Argue and show all you want.
I will, old friend!
But "potential" and "planned" can only get you so far.
Let's be clear - because we sometimes have a tendency to put words in each other's mouths.
Not a single human being knows the future. It is entirely reasonable to expect that the UGC in question won't materialize precisely as envisioned (no pods for one!) and certainly not on the anticipated timeline. If such plans always came to fruition, Scarborough would be thriving and the whole subway debate would be different.
But...
How about looking at present-day reality. Transit ridership in YR is a joke. For such a high and mighty place that supposedly has its 'act together', you'd think ridership would be a little bit higher to warrant the hootin and hollerin. It's downright dinky. Then you got things like Davis Drive. Quarter Billion dollars and carries 1,000 per day? What the hell's going on up there lol.
This is nonsense.
First of all, YRT is no more "high and mighty" than the TTC but let's leave that aside.
Let's also leave aside the general tenor here, which is to bash a suburb for promoting transit and trying to intensify around transit corridors. You can literally LOL at it all you want; I find it absurd.
When it comes to ridership, TTC cannibalizes YRT in the south. There is no way to know what YRT ridership would be if not for the double fare but to sum up it up in one word, it would be "higher." (And, by corollary, TTC routes along the YR border would be "lower." Undeniably.)
One of your most consistent flaws, if you don't mind me saying so politely, is a misunderstanding of planning timelines. We both know what kind of community Newmarket is so save your LOL's. It's a TOWN. It's TINY. Viva is supposed to transform that corridor over a GENERATION. The BRT wasn't designed because of the high ridership on Davis (au contraire, because of all the CAR TRAFFIC) but to stimulate development in a provincially designated growth centre, in a growing municipality, between Yonge Street and a major employment node around the hospital. You surely know this, while laughing at their "complete street" faux pas.
Similarly, we both know York Region is suburban, duh. Most of it was developed after the 1970s and it's primarily auto-oriented. You seem to think they're a joke because they haven't turned into downtown Toronto overnight but that's not how it works and it's not how it is supposed to work and it's not how they said it would work. North York Centre has taken THIRTY YEARS to get where it is today so call me back in 2035 before you laugh at YRT's ridership and the lack of same on Davis Drive. Really.
So, we don't know the future and we know plans are imperfect and we know there are a lot of things we can't know for sure.
What is a very safe bet is that intensification will continue along Yonge Street. You can see it as far north as Major Mac and the forest has been steadily marching north from the 401, now up to Cummer (but for the hydro corridor). There are already towers going in north of Steeles and they will continue to do so.
Without the subway, things will come much slower in the UGC itself and on the Vaughan side of Yonge, where existing uses (big box and car dealerships respectively) will remain more financially viable than the strip malls on the Markham side.
As bad as TO's infrastructure deficit is, surely we've been doing something right all these decades.
No, that does not logically follow. And let's be clear - I LOVE TORONTO. This is not Toronto bashing. I'm not going to get into a large-scale economic argument about how and why Toronto is succeeding despite a piss poor record of managing infrastructure and having some real swings in terms of quality of governance. There are many things that position the city to be a great 21st Century city. But at some point it will hit a wall if gaps (ie the DRL) are not filled in.
And while you're giddily bashing Scarb, guess what: there's way more density, ridership, and high density nodes there than anywhere in York Region.
I'm not BASHING Scarborough - I'm talking about the reality which is that, unlike North York Centre, it has failed to develop as planned. I would love for Scarb to be well-serviced by transit and to urbanize. the reality is that whatever it is they "want" they haven't gotten it in the 30+ years those plans have been in place, even with the SRT. As it stands, and as Keesmaat has said, there's nothing new going on there right now at all; it's all being pinned on the subway. That contrasts strongly with what's happening in YR, despite your spin.
We can't compare futures - because they haven't happened - but we can clearly see, over the past generation, where development is going and it's obviously going more to the Yonge corridor - whether we're talking by the lake, around Eg and St. Clair, around NYCC or in York Region - than to the area around STC. Because the main flaw of the single-stop plan is that there is absolutely no new development possible along the corridor, the difference between these two plans (Yonge corridor + UGC) and Scarb (no corridor + UGC) is obvious.
Already been a decade since this extension was proposed, ditto for the supposed massive downtowns that are to sprout up at RHC-LG. Point is, perpetually talking the pieties of "planned" and "proposed" can only get you so far. Before long the future catches up and becomes the present.
Again, see previous comments about timelines and cause and effect. You seem to think the UGC has failed because it's been 10 years since it was proposed and nothing has happened, ignoring that the subway wasn't built in that time. I didn't write Places to Grow, establishing 2031 targets. I didn't tell York Region, in 2007, they were at the top of the list for a subway to facilitate that UGC. I also didn't tell Scarborough, in 1981, they'd have a thriving jobs centre around STC. Stuff happens, is the point. It has nothing to do with "piety" or hubris but how long it takes things to happen in planning and how many things are beyond your control.
Obviously, had the subway been funded in 2010 things would look very different now. If North York Centre didn't get its subway stop until 1995, it would look different too. There would, without any doubt whatsoever, be condo sales centres in Langstaff Gateway right now if the subway (or even RER) had moved forward, and the first wave of construction would be underway. Those plans are contingent (as you know) on the subway and RER and even the 407 Transitway. The fact that those pieces are coming slower than anticipated doesn't mean the thing has failed but that it's behind schedule, as one would expect. So you're proving my point, not your own.
The success of these various projects (Scarb, YR etc.) is not mutually exclusive except to the extent funding moves certain things ahead of others. Your microscopic, time-specific analysis , and limited view of shifting planning dynamics across a 25-year growth plan really fails to take that into account.
