Their opening up of the white belt is one of the things I take issue with. It’s hard to brush it off as some bygone era called “the pastâ€, when it was only a couple years ago.
I didn't brush it off as the past and I take great umbrage at it. It was, to be nice, very disappointing. It was like they planned VMC, passed the new OP and immediately said, "We're going to run out of land! We need more!" Anyone who has followed the political news from Vaughan the past few weeks (or years) could be excused for wondering who is really running the show sometimes.
P2G didn’t come out of the blue. Anti-sprawl measures were a long time coming, and the ball got rolling in the 90s. The legislation’s inevitable existence should’ve been taken into consideration a generation ago as a future reality. It wasn’t. And in spite of all this, they were given a subway extension that really did come out of left field.
That's a fair argument in principle but it's still the chicken and egg: you can't expect Vaughan to intensify without transit infrastructure. You could argue it shoulda been an LRT or they should have done the Transitway by now but the mere existence of anti-sprawl sentiment wasn't going to change the game, especially in a place by Vaughan. They needed something like a subway (in combination with Viva, it's worth noting).
And, as with the debate about stopping the Yonge subway at Steeles, if you're going to bring the subway up to Steeles anyway and you have planned major transit running east-west one concession block to the north, you know, it kind of makes sense to do that extra little bit (especially since YR paid their share of capital costs).
Re: zoning and secondary plans for VMC...yes, 5yrs isn’t much. But I am actually surprised more blocks haven’t been filling in. And there’s no rule saying it’s gotta be the “prime sites†next to the station. My point is that the subway’s opening was 2015 for all intents and purposes, they’re next door to the biggest/densest city in the country, it’s the 21stC, and that rather than promptly moving towards making zoning changes there or elsewhere - Vaughan continued with sprawl.
The whitebelt stuff is very new - nothing has happened there yet so that hasn't detracted from VMC. I think the plan for VMC is decent and "achievable," (particularly in comparison to something like Langstaff) but I would concur they have had some "mixed messages." Who knows if things would be a bit different if they'd gotten the York U campus or (blech) a casino. I'm mostly curious about the Interchange lands as a I have a better sense of how and why SmartCentres has been proceeding at the pace it has (for one thing, they were discussing with YR where to put the bus terminal for a long time...finally figured out less than 2 years ago IIRC).
Yeah, but it’s the nonchalant and innocuous “Sorbara just got it to come further north†line that I have a problem with, and is basically what reignited this page. Vaughan’s “incentive to intensify†should’ve been the fact that the city is an uncoordinated sprawling mess – which continued sprawling until they ran out of land. That it required 2.4km of the highest order of transportation in existence (equating to almost a $1 Billion backroom pork barrel, plus op losses in perpetuity) as “incentive†to smarten up I see as ridiculous.
you're hung up on the "highest-order" thing. It's not like they gave Vaughan an aircraft carrier. They extended a subway that even you agree made sense up to Steeles/York, to Highway 7 with the goal of --if you wanna look at this way-- challenging them to do the right thing and stop doing the horrible sprawly stuff they've done which, in fairness, is not atypical of the 905. Really, if you're the sort upset anything is being built north of Downsview, that's one thing but if you're OK with the York U extension I really can't see why it's worth going bonkers over the final 2km.
Okay, but even prior to any Prov “UGC†designation, there’s still a major difference between an “established centreâ€, a pre-existing area with ‘centre’-like qualities, an area where people actually walk, and (in Vaughan’s case) a few parking lots and fields with empty or nonexistent sidewalks. VMC really does stand out amongst the majority of UGCs.
I don't know about majority but I haven't done the math. Certainly many are "historical centres" like Waterloo or Hamilton. A few are a bit more advanced from nothingness (e.g. Mississauga) but in York Region, 3/4 of it's UGCs are (for all intents and purposes) greenfield sites. BUT the geography is significant because those 3 sites are all along Highway 7, very close to Toronto and its transit (subway or otherwise). when you think about it, all other things being equal, it's pretty amazing that Langstaff even exists - this patch of hugely under-utilized land at Yonge and Highway 7 that, through quirks of history, got isolated out. Jane Street isn't Yonge Street (nor is Warden) but the fact that it's not an area where people walk but is already agreed upon; that's the point of it.
This disadvantage of Markham Centre and Langstaff and VMC (and Newmarket, for the most part) is that they are hugely suburban blank spaces and perfect opportunities to build something that isn't there now. You could divide the UGCs into a "hierarchy" if you like but if it had all the planned transit, Langstaff Gateway, blank slate that it is, has more intensification potential than almost every other UGC. Markham Centre is coming along fairly well and, I'm sure, is the envy of many of those other UGCs, even though it was basically nothing just a few years ago. In conclusion: we all agree theses centres are "nowhere" but instead of seeing that as a negative you can see the positive of a well-located centre that provides a blank slate to build a 21-st century community. That's the whole idea.
And my questioning the Centres plan isn’t some wild assumption. We’ve had “centres†before. What has happened? Less growth, less jobs, less transit mode share, less pedestrians than was promised. I know you like to use NYCC as a reminder of what can exist if we have hope. But NYCC was probably the most successful “centreâ€, so it as a comparison is a red herring.
And even there it missed job targets. What you say is true but it's also true the context has changed. The previous growth centres were not part of provincial planning law, for starters. And the "condo boom" of the past few years is indicative of a paradigm shift in how people live in the GTA. It's not 1986 anymore so, if you want to take something like the idea of NYCC and do "better" and have some well-located potential nodes, there's no point cheaping out bringing transit to them; indeed, it's the only way you're going to get it to work. (I've often pointed out one reason I'm sure Langstaff will work is because it's on Yonge Street. It's no coincidence that NYCC, which even you cite as the most successful "centre," is also on Yonge.)
Unfortunately both are really screwed up at the moment. How much of the Big Move is on schedule, funded, or still existing as a plan? How many UGCs and municipalities’ growth plans are affected by the Prov screwing the pooch? And this isn’t just a recent revelation. There were always glaring issues with MO2020 and the Big Move – and by extension P2G and UGCs. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if more municipalities will be allowed to sprawl (e.g Markham since YN is delayed indefinitely)
We don't stick to plans and that's a problem. The recent moves by Wynne are encouraging but obviously things aren't going as well as one hoped. It's still not a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I have far fewer concerns with Markham than Vaughan. Their intensification target is much higher than Vaughan's (indeed, much higher than anyone's) their council is far more reluctant to open lands (and has been for over 20 years now) and their plans are more advanced. unlike Vaughan, which was effectively gifted the subway, they're practically begging the province to give them the infrastructure they need to execute the plans the province asked them to come up with. Markham will be fine; probably Richmond Hill too (as they have no whitebelt lands).
IIRC Byford was quoted during TYSSE news that the TTC is bogged down with too many projects.
Yeah, but the math isn't that simple. You can't assume they'd be busy with something else if the TYSSE hadn't happened. Also, the reason TYSSE is still on their plate, sucking up resources, is because they screwed-up, so that's on them.
I know you’re going to point fingers; or reply with a post about why this is reason we should cede the entire TTC and TO transportation planning/construction to the Prov/Metrolinx.
No, I've never said that. I'm wary up of a full upload but I do think Metrolinx should have more power than it does. Precisely how to construct a proper regional transit authority is above my pay grade but I do think we need one and, in one way or another, TTC should be subordinate to them or, more to the point, playing on the same team as everyone else.
A low density suburb outside the 416 gets the costliest transit infrastructure in existence.
You've got to stop over-using that phrase. Again, it's not like they're giving everyone in Vaughan a learjet. There's buses, streetcars, BRT, LRT and subway. So, it's a subway; not a moonlander. If they were building it to Kleinburg, that would be another matter but this "other city" they're building it to is 2 km from the border. (Similarly, when people talk about the Yonge line going to Richmond Hill, it's really going to Thornhill. It goes like 50 metres into Richmond Hill.)
Whereas Scarborough (which is more than twice the size and decades older) gets a short extension, continued forced transfer, with similar trains as what exists now, using identical infrastructure.
It seems unfair to criticize Vaughan for its sprawly history and give Scarborough a free pass. They made their own bed in many respects, before and during their time in Metro. The facts that they're older and bigger don't mean much to me (I mean, are you counting Rouge Park?). The plan for VMC is arguably better than the one for Scarborough Centre but all that said, I hope they both "do better" than they have in the past.
