density and directional traffic during rush hour.

I find Sheppard to be full of potential because the consumers road area provides for a perfect satellite commercial/office/residential mixed use centre. Much better than STC or VMC due to the intersection of 404 & 401, proximity to the Sheppard line, Fairview mall, 20K jobs (50% capacity of office park) as well as the richmond hill Go line. That and the abundance of parking lots for development.

.all you need are more condos

 

[Leo_Chan]

We need to stop promoting centrally focused business districts, that creates way too much density and directional traffic during rush hour.

I find Sheppard to be full of potential because the consumers road area provides for a perfect satellite commercial/office/residential mixed use centre. Much better than STC or VMC due to the intersection of 404 & 401, proximity to the Sheppard line, Fairview mall, 20K jobs (50% capacity of office park) as well as the richmond hill Go line. That and the abundance of parking lots for development.

.all you need are more condos

But isn't the point of the 21st Century is to reduce urban sprawl and increase density, which means having a city that has relatively the same high density everywhere except certain cores.

The problem of traffic is suppose to be resolved by full coverage public transit, which our cities do not have.

I know this is extremely unrealistic, but that is what we're faced with, at least in theory it is the eventual end game.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

We need to stop promoting centrally focused business districts,

Are we promoting centrally focused business districts, or are central business districts merely the natural way cities form?

 

[muller877]

Are we promoting centrally focused business districts, or are central business districts merely the natural way cities form?

The other alternative is the various campuses that are being built in the suburbs. Look at Mississauga Rd & 401 near us or anywhere in Silicon Valley.

Each alternative fosters and encourages a different type of innovation and a companies culture...and both are needed. For Toronto we can only focus on CBD since we are constrained with land.

Since land price is a small component of a commercial build the companies that want a CBD will most likely be in the financial core. However, many people would like a shorter commute and having the 3 other nodes for commercial development (NYCC, ECC, SCC) should be encouraged by city planning. Just like the UK and the overspill cities from the late 40's to the 70's the only way to encourage commercial growth was to create incentives to grow these. The UK use to do this via development corps. We use to do this with lower property taxes offered by North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke. But now that's gone. So how do we encourage commercial growth here again? Or do we wave the white flag and have a vacuum of offices other than downtown? (which will lead to longer and longer commutes)

I personally believe we should be keeping the commercial designation and give property tax incentives or something similar to grow these areas.

 

[Johnny Au]

The only other example I can think of is Oakland, California. Separated by the relativley large San Francisco bay, it is a 30 minute transit trip between Oakland and San Francisco, so the distance between the cores is comparable to the distance between SCC and Downtown. Oakland appears to have a rather formidable downtown area, for a city of 400,000.

Oakland and San Francisco was settled simultaneously in the 1850s. This differs from Scarborough, which wasn't built up to a significant extent until the 1950s, during the beginning of the suburban-era, and long after Toronto had been built up. This means that Scarborough wasn't built with the small block sizes appropriate for dense development.

Oakland and San Francisco also do have the large SF bay in between them. It is my understanding that a bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland was not completed until 1936, nearly a century after those two cities had been formed. I hypothesis that this would've added tremendous pressure for Oakland to naturally form its own downtown core, as a separate and distinct city from San Francisco, since there would be no convenient or quick way to travel across the Bay to Downtown San Francisco from Oakland. Would Oakland have developed its own downtown core, if there were an abundance of quick and convenient routes between Oakland and Downtown San Francisco, or if the SF Bay had not existed?

Oakland (foreground) & San Francisco skylines

Don't forget that Oakland and San Francisco both have professional sports teams:

•In baseball, San Francisco has the Giants and Oakland has the Athletics
•In American football, San Francisco has the 49ers (though they moved to Santa Clara, but kept the San Francisco name) and Oakland has the Raiders (though they briefly moved to Los Angeles)

However, in soccer, San Francisco has the Earthquakes, and in basketball, Oakland has the Golden State Warriors. In hockey, San Jose, which has a larger population than either San Francisco or Oakland, has the Sharks. San Jose is at the southern end of the Bay Area.