44 North
Senior Member
mmm, bucolic. I can hear the cicadas
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YRT/Viva Construction Thread (Rapidways, Terminals)
- Thread starter waterloowarrior
- Start date
cplchanb
Senior Member
You can't just arbitrarily declare that what looks like empty land is free to take. these are lands that private entities own. You'll need to pay them if they even agree to negotiate first. That empty lot in your first picture is still owned by someone that will probably apply for a midrise next decade. One does not simply rezone lands by using a marker over green space. How can you compensate for a lost business in that last photo? This combined with disturbing historical sites is a recipe for litigation disaster
sche
Active Member
Of course the land is not free to take. But just because the land is privately owned doesn't mean the government can't buy or expropriate it. Purchasing slivers of properties and/or moving heritage buildings out of the way is not rocket science. It was literally done on Davis Dr in Newmarket, in a very similar old village centre with heritage buildings. Expropriation is needed for almost any large transportation project.
The point was, proper station placement at Major Mack was very likely feasible. And, the emptiness of the land is important, because empty land is always going to be easier to expropriate than a row of commercial buildings or houses. No one is going to protest or lament the expropriation of a 5m strip of grass along the edge of a property. Demolishing large numbers of occupied buildings, on the other hand, has negative impacts to the community..
cplchanb
Senior Member
armchair 20/20 hindisight engineering is always so convenient...remember this plan was drawn up 15 years ago... There clearly was a barrier back then, and its naive to say it was just a matter of a simple sliver of land. there were so many other factors to consider than just chopping a piece of land.,
dad pad
New Member
the southwest corner is owned by the town https://www.richmondhill.ca/en/find-or-learn-about/Civic-Precinct-Project.aspx
and the owner (in 2017) of the northeast corner wanted to build a 5 storey building.
of course the situation is most likely more complex than it appears but it seems to me from just a cursory look that there could have been opportunity for negotiation towards a better solution than the one they decided on.
cplchanb
Senior Member
Of course there could've been negotiations back then had the region been in the position to do so. I'm just miffed by people who try to armchair engineer and are naive to the geopolitics
dad pad
New Member
yeah but the impulse is understandable, to me at least, because the station as designed now is not very good. major mackenzie is often congested so buses struggle to keep to their schedule. there's not enough trust on the user end to be able to have an interchange that takes so long to traverse because the buses basically come whenever they feel like it and they are also relatively infrequent. if YRT solved those problems perhaps this interchange would not be as big an issue but it seems unlikely that they will.
smallspy
Senior Member
Considering the amount of money that has been spent on the project, and the amount of time that has lapsed since the original project announcement (what was that, 2008?), I think that it's absolutely fair to make the complaints. It's not like they just discovered that it was a problem - they would have known it from the launch of the original project, and likely well before that even.
Believe me, I am one to be sympathetic when problems arise if real attempts were made to fix them, or when all other avenues have failed. But the messaging from YRT/VIVA on this has been anything but that. And I would argue that their actions since are even more damning.
Dan
cplchanb
Senior Member
TBF, the project design was locked in 2008 and it wouldve been completed much earlier had the recession and budget cuts not come in under Dalton in 2009. You have to admit, that that regardless of teh delay, the project was finished within the 2nd amended timeframe
and iirc, within the budget. The current station layout was always going to be this direction, and honestly I'm glad that they didnt bed over for lobbyists, UT fanatics and armchair engineers. The last thing we need is a SRT disaster, where you have ideas and opinions from 6 different directions and the region
is wasting time/money entertaining every single one.
Reecemartin
Active Member
I recently took a walk to the new Cornell Bus Terminal to see what Toronto’s newest bus hub will look like! Take a look in my latest video!
Coolstar
Senior Member
This caught my eye. According to this comment, construction stopped back in September due to issues with the contractor. They recently re-tendered and the new opening date is set for this November.
sche
Active Member
Amazing, another piece of York Region transit infrastructure with no actual transit!
Good video though.
Coolstar
Senior Member
It's considered a myth that YRT/VIVA buses even exist. According to legend, only a select few managed to see a YRT bus right before their eyes.
But seriously, VIVA could be so much better as a BRT system if they run more buses.
afransen
Senior Member
A bit baffling why they spend so much on the structures and not on service.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
It's not that baffling.
Firstly, capital costs came from the province and operations comes from the regional tax base.
Secondly, it's a Catch-22 as they're creating intensification but that takes time. I've said before, looking at ridership is fairly pointless right now. The point of Viva isn't just to have rapid bus servicve but to change the built form of the corridors and ultimately travel patterns.
Which is not to say service should be crap or that local routes should be cannibalized - those are legit problems. It ultimately undermines that Big Picture purpose if people don't have confidence in the reliability of the service etc.
I'm just saying, those are the problems that come with introducing rapid transit to a suburban context (and even moreso during a pandemic).