Should Transit City be cancelled? A re-prioritization of how to allocate the funding.

[Disparishun]

If we were to assume those truly seeking the downtown core in a hurry would prefer the GO train which can run at headways of every five minutes, the justification for a RHC subway extension quickly loses all steam.
(...)
Overanalysing where a handful of commuters at Royal Orchard need to go so badly that only a multibillion dollar subway extension can appease them, does the transit-using community at large a huge disservice.

What are you talking about? And how did you arrive at the conclusion that the purpose of the Yonge extension is to serve "a handful of commuters at Royal Orchard"? It all sounds quite bizarre.

A more practical solution for the majority is a minor subway extension to Steeles, met by dedicated BRT (or LRT) lanes down the median of Yonge through Thornhill. This reserved corridor would then intravenously link not only RHCC to the subway line (via bus lanes with queue jumping signal priority, Steeles to RHC wouldn't exceed 15 minutes, if that); but also continue north along Yonge to directly serve Hillcrest Mall, Major Mackenzie and Bernard Terminal.

Leaving aside whether or not this makes sense -- it doesn't -- how did you hit on Steeles as opposed to, say, Cummer or Clark? I'm curious.

why promote the most expensive option when the combined carrying capacity of GO trains and LRT can more than supplant its purpose? GO trains can carry 1,800 seated passengers per trip.

Oh, I see. No, GO trains have a different purpose. Not the same. And LRT, well, not sure where you would put it or who you think it would be for. If your idea is to feed the subway using LRT on Yonge, I'd skip it -- the extra transfers wouldn't be worth the time savings.

In summation, if RHC is truly meant to become the next big thing in urban planning, it will become just that with or without the promise of cost-prohibitive subways through low-density, car-oriented sprawl!

Wait, you think the next big thing in urban planning is low-density, car-oriented sprawl? Or you think that RHC is on a foreign planet separated from Steeles by miles and miles of low-density, car-oriented sprawl? This makes not so much sense.

 

[Fresh Start]

You people need to start directing your ideas and opinions towards Councillor Giambrone and Metrolinx very soon if you want to see changes happen

Giambrone's too close to the problem to listen to reason. He'll just continue drumming up more and more out-of-touch LRT proposals until a frustrated public finally starts to relocate in droves to cities that actually have their infrastructure acts together. I hear Kitchener's is on the verge of building a logical LRT line that'll link downtown cores, employment centres and universities together in a manner that focues on the destinations and not the corridors used to connect them; where lines can get too bogged down trying to adequately serve 50+ minor stops en route.

Trying to explain that to folk here however is proving to be futile.

 

[Fresh Start]

What are you talking about? And how did you arrive at the conclusion that the purpose of the Yonge extension is to serve "a handful of commuters at Royal Orchard"? It all sounds quite bizarre

Re-read what I was replying to. Nfitz was getting all hung up on how folk at Royal Orchard will get to King Street. What he fails to realize is that by travelling north to RHC/Langstaff GO, these riders would actually be arriving in the CBD at more or less the same time via an enhanced Richmond Hill commuter rail service as per boarding the subway at their doorstep.

Leaving aside whether or not this makes sense -- it doesn't -- how did you hit on Steeles as opposed to, say, Cummer or Clark? I'm curious.

Your question does not make sense so how I can rebut it? A direct continuous rapid transit service along Yonge Street through all of Richmond Hill-Thornhill is better than interrupting that flow by having to transfer at RHC. Say we opt for LRT, that line could run down to platform level at the subway terminus at Steeles allowing for a cross-platform or one level above transfer, completely integrated. Private ROW down the median of Yonge also guarantees a faster speed through Thornhill, one that although not subway fast could be damn close and with 5-car trainset accomodate almost as many passengers per trip.

Oh, I see. No, GO trains have a different purpose. Not the same. And LRT, well, not sure where you would put it or who you think it would be for. If your idea is to feed the subway using LRT on Yonge, I'd skip it -- the extra transfers wouldn't be worth the time savings.

There are destinations other than the Yonge Strret corridor that benefit from a beefed up Richmond Hill corridor. There are also differing levels of demand. Some people will not mind the extra transfers if (a) it results in a more direct trip to one's end-destinations which interplays into (b) sparing customers from another transfer once in the downtown. So for CBDers heading to King/Bay, they could opt to enter the subway system and travel one stop, then walk back west to Bay, or they could simply walk directly through the PATH netwrok to their destination. The choice is their's, but I know what I would do in that case. For NYCC there's Leslie/Oriole; and for Midtown there'd be a Don Mills/Eglinton vicinity stop linked to the 'subway'. I'd expect those whom choose not to backtrack from those points to just use the Yonge North BRT or LRT into Steeles Stn, and travel south from there. Everyone desiring south-of-Bloor destinations would find the GO service faster, or so marginally less fast that it won't really matter to them.

Wait, you think the next big thing in urban planning is low-density, car-oriented sprawl? Or you think that RHC is on a foreign planet separated from Steeles by miles and miles of low-density, car-oriented sprawl? This makes not so much sense.

Aw, I see sarcasm is hard to detect over the internet. What would you characterize Yonge/407/7 as today? Or Clark/Yonge? Certainly the mansions around Centre Street don't constitute high-density, do they? A few high-rises here and there doesn't guarantee a sustainable high-yield of walk-ins as Sheppard subway has proven with all its condo tracts. Most people will have to be bused in. And if there's viable alternative ways to get 905 residents into the downtown, as well to other developing parts of the 416, why not explore those options, especially when the Bala Sub which links Point A-Point B is readily available?

The point is, Yonge can barely accomodate the number of riders it already has; and once the Finch West, Eglinton-Crosstown, Sheppard East via SSL and Waterfront West LRT lines all feed into it, nothing short of permanently diverting some passenger sects away from the corridor is going to alleviate it. DRL can help, and linking that line to the RH GO @Wynford Heights would be a good way to create a bi-directional demand for a service starting and ending at Yonge but offsetting load constraints to well of the east of it.

 

[nfitz]

Re-read what I was replying to. Nfitz was getting all hung up on how folk at Royal Orchard will get to King Street.

All hung up??? I was just asking asking if the GO was going to really relieve the Yonge line of that much traffic.

I really take objection at the unnecessary langauge being used here. It's time the moderators did their job and put a stop to these personal attacks.

 

[kEiThZ]

I really take objection at the unnecessary langauge being used here. It's time the moderators did their job and put a stop to these personal attacks.

It's a two-way street. Some of the attitude displayed and languaged employed by yourself and Kettal hasn't been all that complimentary either.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

You've lost me. I think an improved/integrated RH line would take a lot of riders off the Yonge line -- namely, a huge chunk of the riders coming from the east, of which there are a ton. Do you disagree?

You were already lost by saying "would relieve." What's a lot? What's a huge chunk? One rider shifted is "relief," and so is one million riders. Fifty thousand riders shifted is "relief" but even that number would have minimal tangible impact on Yonge crowds now and virtually no impact given modest ridership growth (growth that is on the way with or without the Yonge extension, even if we're just looking at simple population growth north of the 401).

 

[doady]

I really take objection at the unnecessary langauge being used here. It's time the moderators did their job and put a stop to these personal attacks.

This coming from the the guy who labeled 73% of UT members as "out of touch with reality."

 

[Disparishun]

You were already lost by saying "would relieve." What's a lot? What's a huge chunk? One rider shifted is "relief," and so is one million riders. Fifty thousand riders shifted is "relief" but even that number would have minimal tangible impact on Yonge crowds now and virtually no impact given modest ridership growth (growth that is on the way with or without the Yonge extension, even if we're just looking at simple population growth north of the 401).

If you mean to say that one mustn't muse about shifts in traffic without floating percentage numbers to such musing then, of course, I think you are being silly. But if your point is that LRT-izing RH GO would have minimal tangible impact, or virtually no impact, on Yonge line traffic, then clearly we do disagree.

Aren't there quite a lot of passengers shuttling every morning across Steeles, Finch, Sheppard and other concessions to the south of those, from the east, in order to then head pretty far south? Wouldn't such passengers shift their commuting patterns to the diagonal southbound route that LRT-izing RH GO would create?

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

There are aspects of the RH line that do need to be fixed; straightening out the meandering nature of the route, better frequencies, etc. The fact that a subway stopping every 1 km or so is time competitive to a passenger train stopping much less frequently speaks to some issues with the operation of the passenger train.

I'm just not convinced that it's going to relieve Yonge much; it may even add to Yonge, if passengers from Richmond Hill GO (which is on Major MacKenzie) start taking GO to Langstaff, and then changing to subway.

So passengers are going to transfer from the GO train onto the subway (which will be running on up to 5 min headways to RHC). This coming from a board that screams bloody murder at any suggestion of a transfer (except for Shppard East)? Suddenly passengers are willing to transfer to a more appealing mode? Really? For a calculated time savings of three minutes? Really? Just the walk from the GO train to the subway platform and waiting for that subway (remember 5 min headways) destroys any time savings!

For arguments sake, lets say someone was heading to Sheppard/Yonge from RHC. Travel from Finch to Sheppard in ~12 minutes add that to the 12 minutes from RHC to Finch gives 24 minutes. Assuming Oriole station is relocated to better integrate with Leslie station; we have travel from Leslie to Sheppard-Yonge at 7 minutes, GO from RHC to Oriole is, 11 minutes. Yeilding a travel time of 18 minutes, a savings of 6 minutes! Seems like the RH Go is competitive with the subway on travels to NYCC/Sheppard travel.

 

[Disparishun]

Your question does not make sense so how I can rebut it? A direct continuous rapid transit service along Yonge Street through all of Richmond Hill-Thornhill is better than interrupting that flow by having to transfer at RHC.

It sounds like you're saying that you hit on Steeles because it is a municipal boundary. But your working approach is to look at current, exists-today development -- your assumption, certainly not mine. I would have thought Cummer would be much more consistent with your assumption. Why would you extend further north to Steeles? Is there a great deal of development at that corner? Condos? What?

Say we opt for LRT, that line could run down to platform level at the subway terminus at Steeles allowing for a cross-platform or one level above transfer, completely integrated.

The same is true of Cummer or, for that matter, Finch. Hey, I know: subway makes no sense, let's just do LRT!

Private ROW down the median of Yonge also guarantees a faster speed through Thornhill, one that although not subway fast could be damn close and with 5-car trainset accomodate almost as many passengers per trip.

If you're heading well beyond, say, the 407, then sure. But if you're not then, first, the speed gain is non-existent or negligeable -- any difference in velocity is irrelevant compared to the simple question of whether or not there is a transfer -- and, second, by replacing buses with LRT you replace buses that run up Yonge and turn to go somewhere, with an LRT and then a transfer to yet another vehicle.

An LRT between Finch and 407, or Steeles and 407 as for whatever odd reason you are suggesting, doesn't make much sense at all.

Some people will not mind the extra transfers if (a) it results in a more direct trip to one's end-destinations which interplays into (b) sparing customers from another transfer once in the downtown. So for CBDers heading to King/Bay, they could opt to enter the subway system and travel one stop, then walk back west to Bay, or they could simply walk directly through the PATH netwrok to their destination. The choice is their's, but I know what I would do in that case. For NYCC there's Leslie/Oriole; and for Midtown there'd be a Don Mills/Eglinton vicinity stop linked to the 'subway'. I'd expect those whom choose not to backtrack from those points to just use the Yonge North BRT or LRT into Steeles Stn, and travel south from there. Everyone desiring south-of-Bloor destinations would find the GO service faster, or so marginally less fast that it won't really matter to them.

An LRT-ized RH GO line would be faster for those at Leslie/Oriole and Don Mills/Eglinton going to the CBD or to Yonge/Eglinton.

It would be slower for those near Langstaff going to the CBD, and slower for those near Langstaff going to NYCC or to Yonge/Eglinton. In fact, it would be slower for those near Langstaff going to anywhere except somewhere in the east end. Although I am all for a fast route from RHCC to the east end.

Aw, I see sarcasm is hard to detect over the internet. What would you characterize Yonge/407/7 as today?

The same way I'd characterize the Yonge Extension. Planned. (Although the residential and commercial developments have a far greater chance of ever happening than does the Yonge Extension, which won't.)

Or Clark/Yonge?

As higher-density today than the areas around many existing subway stations.

Certainly the mansions around Centre Street don't constitute high-density, do they?

You catch on fast. Nope. Do you think that's why there's no proposed subway station there?

A few high-rises here and there doesn't guarantee a sustainable high-yield of walk-ins as Sheppard subway has proven with all its condo tracts. Most people will have to be bused in. (...)

The point is, Yonge can barely accomodate the number of riders it already has; and once the Finch West, Eglinton-Crosstown, Sheppard East via SSL and Waterfront West LRT lines all feed into it, nothing short of permanently diverting some passenger sects away from the corridor is going to alleviate it.

The Yonge Extension will underwhelm. The Yonge Extension will overwhelm. Pick one.

DRL can help, and linking that line to the RH GO @Wynford Heights would be a good way to create a bi-directional demand for a service starting and ending at Yonge but offsetting load constraints to well of the east of it.

I agree with most of this, except that the fact that it starts and ends at Yonge will not be its primary purpose. Providing for people not to have to go all the way to the Yonge line, when their trips do not start (or, at the end of the day, end) anywhere near the Yonge line, would be a substantial improvement.

Of course, I should hasten to add that, as for the Yonge Extension, I harbour no illusion that this revamped RH GO line with stops that make sense, fare integration that makes sense, and frequencies that induce actual use, will ever happen.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

An LRT-ized RH GO line would be faster for those at Leslie/Oriole and Don Mills/Eglinton going to the CBD or to Yonge/Eglinton.

It would be slower for those near Langstaff going to the CBD, and slower for those near Langstaff going to NYCC or to Yonge/Eglinton. In fact, it would be slower for those near Langstaff going to anywhere except somewhere in the east end. Although I am all for a fast route from RHCC to the east end.

Ahh I see now. GO for 416, subway for 905 is it? I've shown that GO+Sheppard subway would be time competitive for riders heading from Langstaff to NYCC.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If you mean to say that one mustn't muse about shifts in traffic without floating percentage numbers to such musing then, of course, I think you are being silly. But if your point is that LRT-izing RH GO would have minimal tangible impact, or virtually no impact, on Yonge line traffic, then clearly we do disagree.

It's like someone asking others if he should buy a snowblower this year. One person says don't bother because there won't be much snow this year as it'll be a dry/warm winter. What's silly is the next person saying yes, buy it, because there will be some unstated amount of snow this year. Well, obviously, it snows every year...but enough to make the snowblower worthwhile?

I think you're stuck on the total numbers of riders being moved and not the actual effect it'll have on Yonge. Nobody near or west of Yonge is going to switch to the RH line (though people are free to conjure up imaginary commutes from one random place to another to suggest otherwise), and many, if not most, people from east of there aren't going to switch, either. Clearly, the line needs to be improved no matter what, but even tens of thousands of riders shifted will have a minimal effect.

Aren't there quite a lot of passengers shuttling every morning across Steeles, Finch, Sheppard and other concessions to the south of those, from the east, in order to then head pretty far south? Wouldn't such passengers shift their commuting patterns to the diagonal southbound route that LRT-izing RH GO would create?

It's not diagonal. Between all the people getting off at various places north of Union and those that transfer to the B/D line - let alone those using E/W bus routes and not connecting to the subway at all - you're just not going to put nearly as much of a dent in Yonge ridership as you think by LRT-izing the RH line, even if you had a stop every 1km and ran the thing every couple of minutes and integrated the fare and ran buses to GO stations (which all isn't as cheap as it seems). And every rider shifted off Yonge will be replaced by a new one, anyway; it's not like "relief" is a one-time thing. An improved Richmond Hill line is not a substitute for the DRL or the Yonge extension, or better transit on Don Mills (which can be combined with the DRL...a line can be both a DRL and a Don Mills line simultaneously).

 

[Disparishun]

An improved Richmond Hill line is not a substitute for the DRL or the Yonge extension, or better transit on Don Mills (which can be combined with the DRL...a line can be both a DRL and a Don Mills line simultaneously).

Yes; there has never been any disagreement there. What I did say, though, was that I thought it was a good near-term substitute for extending the DRL north of Eglinton.

 

[Fresh Start]

All hung up??? I was just asking asking if the GO was going to really relieve the Yonge line of that much traffic.

I really take objection at the unnecessary langauge being used here. It's time the moderators did their job and put a stop to these personal attacks.

Since when is "all hung up" a personal attack? What I meant by that is we cannot honestly expect to appease everyone, everywhere. Some people unfortunately may be left behind, but the TTC's measly projected figure of 1300 walks-in/transferees off the 3 bus at Royal Orchard can assuredly find other means with which to get into Toronto without lavishing upon them another Bessarion. There are higher priorities than that one intersection to consider here.

Plus as I told Disparishun, a Yonge Street LRT line would get passengers down to the subway relatively just as fast as bringing the subway up to them, only at a fraction of the costs. Why should we be paying so much for moving a transfer point further up the roadway? If anywhere in the whole Toronto/GTA region could maximize the potential of Transit City-style LRT technology it is right here, right along Yonge Street. The throughness of the service will also prove attractive to customers. Imagine the VIVA network on rails allowing for interlined trips a la the Pink Line from Markham/Unionville/Beaver Creek across to RHCC and then down Yonge to Steeles Stn. Would that situation not be better for York Region transit users at large? The answer is yes and still alleviates the Yonge Line because many of those passengers will likely switch onto the first rapid transit feeders they encounter: Stoufville and Richmond Hill GO Lines; BRT down McCowan and Warden; and the Don Mills LRT running straight down to the DRL.

 

[Fresh Start]

It sounds like you're saying that you hit on Steeles because it is a municipal boundary. But your working approach is to look at current, exists-today development -- your assumption, certainly not mine. I would have thought Cummer would be much more consistent with your assumption. Why would you extend further north to Steeles? Is there a great deal of development at that corner? Condos? What?

The same is true of Cummer or, for that matter, Finch. Hey, I know: subway makes no sense, let's just do LRT!

That it's the municipal boundary is inconsequential. So too is this insipid mentality that every square inch of an intersection must be capable of mass high-rise development or else it's unworthy of attaining new subways. If you're going to have to reconfigure a station's entire platform level to accomodate a cross-platform interchange between subway trainsets and LRT trainsets, then you may as well extend the subway one more stop and have that new station designed for that purpose from day one.

Steeles also has other advantages. Namely the vacant Centrepoint parking lot which can provide a surface bus terminal without need for mass expropriation. Then there the heavily used Steeles West and Steeles East buses, the seamless routing of Bathurst and Bayview buses into that location, along with Willowdale-Senlac and YRT 2, 3, 5, and 23. Also to consider is the proximity to the York Sub where a future east/west EMU line could route via a half-kilometre spur into Steeles Stn as well. So there's geo-strategic advantages to terminating the subway here, mass hub potential, that'll make RHC look like a joke by comparison.

An LRT between Finch and 407, or Steeles and 407 as for whatever odd reason you are suggesting, doesn't make much sense at all.

Are you not really grasping the gist of my arguments? I said that I recommend a through-service across all the Yonge Street through Thornhill and Richmond Hill. There'd be no transfer point. One can travel from 19th Line to the subway uninterrupted within one half-hour. No more long waits on the curb for the 99 bus or VIVA blue. Similarly I'd recommend a branch running east along Hwy 7 after RHC terminal to provide an uninterrupted link between the subway and downtown Markham/Markville.

An LRT-ized RH GO line would be faster for those at Leslie/Oriole and Don Mills/Eglinton going to the CBD or to Yonge/Eglinton.

It would be slower for those near Langstaff going to the CBD, and slower for those near Langstaff going to NYCC or to Yonge/Eglinton. In fact, it would be slower for those near Langstaff going to anywhere except somewhere in the east end. Although I am all for a fast route from RHCC to the east end.

Weren't you the one who just said minor time discrepancies are negligible? Often times I'm presented with this dilemna in my own daily commutes. Do I board the local service bus that has just arrived but will take a long time to get me to my destination or do I wait another five minutes and board the express bus? 4 times out of 5, the express bus effortlessly overtakes the local buses ahead of it along the route and gets me to my house 15 minutes faster. Same with the GO train. Runs less frequently, but once I'm on it I never have to worry about arrival at my destination. Not saying, everyone will switch, but if a significant number of York Region residents started to use the service instead of the Yonge Line, intra-416 impending added constraints will have less of an impact on the line's carrying capacity.

The same way I'd characterize the Yonge Extension. Planned. (Although the residential and commercial developments have a far greater chance of ever happening than does the Yonge Extension, which won't.)

Well if MCC has gotten by for this long without a Bloor-Danforth extension, I'd say Richmond Hill's new downtown has nothing to worry about.

The Yonge Extension will underwhelm. The Yonge Extension will overwhelm. Pick one.

You don't get it. RHC extension in of itself will underwhelm as demand between Steeles and Highway 7 will never exceed 7,100pphpd within the next 2-3 decades. Of course the situation for the Vaughan Line/TYSSE is much more dire, but oh well, at least its existence further takes demand pressures away from the Yonge corridor.

What will overwhelm is the added numbers do the increased ridership of routes along Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton and the Lakeshore feeding into the Yonge Line meanwhile people are almost falling off the platforms at Union, St Georeg and B-Y due to overcrowding. Intra-416 dumps onto the Yonge Line, bring to rise the more pressure issue of building a DRL subway from Eglinton to Eglinton (plus Jane/Don Mills LRT N-S arms).

I agree with most of this, except that the fact that it starts and ends at Yonge will not be its primary purpose. Providing for people not to have to go all the way to the Yonge line, when their trips do not start (or, at the end of the day, end) anywhere near the Yonge line, would be a substantial improvement.

And it would be. Improved transit along the Bala Sub is just one weapon in the arsenal of alleviating Yonge. Extending the Sheppard subway to SCC and providing interlined subway trips between the airport, the Eglinton corridor and the downtown core are just some other ways in which we can funnel the bulk of feeder routes into other corridors, hence distributing passenger loads citywide. Transfer City only adds to the problem, and so too does RHC ext.