[DonValleyRainbow]

Not to mention exacerbating the crowding problem on the Yonge line southbound in the AM peak...

Hopefully we have a Downtown Relief Line by then to help with the crowding.

Hopefully...it is many years down the road before Pickering Airport is complete and in service, so I'm a little less cynical about whether or not it will be in place.

 

[interchange42]

I can't see it happening before we had a relief line… although you could always put the Summerhill stop in on the GO line and not build the direct connection until the relief line was complete.

42

 

[Edward Skira]

Or put the stop at Spadina/Dupont Station and skip Yonge entirely.

 

[dowlingm]

Or put the stop at Spadina/Dupont Station and skip Yonge entirely.

I'd argue for Dupont with or without Summerhill, and to build it first. Track occupancy wise the worst is already behind you once you get on CP North Toronto at all, and by building Summerhill second you cut some delaying options from the NIMBYs in Rosedale likely to resist additional passing rail traffic.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I assume the Pickering airport is dead tomorrow?

http://www.yorkregion.com/news-stor...als-ndp-markham-stouffville-election-meeting/

 

[nfitz]

I thought it was dead when Trudeau killed it in the 1970s.

Who knows what will be there in 200 years time.

 

[44 North]

Subdivisions and SmartCentres.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Maybe SmartTrack is the first step in a Union to Pickering Express?

 

[APTA-2048]

This document may be of interest.

 

[cplchanb]

Interesting read, but IMO their sentiment for farms is backwards. Pickering is right at the doorstep of a large metropolis and to designate that as farmland simply is nonsense.
How would one grow crops or raise healthy animals with such pollution from the city right next door? I rather it get zoned for commercial and residential and leave the farming to the outskirts in western or central ontario

 

[mrxbombastic]

Interesting read, but IMO their sentiment for farms is backwards. Pickering is right at the doorstep of a large metropolis and to designate that as farmland simply is nonsense.
How would one grow crops or raise healthy animals with such pollution from the city right next door? I rather it get zoned for commercial and residential and leave the farming to the outskirts in western or central ontario

This line of thinking is self defeating and self propagating encouraging sprawl:

farm is next to city so lets relocate and let development occur over top of it. In a few years time the adjacent farm comes under the exact same pressure so they will relocate too and then the next and the next for what? sprawl, an airport?

this is how we've lost so much of our Grade A farming land in Ontario, Literally some of the best and most fertile land on the continent.

food security, local agriculture and sustainable city development go hand in hand.

 

[cplchanb]

This line of thinking is self defeating and self propagating encouraging sprawl:

farm is next to city so lets relocate and let development occur over top of it. In a few years time the adjacent farm comes under the exact same pressure so they will relocate too and then the next and the next for what? sprawl, an airport?

this is how we've lost so much of our Grade A farming land in Ontario, Literally some of the best and most fertile land on the continent.

food security, local agriculture and sustainable city development go hand in hand.

Thats why city planners have masterplans that stretch to at least 50 years from now. From that they can properly zone out the area so that farms are far enough away from cities for the next X decades. This is not sprawl, its smart planning. Farms and agriculture have no business being within at least 50km of a large metropolis.
Besides, who would want to grow crops next to a nuclear powerplant.....

 

[mrxbombastic]

In the context of our region pushing farms starting line 50 km away from the city means putting them in lower quality soil and asking them to then move into forested and even lower quality soil, reducing yields and income and requiring even more arable land which once, you start to get a bit north simply doesnt feasibly exist. Additionally do you have proof that there are any actually health problems with farming 6.5+ km away from a nuclear power plant (measurment taken from Google Earth to nearest farm lands).

And indeed we do have long term planning in this region. It's called Places to grow and it doesn't create a 50km gap between the city and farms. in fact it bring them right up to the edges and says that's as far as they can go. Full stop.

Why dont we densify our suburbs first and provide true housing stock choice across the region and once that is done we can talk about exceeding the P2G plan.

 

[Canadian Chocho]

If anything farms should be as close to cities as possible.

As for the nuclear power plant are you talking about the one that precisely isn't on farmland, the one that already has people living and working all around it?

 

[44 North]

In the context of our region pushing farms starting line 50 km away from the city means putting them in lower quality soil and asking them to then move into forested and even lower quality soil, reducing yields and income and requiring even more arable land which once, you start to get a bit north simply doesnt feasibly exist. Additionally do you have proof that there are any actually health problems with farming 6.5+ km away from a nuclear power plant (measurment taken from Google Earth to nearest farm lands).

And indeed we do have long term planning in this region. It's called Places to grow and it doesn't create a 50km gap between the city and farms. in fact it bring them right up to the edges and says that's as far as they can go. Full stop.

Why dont we densify our suburbs first and provide true housing stock choice across the region and once that is done we can talk about exceeding the P2G plan.

Agreed. Farms should stay, and we should be taking proactive measures to accommodate land uses and provide buffers. However a major problem with Greenbelt legislation is that while it does put in place rules to protect farms, it's up to the municipalities to implement said rules. A major problem with that is the decision essentially goes to developers and not the weak politicians. While places like Halton and Peel require impact assessments which conclude things like ponds and vegetation between developments and farms, in places like York Region no requirement exists and there's little protocol. In Vaughan it's essentially the Wild West, and we have proposals for nothing more than 6ft fences between subdivisions and herds of cattle.