Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

If you're south of Hwy 7 it takes way longer to go to the Langstaff GO with transit. You'd have to drive there (which is almost just as long as going to finch). Not to mention how much more it costs, when a lot of people close to Steeles can just walk to a TTC bus and get downtown for $3. I imagine most people north of Hwy 7 are already mostly taking GO unless they are getting off on a stop in midtown, etc instead of Union. GO really just caters to the downtown core. If it could have a direct connection to Sheppard at Oriole Station this could change things.

Yeah, this thread just keeps repeating itself. I live roughly halfway between Langstaff and Finch and never go to Langstaff to go downtown.

Besides, as we've established, not just on this thread but on this page, not everybody is travelling from the suburbs to downtown. That is, indeed, the fundamental thing we are trying to change. GO definitely helps me get to Union Station but not to Sheppard or St. Clair or Bloor or anywhere else at all, except for Union Station. We might not have the same congestion issues we do in the GTA spending all our time and money trying to funnel people in and out of Union, as opposed to developing other employment centres and creating a transit network that makes it relatively easy to travel between any two nodes.

(In theory, yeah, you could try to come up with some sort of transfer at Oriole but, really, it's just too far east. Someone coming from Yonge/Major Mack is going to take a train over to Leslie/Sheppard and then take the subway back to Yonge? Nah. The RH Go line is unique in that it goes through the valley and so there's basically no development or network potential south of Steeles.)

 

[Palma]

Do you even realize that in the last decade, Vaughan has been a net importer of labour from Toronto? The notion that all higher order transit should be geared towards funneling people downtown is at odds Toronto's reality.

Where have you been. All I keep reading is theat employers are moving back to downtown Toronto to young urban workers who want to live in downtown Toronto

 

[Palma]

If you're south of Hwy 7 it takes way longer to go to the Langstaff GO with transit. You'd have to drive there (which is almost just as long as going to finch). Not to mention how much more it costs, when a lot of people close to Steeles can just walk to a TTC bus and get downtown for $3. I imagine most people north of Hwy 7 are already mostly taking GO unless they are getting off on a stop in midtown, etc instead of Union. GO really just caters to the downtown core. If it could have a direct connection to Sheppard at Oriole Station this could change things.

Thnats the problem - $3 to go downtown is not right. Needs to be changed fast to distance absed fares. Perhaps maybe GO might be more attractive - or lower GO fares

 

[Palma]

Yeah, this thread just keeps repeating itself. I live roughly halfway between Langstaff and Finch and never go to Langstaff to go downtown.

Besides, as we've established, not just on this thread but on this page, not everybody is travelling from the suburbs to downtown. That is, indeed, the fundamental thing we are trying to change. GO definitely helps me get to Union Station but not to Sheppard or St. Clair or Bloor or anywhere else at all, except for Union Station. We might not have the same congestion issues we do in the GTA spending all our time and money trying to funnel people in and out of Union, as opposed to developing other employment centres and creating a transit network that makes it relatively easy to travel between any two nodes.

(In theory, yeah, you could try to come up with some sort of transfer at Oriole but, really, it's just too far east. Someone coming from Yonge/Major Mack is going to take a train over to Leslie/Sheppard and then take the subway back to Yonge? Nah. The RH Go line is unique in that it goes through the valley and so there's basically no development or network potential south of Steeles.)

If no potential for devleopment why a subway?

 

[gweed123]

It's funny, a lot of the reasons for opposing a North Yonge Subway extension are grounded more in 'structural' problems than 'planning' problems. They have more to do with how various systems and fare structures are set up, as opposed to planning rationales to justify or eliminate.

1) "The TTC is subsidized by Toronto taxpayers. 905ers shouldn't get a 'free ride'."

Upload everything to Metrolinx, and create separate divisions within Metrolinx (Rapid Transit, York Region, and Toronto being the 3 divisions in play in this case). The issue of 'who pays' suddenly becomes moot, because there is no discrepancy between what someone in Toronto pays to Metrolinx and what someone in Richmond Hill pays.

2) "It's not fair that someone can take the subway from York Region to downtown for the same cost as someone going from St. Clair to downtown."

Institute a fare zone system that covers the entire region. That way fare is based on distance, not which arbitrary municipal boundaries you do or don't cross.

Of course, there are solid Planning reasons for why the subway should or shouldn't be extended (overloading the TTC system further downstream, lack of density, etc). But the reasons for opposing the subway that I mentioned above can be solved via a largely bureaucratic exercise. There just needs to be the political will to do so.

 

[GenerationW]

Just like suburbans councillors hijacked the transit agenda and did away with fares based on distance and why a DRL has never been built

Suburban councilors have had almost nothing to do with the DRL not being built.

 

[Palma]

All this and I didn't even mention that Toronto is quickly becoming a bedroom community for the suburbs!

You are dreaming. Perhaps airline tickets should also not be priced per distance, or taxi rides, or even GO. Make it flat like TTC

 

[jaycola]

If no potential for devleopment why a subway?

I think he meant there is no potential for development along the Go route as it snakes through the Don Valley.
We're not ready to fill in The Don with condos and office buildings.

Source Globe and Mail

Kathleen Wynne is warning that York Region will not get an extension of the Yonge subway line if her party loses power.
Ms.Wynne said she does not know exactly when a re-elected Liberal government would build the extension, but that it would.

“I’m a girl who grew up in Richmond Hill, and I know that that linkage between Richmond Hill and downtown – Thornhill on the way – is very, very important,” she said. “I can’t give you a time frame.”

Based on the above quote, why am I not confident Wynne and the Liberals are the clearest path to this extension?
That is about as hollow a claim as I have ever seen. We can't tell you when we'll build it but it will be before the other party.
Maybe a list of transit priorities from the Wynne government may sway some voters?

As to Gila Martow. I too was disappointed with her nomination following her leading the opposition against the chosen path for the eastern leg of York's BRT. The intended route runs through the densest residential node in all of York Region as well as a major bus terminal and regional mall. Her opposition came across as pure NIMBYism.

If not for my seething distaste for all that the Liberal's have done (and not done) over the last decade, I would be inclined to vote for Racco Yeung.


I have a challenge for those who think Thornhill commuters can get downtown somehow other than the subway.
We live here L4J 5M9. My wife works at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5C 1S1.
I have tried to get google maps to create a transit route for her to get to work that uses the GO train either by heading north to Langstaff or Southeast to Oriole. By Transit it will take her 41 minutes to get to the Oriole Go station including a short trip from Finch to Sheppard on the subway. To get to Langstaff GO it takes 33 minutes.
From either GO station, the recommended route included getting on the Yonge Subway. I can't get it to include the GO train.

Can someone figure out the second best travel option? Oh the preferred option, taking a bus to Finch and taking the subway is a total of 50 minutes.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I think he meant there is no potential for development along the Go route as it snakes through the Don Valley.
We're not ready to fill in The Don with condos and office buildings.

Yes, thank you. There is obviously huge development potential attached to the subway!

Source Globe and Mail

Based on the above quote, why am I not confident Wynne and the Liberals are the clearest path to this extension?
That is about as hollow a claim as I have ever seen. We can't tell you when we'll build it but it will be before the other party.
Maybe a list of transit priorities from the Wynne government may sway some voters?

In fairness, the Liberals were the ones who put it on the radar in the first place and it has stayed near the top of the list ever since. Toronto's "come to Jesus" moment regarding the DRL slowed it down but this drawn out revenue tools debate (and the feds failure to come up with the $6B the Libs hoped they would) have been at least as serious. I'm not one to excuse the issues the Liberals have had the past few years but I find it hard to dispute the simple notion that Thornhill voters who want to see that subway will be far better off with a Liberal in place than a conservative; especially the way Gila has taken up arms against the Centre Street rapidway, which I know is a whole other issue. As you rightly point out, it's the purest NIMBYism, protecting a few McMansion owners from a plan that has been in place for years to revitalize a street that desperately needs it. (And let's not even get started on the absurdity of her idea to ditch the rapidway and somehow build a subway with the $100M you save!)

In related news, Gila gave her opponents some fine fodder for the upcoming debates today...
http://www.yorkregion.com/news-stor...erals-minimum-wage-plan-as-feel-good-message/

Extra! Extra! Suburbs still only full of rich people!
Seriously, Sandra Yeung Racco has been very involved in the subway and Gila has been involved in counter-productive NIMBYism; she has stood against BRT and Hudak's plan makes no room for BRT or LRT. Ideology, Hudak and Wynne aside, I don't see her as a useful MPP, certainly not when it comes to transit.

(OH, and Jaycola, you live close to me and I don't know how you pull that trip off either. I'd probably drive to Finch but that's the cross-border conundrum...)

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

So then just bring the DRL to Finch/Don Mills then.

If you're south of Hwy 7 it takes way longer to go to the Langstaff GO with transit. You'd have to drive there (which is almost just as long as going to finch). Not to mention how much more it costs, when a lot of people close to Steeles can just walk to a TTC bus and get downtown for $3. I imagine most people north of Hwy 7 are already mostly taking GO unless they are getting off on a stop in midtown, etc instead of Union. GO really just caters to the downtown core. If it could have a direct connection to Sheppard at Oriole Station this could change things.

Yeah, this thread just keeps repeating itself. I live roughly halfway between Langstaff and Finch and never go to Langstaff to go downtown.

Besides, as we've established, not just on this thread but on this page, not everybody is travelling from the suburbs to downtown. That is, indeed, the fundamental thing we are trying to change. GO definitely helps me get to Union Station but not to Sheppard or St. Clair or Bloor or anywhere else at all, except for Union Station. We might not have the same congestion issues we do in the GTA spending all our time and money trying to funnel people in and out of Union, as opposed to developing other employment centres and creating a transit network that makes it relatively easy to travel between any two nodes.

(In theory, yeah, you could try to come up with some sort of transfer at Oriole but, really, it's just too far east. Someone coming from Yonge/Major Mack is going to take a train over to Leslie/Sheppard and then take the subway back to Yonge? Nah. The RH Go line is unique in that it goes through the valley and so there's basically no development or network potential south of Steeles.)

Well it repeats itself because nothing is being done right now, and technically its true that 3 dollars downtown for living in Richmond Hill is unfair. People also like to say not everyone works in the core but neither do people in Oakville, Ajax, etc and they manage to get off at union and take the subway up to Bloor street five days a week. Obviously Palma and some others feel distance based fares a la GO transit need to happen.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

So then just bring the DRL to Finch/Don Mills then.

Well it repeats itself because nothing is being done right now, and technically its true that 3 dollars downtown for living in Richmond Hill is unfair. People also like to say not everyone works in the core but neither do people in Oakville, Ajax, etc and they manage to get off at union and take the subway up to Bloor street five days a week. Obviously Palma and some others feel distance based fares a la GO transit need to happen.

So your plan boils down to keeping the subway somewhere in Toronto rather than where the people actually are? Even if that idea made sense, I would take it past Finch to 404/7 where 10s of 1000s of people work every day and where it could hook up to a BRT. But that's me.

As for Yonge, The current subway ends 2 km from the municipal border and 6km from a major planned growth node and the whole length of Yonge is a major corridor. This discussion keeps circling back to this kind of pointlessness. York Region is unique because unlike Peel and Durham, the population is contiguous at the border.

Picture how most Canadians live right near the US border; that's how most York Region people live close to Steeles. There is only one reason - only one - not to extend the subway up to Highway 7 and that's because someone drew a line on a map in 1970. All this "Why can't they take GO?!" discussion fails to appreciate the realities of the area and how people move around. (As one obvious example, someone who lives at Yonge/Major Mac would have to drive to the GO, take it east to the Don Valley, end at Union and then go BACK north to Bloor. People coming from Oakville and Ajax are not doubling back.)

We want to give people choices, of where to go and how to get there. Not keep funneling everyone into downtown on a train system devised before Bill Davis was premier.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

So your plan boils down to keeping the subway somewhere in Toronto rather than where the people actually are? Even if that idea made sense, I would take it past Finch to 404/7 where 10s of 1000s of people work every day and where it could hook up to a BRT. But that's me.

As for Yonge, The current subway ends 2 km from the municipal border and 6km from a major planned growth node and the whole length of Yonge is a major corridor. This discussion keeps circling back to this kind of pointlessness. York Region is unique because unlike Peel and Durham, the population is contiguous at the border.

Picture how most Canadians live right near the US border; that's how most York Region people live close to Steeles. There is only one reason - only one - not to extend the subway up to Highway 7 and that's because someone drew a line on a map in 1970. All this "Why can't they take GO?!" discussion fails to appreciate the realities of the area and how people move around. (As one obvious example, someone who lives at Yonge/Major Mac would have to drive to the GO, take it east to the Don Valley, end at Union and then go BACK north to Bloor. People coming from Oakville and Ajax are not doubling back.)

We want to give people choices, of where to go and how to get there. Not keep funneling everyone into downtown on a train system devised before Bill Davis was premier.

If you take the Barrie or Stouffville GO lines to work then you can say the same thing, that they are doubling back on the subway. The fact people from Oakville and Ajax don't come from the north does not make the commute less unique. But this is not really my opinion anyway, I think it should be built because system expansion is always good. And yes to Finch Don Mills. The 404/407 is just an office park. Besides that the demand for 3 subways in york is not there. An argument can be made that only this extension and not the Vaughan one should exist

 

[BMO]

So then just bring the DRL to Finch/Don Mills then.






Well it repeats itself because nothing is being done right now, and technically its true that 3 dollars downtown for living in Richmond Hill is unfair. People also like to say not everyone works in the core but neither do people in Oakville, Ajax, etc and they manage to get off at union and take the subway up to Bloor street five days a week. Obviously Palma and some others feel distance based fares a la GO transit need to happen.

The issue with distance fares is that it hurts those who need transit the most. Most low-income earners do not have the luxury of simply living close to where they work, unlike some of the wealthier people who can afford to live downtown and work downtown. The issue isn't just a clear-cut solution of distance based fares. There's been a lot of research and data showing that transit expansion and big infrastructure improvements actually push low-income families out because the property taxes raise too much when they're implemented.

In essence what this creates is a needless tax on those who can least afford to pay for transit, yet those who travel relatively small distances downtown would be paying needlessly small amounts for their use. As it stands the current fare structure acts as a balancing system that sees the social benefits and equality spread across the city. I think a move towards discounted fares based on use would better cater to the realities we face in Toronto. As for the suburbs I think it will eventually come down to integrating all the GTA transit systems into one and create zone based fares, but provide heavy discounts for high users. I.e. if you commute through two boundaries 20 times or more a month the zone fee is only $1-$1.50 instead of $2-$2.5. This encourages suburban users to use the system more (to get the discount and make their commute more competitive) and also psychologically incorporates the realization that we as users are indeed paying more because we live further, but not so much that it becomes unfair and unrealistic as an alternative.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

If you take the Barrie or Stouffville GO lines to work then you can say the same thing, that they are doubling back on the subway. The fact people from Oakville and Ajax don't come from the north does not make the commute less unique. But this is not really my opinion anyway, I think it should be built because system expansion is always good. And yes to Finch Don Mills. The 404/407 is just an office park. Besides that the demand for 3 subways in york is not there. An argument can be made that only this extension and not the Vaughan one should exist

Yes, people on those lines are doubling back too but they are not close to Yonge Street, which is the centre of the region (and, not coincidentally, the main subway route). They're not also doubling back, east to west. Arguably the Spadina extension provides an alternative for at least some Barrie-line riders but my argument remains. You want to eliminate doubling back and transfers wherever you can. Doubling back is time consuming AND forces you to pay a second fare. It's hugely counter-productive for someone who lives on Yonge in Thornhill or Richmond Hill. To be clear, it's about 2km from Finch to York Region and another 4 or so up to the proposed terminal. It's not a huge distance but bridging it makes a huge difference in travel patterns. I could go on about facilitating development, taking buses off the road, providing options for commuters but I think that's all been said here before. Yes, it's arguable that the Vaughan line shouldn't exist but a) I don't really agree with that argument b) it does exist. So, it's not a zero sum game and nixing Yonge because Vaughan exists is pointless. We're talking about building a network that provides people with good, efficient options, not piecemeal lines based on, say, one man's vision of what a certain suburb "deserves."

(Again, personally, I never ever go to Langstaff but live close enough that if the subway came north I would never drive to Finch again and leave my car at home much more often when going downtown. The GO train is totally useless for me because I don't travel to/from downtown at rush hour. If it ran all-day, two-way, yes it would be an option, but only if I was going to Union. I wouldn't try taking it to Eglinton...)

404/7 is just an office park, yes, but it's a hugely busy one. The question is of taking a look at a map, one without lines, and looking at where nodes are. 404/7 is a huge node. I mean, I could equally say to you, "Don Mills/Finch is just a school." What the heck else is there? If you want to get people out of their cars in the suburbs, stopping a major transit line 3 or 4 km short of a major destination (even if it's "just an office park") is not a good way to go about it, IMHO. Isn't one of the Transit Panel's "big ideas" that we need to connect transit not just to residential areas but to major employment centres?

 

[jaycola]

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