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YRT/Viva Construction Thread (Rapidways, Terminals)

Yea but then again don't forget Newmarket and Vaughan are two distinct municipalities, Newmarket still wants to generate jobs to gain more taxes and what not, it won't just let its jobs leave and go to Vaughan.

That's a valid point :)

I think sometimes I forget the YRT really serves a bunch of different cities (it's not like the TTC in that regard) so there may be a lot of politics behind such decisions.
 
That's a valid point :)

I think sometimes I forget the YRT really serves a bunch of different cities (it's not like the TTC in that regard) so there may be a lot of politics behind such decisions.

yes deffinitely like the fact that the Viva purple has split onto enterprise boulevard instead of hwy7, it is probably because the city of Markham had their plane for donwtown markham and backed the route going down there, not to mention the connection to GO. it is sometimes hard to believe that the YRT serves upwards of 4 cities. Maybe it's because the whole region is integrated unlike other regions (Peel (Brampton transit and Missisauga transit) and because there isn't some type of psychological border between the municipalities as we tend to see between Toronto and the rest of the GTA (steeles)
 
I think YRT and YR in general must be a challenge to run because you have an urban area that's contiguous with Toronto (3 munis) and then you have six more rural munis north of the Oak Ridges Moraine; and it's all one system and one (regional) government.

I don't know how much the people living in Sutton or Keswick have in common with the people in Thornhill but, the manager of YRT's gotta make sure they're all taken care of.

There are 4 Places to Grow nodes in York Region: Newmarket, Vaughan, Markham and Langstaff/Richmond Hill. Newmarket is the only one that's effectively not a blank slate (RH is 1/2 and 1/2) but they're all going to have to compete for jobs and residents to meet the provincial projections.

Newmarket's main selling point vs. the others will probably be affordability. I don't expect Yonge/Davis to look like the plans for Langstaff or Markham Centre but we should at least see those godawful plazas disappear.
 
You know I wonder how YRT gets its funding - the taxes in each municipality are different (they vary quite a bit as well) for example, Markham and Richmondhill are quite lower then Newmarket - with Auroa being at the top.

Who contributes what to YRT?

Yea, I can see this being a mess in the end.
 
It's two-tier government so we pay a tax to the local municipality and the region. That's where the funding comes from (plus farebox, obviously).

They actually passed their 2010 budget yesterday and transit is 14% of it, only behind police in terms of spending.
 
It's two-tier government so we pay a tax to the local municipality and the region. That's where the funding comes from (plus farebox, obviously).

They actually passed their 2010 budget yesterday and transit is 14% of it, only behind police in terms of spending.

By 'we' I think you mean 'you' or anyone in the York region? :)
There are two separate taxes? What are the rates roughly?

Are they combined i.e. this is the total you pay:
http://www.thestar.com/taxcalc
 
Now you're asking me a math question and that could be trouble.
By "we" I meant all taxpayers in every York Region municipality.

I presume it's similar to when Torontonians had to pay to, say, North York and Metro. The "metro" level handles high-level stuff like transit, education, water and wastewater etc.

They are combined ... so I put a $400,000 house in that calculator and it showed roughly $2,500 for Toronto or about $3,000 for Vaughan; but that $3,000 is split between Vaughan and YR in a way that I can't articulate :)

AH - I found my 2009 tax bill which says almost 50% of my tax dollar goes to the region, 25% to education and 25% to Vaughan.

Hopefully that makes sense...to both of us.
 
VivaNext has posted the presentation materials from the February 22, 2010 meeting about the Mulock-Davis Yonge St rapidway:
http://www.vivanext.com/543

Property acquisition will continue until January 2011, at which point construction is set to start. The projected completion date is the end of 2013.

I find the optimistic schedule for the Yonge subway extension amusing:
xS583.png
 
That's an understatement. Spadina was officially "started" in early 2007 I think... and in a couple months we may see excavation begin for the drive shafts... that's more than 3 years. And I don't think the provincial government is in any hurry to fund more subway construction...
 
i'm really excited for the western portion of the Highway 7 rapidway (Richmond Hill Centre - Pine Valley), I think the rapidways along Centre st. and Bathurst st. sections will really improve the look of the area, and hopefully make it a bit more walkable.
 
How do you think this will make it any more (or less) walkable? Hi-way 7 is keeping it's 70kph seep limit and no matter what they call it unless they plan on making other changes it's still going to be an express way.
 
well considering I did mention centre st. and Bathurst st. which are both under 70kph...but i guess if you want to talk about highway 7, putting in a better sidewalks (wider ones too!) for walking rather than just having ugly strip mall/ parking lot pavement to walk on, plus the implementation of bike lanes would offer a better environment for walking (it would make walking on Hwy 7 feel much safer), as well as the planted trees which will be put in as well will create a buffer between the "70 kph" traffic and the pedestrian domain. Not to mention the amount of development that the rapidways will create, I can jsut imagine the vast amount of development that will be focused along highway 7 between Centre st and Keele alone, those strip malls are just ripe for redevlopment. The development that the rapidways will create will make it a more walkable environment.
 
Viva's new Warden stop at Enterprise has all the glass installed and the red pavement laid down.
It looks okay I guess but the weather's been crappy so maybe in the sunshine it'll look more impressive.
 
YRT sure spending a lot of money on huge, extravagant VIVA shelters that will never be used even close to their capacity. And yet, at the same time, none of regular bus shelters have any system maps...
 
YRT sure spending a lot of money on huge, extravagant VIVA shelters that will never be used even close to their capacity. And yet, at the same time, none of regular bus shelters have any system maps...

Never is a very long time. :)
 

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