Historically YRT Route 77 went from Finch to Bramalea City Centre and was jointly operated by Vaughan Transit and Brampton Transit. The current arrangement on Highway 7 west is a continuation of that. But there are plans to extend Viva Orange to Highway 50, and when that happens, I predict Zum will no longer operate between Highway 50 and VMC because there will be too much duplication of service (in fact, there already is, which is why Viva Orange only goes to Pine Valley on weekends). People going between Vaughan and Brampton will have to transfer at Highway 50, but this will allow both Viva Orange and Zum Queen to operate with higher frequencies.
I predict zum service continues along the 407. So other than york residents living west of 407 station or brampton residents wanting to get to points west of 407 station, they could transfer at 407 station. But wait YRT's major bus terminal is at vmc so they would have to board a subway between vmc and 407, DOUBLE FARE!

*Read the above as a whos on first sketch*
 
Yes, bus is very important in all locations BUT very few purposefully design their rail network (or neighbourhoods) to require 90% of passengers to be bused into the station.
...
Anyway, happy to be wrong. I'd love examples of numerous high frequency 20km long bus routes in mixed traffic feeding a single station that I can visit those locations. I've not stumbled across any in quite that situation. Stations in Jackson Heights (Queens) probably get the closest but NY is also unique in the world for having an almost completely stalled expansion for 80 years.

We're gonna get off-thread but the flaw in your argument -somehow trying to double down or otherwise justify the absurd, easy-to-see-with-the-naked-eye argument that Finch Station is somehow unsuccessful - is that you're looking at it in isolation. It's a terminal station with massive parking and bus traffic. The next 2 stations - NYCC and Sheppard, have neither. They function, all the stations, AS A UNIT.

Similarly, VMC has (or will have, when developed) no surface parking, though YRT will certainly feed in. But 407 is designed to take the car/bus traffic while VMC will be more walk-in based. Same goes for the planned Yonge extension: RHC will be for walk-ins (and bus/GO transfers) and Longbridge will be for cars. A subway SYSTEM can have both. And Finch's high ridership is not some illusion or flaw or spin. Oh, and it's also in a hydro corridor, which prevents the immediate density that would likely otherwise be there (and which is there to an extent, via the Xerox tower across the street).

You're also ignoring cause and effect. There are so many bus lines feeding in BECAUSE the subway doesn't go as far as it should. Development has continued far north of Steeles, which is why it makes complete sense (once capacity issues are addressed) to bring the subway further north. Development has also expanded (but at lower densities) to the east and west, particularly the latter, which is why an LRT there makes sense. There is nothing "natural" about Finch as a terminus; it's just where they stopped building. (This is also the massive logical failure the "just extend it to Steeles" crowd makes. It's completely un-natural and non-sensical; it's only where people pay their taxes to different organizations.)

Highway 7 is a more "natural" terminal given our current urban area and ,as I said above, once the Yonge line is extended, Finch's current function will diminish as the buses that now feed in are diverted to Cummer, Steeles and Highway 7. The parking function will remain, but also likely be diminished and so the ridership in the future is likely to be lower than it is now. And then you'll get more walk-ins, fewer buses making long treks on the road etc. etc.

So, resisting the urge to make a glib remark about how you can be happy to be wrong, I think you just need to situate the station in its proper context; as a regional terminal station located not-quite at the municipal border and, even less so, at an optimal location in relation to its end users, who are coming from the north, east and west because there is nowhere else for them to converge.
 
Move it? They should close it, and let students transfer at Downsview Park. Whatever happened to the "connectivity" and "transit hubs" mantra?!

Well move and repurpose.

It would no longer be a stop for York. It would be a stop at Steeles.

The Stouffville and Kitchener lines all have a stop at Steeles as well. Its an important and busy street.

We need to be adding and building more stations in Toronto for transit development. We should not be closing stations.

With electrification and RER, more stations closer together are possible, should be done. We should not be closing stations, we should be building them.

A station at Steeles and then Highway 7 (Concord) Should be on the agenda for electrification of the Barrie Line.

Get out of your head the idea of slow, lumbering bilevel diesel trains, this is not the future of the Barrie Line, we need to have in our minds eye what the mechanics of the lines will look like in the future when planning station development.
 
Well move and repurpose.

It would no longer be a stop for York. It would be a stop at Steeles.

The Stouffville and Kitchener lines all have a stop at Steeles as well. Its an important and busy street.
Don't forget that there are 3 more stops planned between Downsview Park and Union in the near future on the Barrie line. Having too many stops diminishes the benefits.
 
That already exists: the 501A

http://www.brampton.ca/EN/residents...ip/Documents/Route_Cards_Main/501_print_4.pdf

It's possible that that could become the only Zum Queen route after Viva is extended to Highway 50. Or they could run the current branches and simply cut the 501 back to Highway 50. Either way, they could increase frequencies with the same number of buses because there will be less route to cover.

This also means that York U (or Pioneer Village if BT is kicked off York campus) will replace VMC as the main subway access point for Branpton commuters (see, we're still on topic!)

I think that, that will likely be the only one after Viva is extended as you mention, because I still think the main 501 service duplicates Viva.
 
Don't forget that there are 3 more stops planned between Downsview Park and Union in the near future on the Barrie line. Having too many stops diminishes the benefits.

Sure with a big hulking diesel train like we have now, but with an EMU with triple the acceleration characteristics? Unlikely.

Plus express service that will bypass these stations.

We need to think in future terms, not the past.
 
Sure with a big hulking diesel train like we have now, but with an EMU with triple the acceleration characteristics? Unlikely.

Plus express service that will bypass these stations.

We need to think in future terms, not the past.
I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, the York U stop wastes 6 minutes of my commute every day (3 mins each way).
 
Yes, bus is very important in all locations BUT very few purposefully design their rail network (or neighbourhoods) to require 90% of passengers to be bused into the station. SSE design is a great example; is $4B to a 20+bay bus terminal the best use of funds. Is that really how we think planners in Paris/London/Madrid/Moscow/etc. would build a transit network in that location? They've all built mid-capacity lines or corridors to replace bus in mixed-traffic heavy regions of their cities.

So, I'm curious then....why do you think that places like London and New York - which both have extensive subway networks - have humongous fleets of buses to go with those networks?

Dan
 
if the 501 Zum is at some point in time going to not serve stops in Vaughan will the YRT routes increase frequency? It seems to me transit riders along that route like the extra frequency they get now and the few times I have taken the 501 through there am struck by how many people get on in Vaughan and off before the bus leaves Vaughan....quite clearly they are using the BRT Zum buses as local transit.
 
I was in the VMC area today and there's a lot of development in progress - at least nine cranes visible
 
if the 501 Zum is at some point in time going to not serve stops in Vaughan will the YRT routes increase frequency? It seems to me transit riders along that route like the extra frequency they get now and the few times I have taken the 501 through there am struck by how many people get on in Vaughan and off before the bus leaves Vaughan....quite clearly they are using the BRT Zum buses as local transit.

I would say yes, Viva Orange will get frequencies equal to (perhaps even better than) Viva Purple, since they will no longer have to deal with Zum cannabalizing their ridership. Zum will also get higher frequencies (since the route is shortened) unless there is pressure to redeploy buses elsewhere.
 
if the 501 Zum is at some point in time going to not serve stops in Vaughan will the YRT routes increase frequency? It seems to me transit riders along that route like the extra frequency they get now and the few times I have taken the 501 through there am struck by how many people get on in Vaughan and off before the bus leaves Vaughan....quite clearly they are using the BRT Zum buses as local transit.

That would require YRT to end its subsidy of 501 Zum. I don't think that there's any appetite to do that.

Dan
 
That would require YRT to end its subsidy of 501 Zum. I don't think that there's any appetite to do that.

Dan
How much does YRT pay BT to run the 501 Zum to VMC? Until this discussion over the past few days, I had never heard of a subsidy.....just an agreement to let them operate and access the area on the way to York (and now the subway).
 

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