44 North
Senior Member
Possibly you missed my point there. You argued - correct me if I'm wrong - that VMC should have a 400 people+jobs/hectare target because of the significant investment in the subway. My point was that ou can't achieve that kind of density in that kind of timeline in a greenfield development, subway or no subway. There are only 5 UGCs asked to achieve that target by 2031 and they are all in Toronto, all with pre-existing populations and, indeed, 2 of them were above 400 even before Places to Grow. Ergo, it's beyond apples and oranges to lump VMC in with them. It does make sense to lump it in with Mississauga, Markham and other centres that are seeing transit investment as well (even if it's less $ and capacity) because they are also effectively starting from nothing.
We agree, in that I think Vaughan has not been aggressive enough but it should be obvious that even if council was fully committed - ignoring Vaughan Mills, opening no new land to development etc. - they'd never achieve 400 in that timeline. I expect you're sketpical of Markham hitting that in Langstaff and that's got the advantages of existing transit and a location near Yonge Street.
Well, again we agree that urbanity and progressive policy are not Vaughan's strength. But asking for more subway to a second centre does not, by itself, demonstrate a lack of commitment to the first centre. It would even be admirable if they were further along with VMC since having multiple intensification areas is what we want to see. And they won't get the line anyway, so who cares? I expect they did it to appease some landowners, knowing full well that everyone has the Yonge line WAY ahead of some dumb line up to Wonderland and even that's still in limbo.
(Also - I looked at the OP quickly. There is a single reference that they support a "possible further extension" along Jane. The language is weak and far more ambiguous than they're support for Yonge. That's not a crime and not proof they're not committed to VMC. It may be proof they're stupid and/or delusional, I grant.)
Which brings us to what's going on up there... Too much developer influence. Same as it ever was. I get the sense Markham is into "smart growth" for the right reasons, mostly, and Vaughan is willing to do it in VMC for more cynical, practical reasons. But they are still willing to do it and some of those developers (e.g. SmartCentres) have big investment in VMC and want to make it work, that's the good news.
My point about p2g UGC density targets was simple: VMC is the only one with a subway and a 200 ppl/jobs per ha target; every other one is 400 (RHC-LG can be counted as two or one, but I digress). Really though that's besides the point, because we're talking about them reaching 200, and whether they can build a high-density downtown (a plan which predates p2g by ~five years, and a promise which allowed them to piggyback onto the RTES of extending the subway to York U).
You argue Vaughan has done absolutely everything in their power to make VMC grow into a downtown. That they've planted the seeds, watered it, and that we should merely sit back and watch as "the market" does its magic. I say otherwise.
Re: a Line 1 extn to Wonderland. We're not talking about some vague reference from their OP, but specifically to a 2013 decision by Vaughan's council to have Mlinx ID more hubs and make a subway extension a major priority. It comes as no surprise that you'd consider this 'admirable'. I'd wager that if any other city tried to do something like that, you'd have a lot to say on the matter about where their head's are at, or their competency. But when it comes to a city of 300k wanting to prioritize a subway as a replacement for a bus route that would be the equivalent of Toronto's 150th busiest, you're surprisingly mum on the matter.
You miss the most important aspect of all of this...something is actually getting done. VIVA BRT, GO, Spadina Extension. York Region has taking these gifts and actually accepted them and built them. Maybe Vaughan should take a Toronto approach and argue about it ad nausea and have ZERO progress to show for Big Move investment after how many years? The biggest complaint I tend to hear is that infrastructure was needed yesterday this might not be the perfect solution or choice in your mind but it's something and I think that deserves some sort of recognition in my books considering the political landscape in the region these days (see Brampton cancelling its LRT).
But now onto the development side, i.e the point where the public sees the return on their investment. If Vaughan decides to plan/develop new centres, neglect to add ingredients commonplace in successful centres, to expand their urban boundary, and try to prioritize astronomically-priced projects that come out of left field - then it's quite possible they're compromising the public's previous investments, and the integrity of regional planning.