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

afransen said:
Interesting perspective!

To say the ridership will never be there to support it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mediocre transit service fails to convert car drivers, so we don't put anything better in. There is another school of thought that the area you can reach within a 45 or 60 minute travel envelope is actually an important metric for improving economic opportunity and dynamism. Much of the city is a long bus ride to a rail station (subway/GO). That means your options are take transit to a local low-wage service industry job, or take the car to a higher paying job further away.
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If I bought a moving truck for daily personal use (groceries, etc.), would a friend be wrong in suggesting it's a waste of money as I'd never need that much space? Would it be a self-fulfilling prophecy? No. It's just reality. I'd never be able to fill the truck with enough groceries to make it a sensible investment.

The same is true here. Ridership won't be there to support it because these environments weren't designed for subways in the first place. They're lower density suburbs, designed for drivers. Over half a century of suburban expansion has made it clear that building expensive subway infrastructure does not generate sufficient ridership to justify the investment. It simply doesn't work.

To get people out of their cars, then we have to build environments that are transit friendly from the start. Building transit wisely is a far better investment than pouring billions of dollars into convincing people to use transit, especially when many of them moved out there in the first place to enjoy an auto-oriented lifestyle.
 
syn said:
If I bought a moving truck for daily personal use (groceries, etc.), would a friend be wrong in suggesting it's a waste of money as I'd never need that much space? Would it be a self-fulfilling prophecy? No. It's just reality. I'd never be able to fill the truck with enough groceries to make it a sensible investment.

The same is true here. Ridership won't be there to support it because these environments weren't designed for subways in the first place. They're lower density suburbs, designed for drivers. Over half a century of suburban expansion has made it clear that building expensive subway infrastructure does not generate sufficient ridership to justify the investment. It simply doesn't work.

To get people out of their cars, then we have to build environments that are transit friendly from the start. Building transit wisely is a far better investment than pouring billions of dollars into convincing people to use transit, especially when many of them moved out there in the first place to enjoy an auto-oriented lifestyle.
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Ok, then BRTs everywhere!

I don't advocate for underground subways in the suburbs. I think LRT is a waste and inappropriate in most places. It's better to takes the billions that would be spent on that and upgrade our regional rail, and for the places not well served by our legacy freight corridors, look at opportunities for elevated metro. LRT plodding along, getting stuck at lights and blocked by turning cars is not a good use of transit investment dollars.

The City has aspirations of building higher density avenues and adding a million people. It might be hard to ensure that development isn't auto-oriented if we only serve it with slow surface transit.
 
syn said:
If I bought a moving truck for daily personal use (groceries, etc.), would a friend be wrong in suggesting it's a waste of money as I'd never need that much space? Would it be a self-fulfilling prophecy? No. It's just reality. I'd never be able to fill the truck with enough groceries to make it a sensible investment.

The same is true here. Ridership won't be there to support it because these environments weren't designed for subways in the first place. They're lower density suburbs, designed for drivers. Over half a century of suburban expansion has made it clear that building expensive subway infrastructure does not generate sufficient ridership to justify the investment. It simply doesn't work.

To get people out of their cars, then we have to build environments that are transit friendly from the start. Building transit wisely is a far better investment than pouring billions of dollars into convincing people to use transit, especially when many of them moved out there in the first place to enjoy an auto-oriented lifestyle.
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They just have to replace the parking lots with high-rise buildings to get high-density in the area. There is a l-o-t of p-a-r-k-i-n-g l-o-t-s.

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From link.
 
afransen said:
Ok, then BRTs everywhere!

I don't advocate for underground subways in the suburbs. I think LRT is a waste and inappropriate in most places. It's better to takes the billions that would be spent on that and upgrade our regional rail, and for the places not well served by our legacy freight corridors, look at opportunities for elevated metro. LRT plodding along, getting stuck at lights and blocked by turning cars is not a good use of transit investment dollars.

The City has aspirations of building higher density avenues and adding a million people. It might be hard to ensure that development isn't auto-oriented if we only serve it with slow surface transit.
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Then don't build slow surface transit. Build fast surface transit where appropriate, and improve regional transit.

We used to build transit that corresponded to density, ridership and the built environment. Now we're doing the opposite and it hasn't been working.

W. K. Lis said:
They just have to replace the parking lots with high-rise buildings to get high-density in the area. There is a l-o-t of p-a-r-k-i-n-g l-o-t-s.
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Building a pocket of high density is fine, but it's not going to justify a subway extension. The big problem is the single-family suburban corridor most of the line runs through.

In the grand scheme of things, if the government wants to build subways everywhere and budget isn't a consideration, then I'd say go for it. But it's clear the government has decided money is a consideration - that being the case, we need to make wiser investments.
 
Outside the very small core bounded by St George Stn, Yonge&Bloor, and Union, nearly every major subway station gets the majority of its riders from the feeder routes, and just a minority are walk-in customers.

Stations that don't have frequent feeder routes see light ridership, even if they are located fairly close to the city centre; look at the Rosedale, Summerhill, Dupont, Sherbourne, Christy stations.

It should be clear that the total demand from the area plays a greater role in driving the subway ridership than the local density near the stations. Otherwise we would have to consider all subway stations outside the St George Stn - Yonge&Bloor - Union core a mistake; even the segment of the original Yonge subway from Bloor to Eglinton wouldn't cut it. Then we should have had a small downtown-only subway loop to serve the really dense areas, and LRT / BRT routes coming from all directions and connecting to that loop.
 
Perhaps they were a mistake? Is that supposed to be a controversial thing to believe? Either way, I don't think we can reach any conclusion as to what would have occurred in lieu of extensions of the existing subway lines.
 
Have we gotten any of the rough depths yet? And this is a vote-rich area, it's strategic. I'm inclined to believe the local's demands will be met by Metrolinx/Prov.
 
44 North said:
Have we gotten any of the rough depths yet? And this is a vote-rich area, it's strategic. I'm inclined to believe the local's demands will be met by Metrolinx/Prov.
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Thornhill is a prime battleground between the Ontario PC and Libs, and we know how easy politicians caved with similar demands in Leslieville, which isn't as much of a battleground.
 
WislaHD said:
Thornhill is a prime battleground between the Ontario PC and Libs, and we know how easy politicians caved with similar demands in Leslieville, which isn't as much of a battleground.
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Jigging RLS from Pape to Carlaw? That was local, and bureaucratic, and it actually kinda made sense. Maybe a parallel with the Libs promising to electrify UPX to assuage residents' concerns (but not following through with the promise in the end).
 
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