It's the internet, of course it's ridiculous...wouldn't have it any other way!
So your saying that the VCC and RHC subway extension ridership projection were inflated to support a subway and yet still don't reach subway levels? Do you understand what you are saying?
"Your saying"? I'm saying the numbers could be low. There's no such thing as 'subway level'...it's a moving target created to oppose subway construction and justify political pet projects like the SRT extension or Transit City. Whatever the level of the week is, it does not apply to a subway extension.
And as I've said before, I would have preferred if GO were looked at as a (or part of) solution rather than focussing on subways. But York wanted a subway and that's the direction that they skewed the numbers towards.
Skewed the numbers? As if the parade of buses along Yonge, the existing population and the plethora of developments on the way were figments of York's imagination. GO cannot serve the Yonge corridor north of Finch and can only serve some of the trips from Richmond Hill. GO is not at all a substitute for the Yonge extension. GO can't replace the Spadina extension, either. Yet, GO *is* being improved even as the subway projects continue and YRT works to improve Viva and mull over other bus and LRT projects. York Region is focusing on subways? What a silly comment. All there is is two very short subway extensions, piggybacking on extensions
that need to be done. GO is a provincial service, by the way, centred on Union...York Region can't just finagle improved GO service out of thin air without regard to the 416, the province, the limited GO trackage, etc.
Point taken here. Though there will still be the VIVA Blue, 99 and other routes that will approach RHC from the North along Yonge.
Viva is express, the 99 is local - they don't provide the same service. "Other routes" are unknown but they won't be overlapping for more than a block, won't duplicate service, and probably won't use as many buses combined as just one of the Steeles routes. There's no comparison with the overlapping service approaching Finch, or even approaching Eglinton or Kennedy or Kipling.
To put it bluntly no. You yourself commented that the apartments in the park along Steeles and Islington, Kipling, and Martin Grove aren't exactly transit supportive. If we build density and the majority of the people are still using their cars all we've done is make the congestion worse. Do you not agree?
Of course I don't agree. There isn't a neighbourhood in the city where a majority of people take transit. What do you expect us to do, just give up because we're unable to divert 100% of trips away from cars? TOD is mostly a lot of BS, by the way, certainly in the Toronto context. People will use transit if they need to or if the transit itself is worth taking. It's not like people in new developments along Sheppard have to squeeze through a hole cut in a fence to access a station, or walk for 10 minutes through an unploughed big box parking lot, or cut through backyards to save 15 minutes of walking around culs-de-sac. Apartments at Kipling & Steeles *are* transit supportive, but there's so few apartments and nothing else around the area that good transit is unsustainable. Sheppard would be seeing more projects lining Sheppard itself or on top of stations if the city's Avenues policy wasn't so counterproductive here. A site one block from the subway will be more oriented to transit than a site two blocks away, but if the site two blocks away is the one getting developed, what are you gonna do? If anything, the fact that some prime sites still exist adjacent to and above many of our subway stations is a good thing because there's still a chance they'll see retail/employment uses and not just the standard 30 storey condo.
Wow you didn't pick up on the fact that I was being ironic here? Read what I was responding to (insults).
I wasn't being ironic when I paraphrased your sentiments about subway extensions to York.
If you essentially agreed with my point then why argue it?
I don't agree with your point, I was pointing out how silly and hypocritical it is. No one has ever said that the subway extension will be used mostly by walk-ins and not drivers or bus riders...hence the massive bus terminals and parking lots. Sure, you can naively believe that subways are only for "urban" places where everyone walks to the station, but this is not even the case in the 416. Criticizing the extensions because most people will take cars or buses to the station and then suggesting they should be on GO instead, where they'll be even more dependent on using cars to get to the station, is completely ridiculous. It also neglects the fact that transit's share will rise over time.
So now you're arguing that VCC at full built out form would be adequately serviced by busses?????
Yet you still think that a subway is a must?!?!?! You've just proved my point that the VCC and RHC plans exist soley to give legitimacy to the subway extensions. Way to discover sustainable development York.
Yikes, spend the time reading instead of spamming question marks. You were talking about an LRT up Jane. Some of the developments in York will happen whether or not the subway is extended. Richmond Hill will soon run out of land. The greenbelt and the province are working towards reducing sprawl. People are slowly readjusting to multi-unit homes. Vaughan has already built a dense suburban area in Thornhill. Richmond Hill has been intensifying Yonge for years. Etc., etc.
You've missed my point. It's not that because there is the Steeles west plan that we shouldn't be expanding to VCC it is that you said that Steeles west is a wasteland while VCC is a mecca of urbanity. Both are empty fields, parking lots and giant warehouses right now. I'll believe both developments when I see them. You just like the VCC plan because,
a: it supports your support for the Spadina extension. and
b: it actually has a name VCC and has been marketed to people as going to be this magnificent mini downtown.
You were the one that offered me the choice between the VCC and "a field with a UPS Depot". I'm pointing out that currently there is a CAT dealership on the site of the planned VCC. Either compare planned futures or present you can't say "well VCC will be amazingly urban (in a few decades), but Steeles west is a wasteland" If the subway has the ability to affect change at hwy it has the same ability to affect change at Steeles west.
And FWIW yes I am aware that CAT is planning on leaving in a few years.
I did not use the word urban at all, and you're conveniently ignoring the fact that most riders will not be walk-ins. Both areas are currently wastelands but VCC is slated to be larger, with more jobs (and jobs are much better than condos at generating transit rides). But, again, forget the developments: the lack of good connections to the 407, Hwy 7, and Viva are what make Steeles a useless terminus when good connections can be built at the next and final stations north of Steeles.
With that said. Eventually there will be a need for a subway to VCC and RHC but there is also a need now and in the future for improved regional rail. We should have worked on the improved regional rail first.
Well, too bad. They're both getting built and they both need to be built (edit - and by both I mean the subway extensions and the improved GO). York Region is just going to have to put up with subway extensions, vastly improved GO service and regional rail, and all kinds of local service like LRT and better bus routes. Poor York Region!
