I think that the projections for Yonge North are exaggerated. I think that there is a need for this extension, but there is no way that the ridership will be this high. This will only happen if a huge amount of redevelopment occurs at Yonge/Highway 7 and I don't think that this will occur for several decades.
Well, if you're right we can build it now and not overwhelm Yonge/Bloor. So, yay!
Definitely a full build-out of Yonge/7 will take decades, just as it's taking 30 years+ to develop North York Centre. but if they announce the subway today, condo sales will be happening before the end of the year. If you think that's not true, you have no understanding of the local real estate market. They're already plowing over sites in Langstaff to get them ready and the Vanguard condos are going up next door to World on Yonge. As I've said to 44North many times, if a developer offered me an acre of land in any UGC - including Scarborough Centre - I'd take Yonge/7 every time. It's easy money.
You're actually saying kind of what I've been saying for a while: build it NOW because there won't be some MASSIVE increase in ridership. The immediate effect will be a slight bump and a huge number of buses and cars coming off the road. Those are all wins, as far as I'm concerned. The substantial increase will occur over time.
The DRL to Finch/Don Mills is a much higher priority.
I assume you mean for you.
It is demonstrably NOT a bigger priority for Toronto, TTC or Metrolinx (the latter of whom came up with the idea, BTW).
This isn't even debatable, objectively speaking.
Also I don't understand why the Scarborough Subway has such a bad reputation given that there is a decent amount of development near Scarborough Centre which vastly exceeds the amount of development at Kennedy, Kipling, Downsview, Yonge/Highway 7 or Vaughan Centre.
One stop + $2b + 7,300 riders @ peak = a bad reputation.
And that's without getting into how it used to be a free LRT that would be opening soon and now comes with a 30-year tax. I don't understand how anyone doesn't understand why it has a bad reputation...
One can look at the billions being spent on GO Transit to see the net return since it was form has only been a ripple of what it should be, but until you have track capacity, hard to offer better service than it does today. GO/Metrolinx thinking today is old school thinking and can't see the future as trees are in the way as well backing over for the NIMBY folks.
Transit is at a stage or more like an elastic point, that its becoming far cheaper to drive than use transit on many fronts. One only has to look at TTC ridership the last 2 years to see this. At what point does that $4-$5 cost to ride transit force riders off the system as well what does it do to the people who live from day to day wages where transit eats up that day pay more than putting food on the table??
York Region only has themselves to blame for all the traffic mess and time they start dealing with it and stop looking for handouts from Toronto. This also applies to Peel and other areas.
There's a lot of fallacies in here: it's not $7B, it's not "all" the money earmarked for transit etc. etc. Blaming York Region is really besides the point. During the 1980s and 1990s they did what every suburb in North America did; some parts are better than others. this is a systemic issue that goes way beyond a few bad councillors in the 905.
But, as BMO pointed out, the ENTIRE rationale behind Places to Grow (and the Greenbelt) is to put on the brakes on that, do things differently across the board and create transit-oriented development in prime locations.
While you're "blaming" York Region, they've been trying to do this better than anyone in the province, save Waterloo, arguably. But the larger issue is that it's all one single transportation network and you can't solve the fundamental problems you raise in a patchwork fashion.
BMO's post from the last page should be pinned to the top here since it's hard data that refutes so much of the fantasy-based talk that goes on around here. The picture Jaycola posted doesn't prove anything we don't already know: Yonge is jammed southbound at rush hour. I've seen studies - actual hard data - that show it's been at capacity, the Y/S intersection, for over 15 years. But I was on that stretch of Yonge again today and again had 7 buses in my field of vision at a single time. That's an optimal corridor shouldn't be any kind of debate.