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

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
This is hyperbole. There will be jobs and grocery stores and schools. There won't be enough of them to achieve a succesful balance or a "Complete community" (IMHO) and, more to the point, there will be a lot of fewer of them than the existing policies in Markham and Richmond Hill required.

Those are sufficient reasons to criticize it without exaggerating. I too am pro-density and pro-development and anyone following this thread long enough knows that I have repeatedly said that these two communities are big reasons this extension is justified. I was saying that back when most people had never heard of Langstaff Gateway and the density the subway could bring around Highway 7 was always a misunderstood, cruciial justification for the extension. Now, for better or worse, it's a done deal. It's zoned and locked in and there will be massive density there. So I was right - but at what cost?

Like you, I look at the final plans and now I have concerns about what it will all look like 20-30 years from now because the plans I touted as justifying the subway (particularly in Markham) have now been kind of perverted. It will take time to tell how good or bad they actually turn out to be in reality - and there is no question there will be enough human beings to more than justify having subway stations. But in what kind of communities? Will they be designed well enough to prevent all those people from just getting on the subway and clogging it up to go to downtown jobs? Because that was the initial intent. They are, in their apparent final forms, not quite what I was fighting for, which is a shame given the potential at those sites generally and in coordinating subway and land use planning, more specicifically. Well, it's going to be a fun ride, and keep us having stuff to discuss, I guess!

And...


Yeah, the City of Toronto literally can't even decide on its own how many people are City Council much less annex territory. It's more likely Doug Ford would announce the new/old City of York now includes Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and what used to be Toronto, further diluting the urban core and the power of its voters. That would at least solve the fare boundary issue...
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If you look at how Brightline was build beside the highway, it was completed quickly and at a reasonably low cost.

They could do something similar along the highway 407 corridor. It doesn't have to be heavy rail, you could build light rail.

Stations can be built at major roads and also service the airport. The minimum would be from 427 to Brock Rd, if you could extend it from Hamilton to Highway 35 that would be ideal. You could park your car at the car pool and it could connect you to the subway, wonderland, or the airport.
 
I expect the 407 orbital line will be similar to OL rolling stock, though maybe the GO EMUs would make sense as well if they are going with wide stop spacing. Hopefully we don't do something dumb like use LRV for a long distance line with wide stop spacing.

I think excusing the density that was just EMZO'd at this site on the basis of density required to justify the extension is not correct. It is a fallacy that the density immediately at rapid transit lines is what drives ridership. It is about the broader density that can feed into stations with buses, etc. I'm all for increased density in York Region, but packing 30000 people in shoeboxes within 300m of the station with inadequate parks, services, etc. is wrongheaded. I also think there is something to be said for reserving some of the land here for employment uses. This is going to be the intersection of two rapid transit lines eventually (407/Line 1). We should be trying to funnel suburban office employment to locations like this. It doesn't have to be chockablock condos.
 
afransen said:
I expect the 407 orbital line will be similar to OL rolling stock, though maybe the GO EMUs would make sense as well if they are going with wide stop spacing. Hopefully we don't do something dumb like use LRV for a long distance line with wide stop spacing.

I think excusing the density that was just EMZO'd at this site on the basis of density required to justify the extension is not correct. It is a fallacy that the density immediately at rapid transit lines is what drives ridership. It is about the broader density that can feed into stations with buses, etc. I'm all for increased density in York Region, but packing 30000 people in shoeboxes within 300m of the station with inadequate parks, services, etc. is wrongheaded. I also think there is something to be said for reserving some of the land here for employment uses. This is going to be the intersection of two rapid transit lines eventually (407/Line 1). We should be trying to funnel suburban office employment to locations like this. It doesn't have to be chockablock condos.
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You could use high floor LRT's and take into account the higher duty cycles. You will need to navigate open areas so they may need snowplows on the front.
 
afransen said:
I think excusing the density that was just EMZO'd at this site on the basis of density required to justify the extension is not correct. It is a fallacy that the density immediately at rapid transit lines is what drives ridership. It is about the broader density that can feed into stations with buses, etc. I'm all for increased density in York Region, but packing 30000 people in shoeboxes within 300m of the station with inadequate parks, services, etc. is wrongheaded.
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If this is responding to me, it's completely misunderstanding what I said (but if not, never mind)

What I said, to sum up, is that for a long time people (in general, but certainly on this thread) either argued this suburban extension could not be justified or that maybe it should go to Steeles. I said then, and would obviously say now, this completely failed to account for the convergence of transit at Highway 7 and, yes, for the plans to build mixed use centres on either side of Highway 7. I'm talking 10 years ago when a lot of people had no idea about those plans.

The EMZOs appear to be providing the promised density (more, in fact!) but without the proper balance/mix of uses. This will ultimately mean fewer people able go live-and-work in the area and with fewer jobs, far less chance of "reverse commuting," and, in short, a lot more people getting on the subway at Bridge and High Tech, which undermines the whole point of making them proper mixed-use communities. So, I'm not a fan of the EMZOs. They "prove" I was right to say massive density was coming to this area but they do so in a very superficial way that, if it does drive ridership, will only do so in a negative way that is more likely to overwhelm Line 1 than create true "transit-oriented communities." It's a wasted opportunity.

[And all that said, the idea that BUSES are what drive transit ridership and DENSITY does not, seems to me a half-truth at best. Transit feeder service is one aspect, and has been in the traditional TTC Model. But so too is density - so long as it's not entirely residential density. You need jobs. Neither poor transit connections nor an auto-oriented suburban road network nor residential-only communities will provide the needed ridership. As planned, these communities were going to have enough jobs. Neither Richmond Hill nor Markham nor York Region wanted these areas to be all condos: they were supposed to have a roughly 2/3 residents and 1/3 jobs. Now the MZOs have thrown that ratio out the window and having 10s of 1000s new residents right atop the new stations, and improved bus service, means you'll get ridership; but the wrong kind and too much, I suspect.]
 
I get the desire for more jobs in these kinds of locations. But we must remember that new build office rents are much more expensive than existing offices which will discourage companies from locating here.

I think the "market has spoken" and companies continue to locate in cheaper offices along the 905 highways; or, if they're going to pay top dollar for new space, they'll locate downtown.

Yes, I'd like to see the low density office parks consolidate into the emerging suburban resi clusters. But I would pump the brakes on how much we can actually achieve.
 
Undead said:
I get the desire for more jobs in these kinds of locations. But we must remember that new build office rents are much more expensive than existing offices which will discourage companies from locating here.

I think the "market has spoken" and companies continue to locate in cheaper offices along the 905 highways; or, if they're going to pay top dollar for new space, they'll locate downtown.

Yes, I'd like to see the low density office parks consolidate into the emerging suburban resi clusters. But I would pump the brakes on how much we can actually achieve.
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Maybe the kinds of jobs that cities like Richmond Hill should aim for are those that wouldn't be able to just use any old office building already along the 400-series highways, or possibly relocating office complexes that are already in York Region. Or, better yet, maybe trying to attract institutional and post-secondary uses.

Imagine if Richmond Hill or Markham was able to relocate one or more of the sprawling office complexes in Markham, especially one of the IBM campuses, and how much land that would open up to mixed-use or residential uses.

Either way, this MZO is a mistake. I can't see market forces wanting to load the area with skyscrapers anyways, and every lot that stays empty waiting for the perfect proposal is hundreds of Canadians who can't buy a home.
 
I think it's fair play to argue that the employment ambitions that RH and Markham had were overly ambitious. The way employment's been the last 3 years, who even knows what 2040 will look like. That said, the MZO's really set the bar low. It's always going to be easier to build and sell residential and by locking in low-ball employment numbers, the MZOs are just a gift.

As for market forces on the residential... I can't dispute 80 storeys seems a bit wacky but we are talking over 20-30 years. I've said before, in the face of others who doubted what could be achieved here, I'd have happily invested in these lands because with the subway they are worth many, many billions of dollars. They'll shake out well enough in that regard, I'm sure.
 
I hope that as GO Expansion takes off and we get better regional coverage of rapid transit, we can start to mandate that office development takes place near rapid transit stations, and/or the market willingly moves in that direction. Then sites like this that have both good highway and transit access become attractive for the suburban office market.

To me, the land that is quite close to the station (within a 100m-250m) should prioritize office or at least mixed use, as commuters don't want to have a long walk after arriving by transit, and primarily residential development should be a bit further away. So some of the sites close to the station should be reserved for future office development. Just IMO.
 
afransen said:
I hope that as GO Expansion takes off and we get better regional coverage of rapid transit, we can start to mandate that office development takes place near rapid transit stations, and/or the market willingly moves in that direction. Then sites like this that have both good highway and transit access become attractive for the suburban office market.

To me, the land that is quite close to the station (within a 100m-250m) should prioritize office or at least mixed use, as commuters don't want to have a long walk after arriving by transit, and primarily residential development should be a bit further away. So some of the sites close to the station should be reserved for future office development. Just IMO.
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The thing is, we already have land that fits this description perfectly (ie: Etobicoke City Centre, and to an extent North York City Centre). But when you have idiotic municipal policies which continues to incentivize office development to be focused in the downtown core (specifically referring to Toronto's IMIT program), then firms will just continue to want to relocate into Toronto's city centre because they dont have as much of an incentive to locate elsewhere.
 
I mean, Markham previously hired arguably the foremost expert in TOD to design the plan for that area, albeit premised on the prior subway alignment. That said (and no offence!) I'm gonna say between your plan and his and what's in the MZO, it's probably the Calthorpe plan that was the best. The TOC plan seems to retain its basic layout and ideas but when you double the density and halve the jobs, that kind of undermines the rest.

(and even without the TOC, there's already a high density proposal for your east midrise area. The old plan had east, central and west peaks but this is just gonna be a big forest, peaking big time on either side of the rail corridor.)
 
suburban office vacancies are at 15% right now. VMC is already pushing to be the pre-eminent office cluster in York Region, I'm not sure how much office demand would really exist here. NYCC similarly has huge office vacancy rates.

You can't just wish office employment into existence, and at the end of the day the province has a shortage of housing and employment lands right now, not office space. It's the one thing that doesn't need millions of square feet designated for it.

The 2009 (?) Calthorpe plan was designed in a different era when there was barely even any condo market at all in York Region, and it's densities seemed very ambitious for the time. Times have changed.

I agree that the TOC plans probably needed a bit more thought, particularly for High Tech station, and will likely need more community services integrated into them than what is currently proposed, but generally they are fine plans and provide much, much needed housing.
 
Those are fair points and there's no question suburban office is a challenge although I think it's also true that employment has changed so much in the past two years, forget 2009, who knows what 2030 will look like.

And this housing is much-needed but it's also not coming on to the market until like 15 years from now by which point who knows what that market will look like. And without getting into a whole tangent about the role of supply in the current "housing crisis," at least so far there are no provisions for for affordable housing and it's not going to be cheap in 80-storey towers,. And without jobs, it's a lot of people getting on the subway at its north end (and, you know, hopefully some improved GO service too).

So...it may be true that the TOC plans to a degree reflect harsh realities that the prior plans gloss over. I still think there are concerns with how they undermine the fundamental intent of the municipal plans - which were still very ambitious. I'd feel different if I thought RH and Markham were asking for a subway and then zoning everything for 20-30 storeys, but they very much were not doing that. It may be this all looks better as more details get ironed out but, particularly in conjunction with the larger issues around how this government has used MZOs, I think there are also very legit reasons to be sceptical.

If we're talking big-picture and on-thread, I still like how they are leveraging the development to offset (or argument, depending on your POV) project costs. It's just fair to wonder what was given away to achieve that.
 
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