TossYourJacket
Senior Member
Can't wait for "High Tech Station" to be two bus shelters on an outdoor concrete platform
Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
Allandale25
Senior Member
What does "Pre-BCRs" mean?
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Years ago, they mentioned new Subway Car Yard (like Wilson Yard, Davisville Yard) for the land northwest of Yonge and Steeles where the Auto Mall is across from World On Yonge - can't seem to find any mention of that new Subway Car Yard now,.... so I guess it's been cut as well.
afransen
Senior Member
Integrate the station into the development? Surely a direct connection to the station will enhance the value.
turini2
Active Member
Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) - weighing up the cost of doing something with the cost of doing it. Anything better than 1 is a pass - the Ontario line was around 1.1, increasing to around 1.3 when Transit Orientated Development was taken into account.
Note that none of the options get at least 1 - Option 1 (0.79), Option 2 (0.84) and Option 3 (0.82).
Sandpit
Active Member
Does Pioneer Village station look like a pioneer village?
turini2
Active Member
Subway Yard wasn't cut - the new Subway Yard would be at the very end of the line - as proposed in the mid 2010s as part of the original design of this project.
Metrolinx Business Case states:
Coolstar
Senior Member
RIP. An underground subway yard would've been unique to the system.
ARG1
Senior Member
Overall, here are my general thoughts as someone who lives near the area and would hugely benefit from this project.
A lot of the stations being cut is kind of sad, but I want to consider the fact that we just came out of a similar situation in Hamilton, why do I get the feeling that this is one of those "Let's give an underwhelming base design so that hopefully we can get the feds to pitch in and offer additional funding"? If this is the case, and the feds do fall in line since this area is a very swing neighbourhood so they would have a lot to benefit from pitching in those extra funds. If we don't get the option for additional funds, the next question would obviously be which station to include? Royal Orchard I see very little immediate value in, as its small through suburban street with not much on it... which is what I would normally say if the nearest station wasn't over a kilometre in all directions (but then the nearest station wouldn't exist if it existed so whoops). Clark and Cummer on the other hand have amazing cases for both of them. Cummer has the Cummer bus which iirc is quite frequent it would do quite well to feed people into the station, and while Clark doesn't have the same bus frequencies, its still a street that would do well to serve the Thornhill area, and if we chose Cummer as our minor station of choice, it would leave the entire Thornhill section of Yonge completely underserved and would minimize the benefit of being able to reduce busses on the corridor, and we might still see Viva Blue running south of RHC rather than just terminating like the original plan was. Bridge Center is one of those stations that at first I was incredibly confused by. Why build another station and a brand new bus terminal when you have a perfectly good bus terminal just north at RHC? If you want to add better connectivity to the GO train then shift the platform north a bit. The Richmond Hill Line platforms are really cheap so moving it shouldn't be a big deal. However if the circumstance is that entire gateway development, and if the new bus terminal would provide a better connection the 407 transitway and the Viva busses (at least Orange and Purple), then maybe that makes sense. Overall, I don't think this modification is the end of the world. Even though its gimped I'm still extremely excited for this project.
This new station will be used for Viva busses, GO busses, and busses coming from the 407 Transitway in the future. This makes the current RHC terminal redundant and will most likely be demolished, leaving High Tech Station as just a station that serves the commercial and residential areas near that area, as sort of a cheap bonus given that the station is at grade. I wonder if this also precludes an option to have the Yonge Line continue north sometime in the future to act as Richmond Hill Line RER in the future. There are 2 reasons why ML is hesitant on RER for Richmond Hill: 1 is dealing with CN in getting track rights, and 2 is that the corridor in Don Valley is not suited for RER services. The location of the track at the bottom of the valley means stations connecting to other RT lines such as Ontario or Bloor would be extremely expensive and at the end of the day unusable, and the fact that its in a flood plain means building any form of long form infrastructure is risky. I wonder if Yonge North could be a compromise where north of RHC it acts like GO RER, meanwhile the Richmond Hill Line is the rush hour express service to downtown Toronto so that the Yonge Line doesn't suffer from severe overcrowding like we're dealing with right now. As a final note, as I said earlier I'm fine with the renames. Tbh I never liked the name RHC. At least to me, the real RHC is Downtown Richmond Hill between Major Mack and Levendale. I'm glad they're giving these stations a different name, and considering how unique the names are relative to the rest of the system, I'm okay with that.
A lot of the stations being cut is kind of sad, but I want to consider the fact that we just came out of a similar situation in Hamilton, why do I get the feeling that this is one of those "Let's give an underwhelming base design so that hopefully we can get the feds to pitch in and offer additional funding"? If this is the case, and the feds do fall in line since this area is a very swing neighbourhood so they would have a lot to benefit from pitching in those extra funds. If we don't get the option for additional funds, the next question would obviously be which station to include? Royal Orchard I see very little immediate value in, as its small through suburban street with not much on it... which is what I would normally say if the nearest station wasn't over a kilometre in all directions (but then the nearest station wouldn't exist if it existed so whoops). Clark and Cummer on the other hand have amazing cases for both of them. Cummer has the Cummer bus which iirc is quite frequent it would do quite well to feed people into the station, and while Clark doesn't have the same bus frequencies, its still a street that would do well to serve the Thornhill area, and if we chose Cummer as our minor station of choice, it would leave the entire Thornhill section of Yonge completely underserved and would minimize the benefit of being able to reduce busses on the corridor, and we might still see Viva Blue running south of RHC rather than just terminating like the original plan was. Bridge Center is one of those stations that at first I was incredibly confused by. Why build another station and a brand new bus terminal when you have a perfectly good bus terminal just north at RHC? If you want to add better connectivity to the GO train then shift the platform north a bit. The Richmond Hill Line platforms are really cheap so moving it shouldn't be a big deal. However if the circumstance is that entire gateway development, and if the new bus terminal would provide a better connection the 407 transitway and the Viva busses (at least Orange and Purple), then maybe that makes sense. Overall, I don't think this modification is the end of the world. Even though its gimped I'm still extremely excited for this project.
Kinda goes to show that this project should've been done years ago, before development starting inching north, and why building transit ahead of projected development is so important.
The thing with RHC is that the plan for the Bridge Stations is to build a new Bus Terminal:
This new station will be used for Viva busses, GO busses, and busses coming from the 407 Transitway in the future. This makes the current RHC terminal redundant and will most likely be demolished, leaving High Tech Station as just a station that serves the commercial and residential areas near that area, as sort of a cheap bonus given that the station is at grade. I wonder if this also precludes an option to have the Yonge Line continue north sometime in the future to act as Richmond Hill Line RER in the future. There are 2 reasons why ML is hesitant on RER for Richmond Hill: 1 is dealing with CN in getting track rights, and 2 is that the corridor in Don Valley is not suited for RER services. The location of the track at the bottom of the valley means stations connecting to other RT lines such as Ontario or Bloor would be extremely expensive and at the end of the day unusable, and the fact that its in a flood plain means building any form of long form infrastructure is risky. I wonder if Yonge North could be a compromise where north of RHC it acts like GO RER, meanwhile the Richmond Hill Line is the rush hour express service to downtown Toronto so that the Yonge Line doesn't suffer from severe overcrowding like we're dealing with right now. As a final note, as I said earlier I'm fine with the renames. Tbh I never liked the name RHC. At least to me, the real RHC is Downtown Richmond Hill between Major Mack and Levendale. I'm glad they're giving these stations a different name, and considering how unique the names are relative to the rest of the system, I'm okay with that.
I kind of doubt it. This is York Region we're talking about, so I'm pretty sure the reason why this extension is so expensive is because York Region wants every station to be like TYSSE, flashy and overbuilt.Can't wait for "High Tech Station" to be two bus shelters on an outdoor concrete platform
aquateam
Active Member
A few comments:
- The new route seems excessively curvey, which is going to reduce train speeds. I'm not sure why they don't go diagonally towards the rail corridor/407 intersection from after Royal Orchard.
- It's almost as though the amount of tunneling they save by not going north on Yonge is replaced by distance spent tunneling east to the rail corridor
- There's less than 400 meters between "High Tech" and "Bridge", when they are planning a ~4000 m gap between "Bridge" and "Clark" (assuming Royal Orchard gets dropped.) Maybe moving "High Tech" north to Bantry (halfway between Highway 7 and 16th avenue) would even out the stop spacing and better bookend Richmond Hill Centre (with a side benefit of getting rid of the ridiculous "High Tech" station name.)
- I like the better integration between GO and TTC, but there is at most only ~150 meters difference in transfer distance between the different alignment options. I can think of other GO-TTC transfers that merit improved connections that don't require re-aligning subway line plans.
- Having done the hard work of getting at-grade, I think the cost benefit ratio would look better if they continued north to 16th avenue/Hillcrest mall. But I understand they are working within a budget envelope that has already resulted in stations being cut.
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afransen
Senior Member
The idea is that it wouldn't cost $500M to build a station above ground.
Coolstar
Senior Member
I always thought the idea of RHC was to be Richmond Hill's new Downtown. Similar to Downtown Markham. I find the new names strange and bizarre compared to the old names. Not to mention High Tech station is not consistent with other regional centre station names like Scarborough Centre, North York Centre and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.
tsm1072
Active Member
That bus terminal is pretty much a perfect location, allows for fast transfers and operation on both Highway 7 and the 407 transitway. As the terminus for the Young rapid way, the slight detour is no issue. Hopefully, they integrate bike and pedestrian access with pathways from langstaff all the way up to Hillcrest mall, it would be a much more pedestrian-friendly way to cross the 407.The thing with RHC is that the plan for the Bridge Stations is to build a new Bus Terminal:
I wonder if they'll have the track split across the rail corridor to allow cross-platform transfer from GO to subway?
Undead
Senior Member
Update from the Councillor. IMHO, Metrolinx should either move the High Tech station further north; or cut it and use the money to build one of the Royal Orchard or Clark. Cummer should not be cut in any scenario.
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TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
I think this is all well said.
The battle for the final station slot will be interesting.
Royal Orchard has basically 1 big development site and not much other potential.
Clark and Cummer each have pros and cons and Toronto may want another station, on principle, but I think Cummer's proximity to Steeles and Finch works against it and Clark has an advantage if Royal Orchard is gone and it's the only station between Steeles and 7. Metrolinx's data shows Clark as clearly superior but objective data is rarely the determining factor in our transit planning.
One thing I am digging is the idea of squeezing the Bridge station between the highways. That at least shows some innovation and creativity. It's dead space they're utilizing effectively, maybe they'll even having a couple of buildings there, which would end up being landmarks along the highways. It also solves the problem they had before resulting from the subway being way over at Yonge and then figuring out how to get people from the middle of Langstaff over to the High Tech Station.
Same with the above-grade run north of the cemetery. Why not run above grade where you can?
Another factor there is the 407 Transitway, which was supposed to head off of 407, up to what is now the High Tech station. The Bridge station is a much better interface for that. So, there are definitely gains in this adjustment.
This change is not as bad as what's gone in Scarborough with 7 stations! No, 3! No 1! No, 3! It's disappointing in some respects - the route may be cheaper but it's going to be longer and slower. Fewer stations... I'll wait to see how that shakes out.
Like the Councillor, residents in Royal Orchard are going to be understandably peeved - no station AND it's going under their houses? - but hopefully Metrolinx can show them (and be correct!) that they won't be noticing any vibrations etc. I mean, "You wanted a subway!" is easy to throw at them but they fairly expected it to be under Yonge Street.
We can all complain about aspects of this process, which is messed up. The Province does what it does and right now they're prioritizing stations where they can make money and save on their own bottom line. Probably YR and Toronto will both have issues with this and it'll get tweaked a bit as things are finalized. But it certainly makes more sense than the Finch-Steeles extension for which many hear have lobbied and it's one of those compromises where everyone gets something and no one is really entirely happy
