Steeles RT

[wyliepoon]

I actually don't really want to see LRT on Steeles. I find the Steeles East express bus to be very fast. I live near McCowan and Steeles and work downtown. I used to take only the B-D Subway, SRT and the McCowan North bus to get home after work. After some friends recommended taking the Steeles bus, I tried, and found that it got me home in about the same amount of time.

Perhaps the fact that Steeles marks the boundary between Toronto and York Region is a reason why buses travel faster on Steeles. There are no dense developments on Steeles, and except for short commercial stretches like Pacific Mall and the Don Mills-404-Victoria Park area, most of Steeles run through residential areas, often between subdivisions where both sides of the avenue look into other people's backyards. Compared to Sheppard or Finch, Steeles is pretty much an expressway.

I would like to see the TTC maintain the high-frequency Steeles bus service (perhaps YRT/Viva can lend some vehicles too). Steeles definitely deserves a lot of bus lanes, a whole fleet of articulated buses, and maybe even a Viva-like BRT service.

 

[jaycola]

The TTC should be servicing much of Thornhill which is fairly dense up Bathurst and Yonge to Hwy 7 with numerous apartment/condos and townhomes in the area. Hwy 7/407 is a natural boundry (man made) and ties into major transportation hubs.

I came across this blog entry recently that cost is why many people in Thornhill will avoid using YRT.

The result is, depending on your final destination, taking the YRT can be an expensive proposition for Thornhill residents. If you have a destination south of Steeles Avenue (other than on Yonge St. from Steeles Ave. to Finch Ave, the route that YRT buses take to get to Finch Station) you will have to pay both the YRT fare and the TTC fare. Therefore, a single one-way adult trip cost $5.25 ($2.50 for YRT and $2.75 for TTC), and a total of $10.50 for a round trip. Let’s take a particularly gratuitous example: If you merely want to go from Bathurst and Centre to Bathurst and Finch, a very short trip by any standard, you would have to pay a ridiculous $10.50 for the round trip. Thornhill residents feel especially exploited because we are so close to the TTC boundary that we get very little benefit of YRT dropping us off at a TTC junction.

http://thornhillcommunityreport.blogspot.com/

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

York and Toronto can't even decide who will fix the potholes on Steeles, never mind RT.

This is 100% on Toronto, BTW. It's their road clear up to the sidewalk but they don't want to pay for it since York Region drivers etc. use it. Every year they end up at the top of the CAA's worst roads survey and say they're close to negotiating an agreement with York. It's pathetic, frankly.

As eloquently noted by Epi, Markham and Vaughan are way ahead of Toronto in terms of intensifying that corridor so WK Lis's proposal for annexation is somewhere between folly and redundant. Markham has finished a planning study and Vaughan is doing one; if Toronto's even started one I haven't heard anything.

Second in Pie makes a fair point about how the density drops off east of the 404 but Markham Centre is coming into being at Warden/7 so it could certainly bring at least a little intensification down towards Steeles. IBM is there too so, in time, it may well be enough to be a natural terminus for an LRT.

Anyway, I agree with everyone who says Steeles makes sense as more of a phase II project. If nothing else I think we need to open the subway, reroute all those buses and see what traffic looks like then. I've already had the sense it is a long term consideration for the planners so it's not a total pipe dream.

Oh, and that quote by Jaycola is right on. I live just south of Steeles near Yonge and if I'm going downtown I'll drive at least to Finch Station. This will all change, one presumes, when Presto is in effect along with a new fare structure.

 

[TOareaFan]

The TTC should be servicing much of Thornhill which is fairly dense up Bathurst and Yonge to Hwy 7 with numerous apartment/condos and townhomes in the area. Hwy 7/407 is a natural boundry (man made) and ties into major transportation hubs.

I came across this blog entry recently that cost is why many people in Thornhill will avoid using YRT.


Quote:
The result is, depending on your final destination, taking the YRT can be an expensive proposition for Thornhill residents. If you have a destination south of Steeles Avenue (other than on Yonge St. from Steeles Ave. to Finch Ave, the route that YRT buses take to get to Finch Station) you will have to pay both the YRT fare and the TTC fare. Therefore, a single one-way adult trip cost $5.25 ($2.50 for YRT and $2.75 for TTC), and a total of $10.50 for a round trip. Let’s take a particularly gratuitous example: If you merely want to go from Bathurst and Centre to Bathurst and Finch, a very short trip by any standard, you would have to pay a ridiculous $10.50 for the round trip. Thornhill residents feel especially exploited because we are so close to the TTC boundary that we get very little benefit of YRT dropping us off at a TTC junction.

So, because they are close to Toronto, people in Thornhill feel they should be treated like they live in Toronto? Does that desire to being treated as a Torontonian would extend to the paying of extra vehicle licensing fees? extra land transfer taxes? Or do they simply want the benefit of cheaper transit?

 

[DavidH]

So, because they are close to Toronto, people in Thornhill feel they should be treated like they live in Toronto? Does that desire to being treated as a Torontonian would extend to the paying of extra vehicle licensing fees? extra land transfer taxes? Or do they simply want the benefit of cheaper transit?

I suspect that most Thornhill residents would easily agree to the land transfer taxes and licensing fees in exchange for paying several thousand dollars a year less property tax, which is what the differential is. One can't blame them for feeling that they are paying much more and getting less just for being on the "other" side of the street.

 

[cowpie]

I actually don't really want to see LRT on Steeles. I find the Steeles East express bus to be very fast. I live near McCowan and Steeles and work downtown. I used to take only the B-D Subway, SRT and the McCowan North bus to get home after work. After some friends recommended taking the Steeles bus, I tried, and found that it got me home in about the same amount of time.

Perhaps the fact that Steeles marks the boundary between Toronto and York Region is a reason why buses travel faster on Steeles. There are no dense developments on Steeles, and except for short commercial stretches like Pacific Mall and the Don Mills-404-Victoria Park area, most of Steeles run through residential areas, often between subdivisions where both sides of the avenue look into other people's backyards. Compared to Sheppard or Finch, Steeles is pretty much an expressway.

I would like to see the TTC maintain the high-frequency Steeles bus service (perhaps YRT/Viva can lend some vehicles too). Steeles definitely deserves a lot of bus lanes, a whole fleet of articulated buses, and maybe even a Viva-like BRT service.

Steeles West is definitely not fast though. Both it and Finch are ridiculously slow-going with all the stops on the way.

 

[TOareaFan]

I suspect that most Thornhill residents would easily agree to the land transfer taxes and licensing fees in exchange for paying several thousand dollars a year less property tax, which is what the differential is. One can't blame them for feeling that they are paying much more and getting less just for being on the "other" side of the street.

But people in Pickering and Mississauga can say the same thing....it is just a matter of where you live...you live in Thornhill...you get the services of a Thornhillian...you live across the street in Toronto then you are a Torontonian.....until we have a totally integrated service with integrated fares there are always going to be lines.....no?

So you allow Thornhill folks to ride the TTC for the same fare they paid on their local service....haven't you just moved the line north and now people will say..."if I live across that one street and lived in Thornhill, I would not have to pay the extra fare...so why should I pay it now?"...etc etc.

 

[RedRocket191]

So, because they are close to Toronto, people in Thornhill feel they should be treated like they live in Toronto? Does that desire to being treated as a Torontonian would extend to the paying of extra vehicle licensing fees? extra land transfer taxes? Or do they simply want the benefit of cheaper transit?

Or we can just bring in fare integration... Problem solved.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

This is probably spinning off-thread but as Red Rocket said, an integrated fare system will do away with this problem.

I don't think it's that YR residents object to paying MORE, it's that they object to paying DOUBLE. I think most people can agree it's ridiculous that it's the same TTC fare to go from Steeles to Finch as it is to go all the way across the city. It shouldn't cost one fare to go from Union to Finch and then another fare to travel another 2km.

It's similarly ridiculous that an empty YRT bus is not allowed to pick up people waiting for a TTC bus between Steeles and Finch. These problems are worse in Thornhill than some other places given the proximity of Finch Station.

Of course they are different taxpayers in different cities but the transit system moves people regionally and the fare system needs to reflect that and right now it does not.

If you're goal is to get people onto transit (and that IS a provincial goal) you have to get rid of this parochialism and do it quickly and, all due respect, it's the TTC that's usually guilty of perpetuating it (see, Presto).

 

[TOareaFan]

This is probably spinning off-thread but as Red Rocket said, an integrated fare system will do away with this problem.

I don't think it's that YR residents object to paying MORE, it's that they object to paying DOUBLE. I think most people can agree it's ridiculous that it's the same TTC fare to go from Steeles to Finch as it is to go all the way across the city. It shouldn't cost one fare to go from Union to Finch and then another fare to travel another 2km.

It's similarly ridiculous that an empty YRT bus is not allowed to pick up people waiting for a TTC bus between Steeles and Finch. These problems are worse in Thornhill than some other places given the proximity of Finch Station.

Of course they are different taxpayers in different cities but the transit system moves people regionally and the fare system needs to reflect that and right now it does not.

If you're goal is to get people onto transit (and that IS a provincial goal) you have to get rid of this parochialism and do it quickly and, all due respect, it's the TTC that's usually guilty of perpetuating it (see, Presto).

I don't disagree with any of that, per se, but it is not an issue limited to York region and the border at Steeles....the reality is we do not have fare integration, yet, and we have systems (all but GO) where there is a single fare no matter how far you travel......until both of those are changed, then the "problems" identified at the York/Toronto border will exist across the region....

....no one is saying it is right but it is the way it is and all I object to is picking out one example as if it is the only one and saying something should be done about it.

 

[Paleo]

If you're goal is to get people onto transit (and that IS a provincial goal) you have to get rid of this parochialism and do it quickly and, all due respect, it's the TTC that's usually guilty of perpetuating it (see, Presto).

If the province wants, province should step up and pay for the higher cost of subsidizing suburban riders. NOT TTC RIDERS

 

[RedRocket191]

If the province wants, province should step up and pay for the higher cost of subsidizing suburban riders. NOT TTC RIDERS

In my mind, it doesn't matter which level of government operates the service so long as the customer sees it as one seamless system.

 

[Epi]

The TTC has a cost recovery of what? Like 85%? I think people in Thornhill would gladly pay $3.25/fare or $26.50/10 tokens to ride the TTC. That way it is cost neutral for the TTC. Alternately I'm sure that York Region would be more to pay their share of running routes that connect with the TTC up to York Region using the TTC structure if it meant that their residents could have seamless transit.

 

[jaycola]

If the TTC wants to reduce auto use (on Toronto Streets)and increase transit ridership, I would think looking at extending routes that terminate promptly at the Toronto border, would be a logical way to do it.

The Bathurst 7 bus, which terminates at steeles, could be extended up to Promenade Mall (About 2 KM) and would likely see a measurable benifit.

The Jane bus, which runs rush hour service up to Langstaff north of Hwy 7, could be extended 2.5KM up to Vaughan Mills, one of the largest regional malls in Ontario.

I am sure there are many other routes that could benifit from extentions into the regions.

 

[jks]

^^ And wonderland!! Public transit to wonderland is brutal!! OK, the Go bus does the run in like 15 minutes. But it takes me 1 hour to get to wilson station!! And the frequency is crap!