[aquateam]

It's a shame we never bundle suburban subways with intensification. I'm sure the BCRs would improve substantially if everything within walking distance of the stations was upzoned thoughtfully.

IIRC, one or two towers were proposed for the golf course to the south west of that intersection.

Looking at the map again, it actually looks like Royal Orchard has at least as much redevelopment potential as Clark, maybe even more: 6-8 towers for Clark, 8-12 for RO.

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Isn't intensification already planned for all these sites? Cummer/Drewry is part of "North York Centre", and I read that the plan was being extended north to Steeles.

I remember being shown the Langstaff Gateway Secondary Plan and being impressed by the amount of density planned.

The new subway alignment does a good job of placing "Bridge station" closer to the centroid of this plan.

Same thing with the Richmond Hill Secondary Plan, although it doesn't seem to be as well-developed yet.

So the only two stations where I'm not aware of any intensification planned (yet) are Clark and Royal Orchard. Clark is in a great redevelopment spot, though.

In general, the province should mandate the removal of parking minimums/height limits within 500 meters of any rapid transit station. That alone would probably do more to improve ridership than the construction of tens of billions of dollars of new lines.

 

[Coolstar]

I remember being shown the Langstaff Gateway Secondary Plan and being impressed by the amount of density planned.

If anything, the new plan at least gets rid of the 2000 parking spaces planned at Langstaff that was in the old plan.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Thanks for posting all those in one place.
The north side of Yonge/Cummer is in North York Centre, yes, and the south side is subject to the Yonge North Secondary Plan, which isn't finished yet.
Clark and Royal Orchard are a bit in-between when it comes to the intensification plans in Markham and Vaughan (though both already have apartment buildings).

Any way you slice it, I don't think encouraging intensification will be the challenge here. If anything, based on what we're seeing at Steeles and Royal Orchard, it'll be reining in developers who are already asking for 60 storeys. That's what happens when you announce a subway and then wait 10 years before you start thinking about actually building it...

 

[Undead]

@aquateam I was referring to Clark and Royal Orchard which have much less redevelopment potential even given official intensification plans. There's only so much you can do when everything starting 50 metres away from Yonge is SFH.

 

[Northern Light]

@aquateam I was referring to Clark and Royal Orchard which have much less redevelopment potential even given official intensification plans. There's only so much you can do when everything starting 50 metres away from Yonge is SFH.

Worth noting the province has moved to mandate higher densities around transit infrastructure.

Assuming an MTSA designation (Major Transit Station Area), it should pull densities up significantly as much as 500M away.

 

[Allandale25]

Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) - weighing up the cost of doing something with the cost of doing it. Anything better than 1 is a pass - the Ontario line was around 1.1, increasing to around 1.3 when Transit Orientated Development was taken into account.

Note that none of the options get at least 1 - Option 1 (0.79), Option 2 (0.84) and Option 3 (0.82).

Thanks. I'm now wondering what the difference is between the pre-BCR number and what we now see the options. Is this change shown in the IBC report/supplementary report?

 

[aquateam]

I wonder how much teeth that legislation actually has in case cities fail to zone adequately, and also whether cities are hoping to delaying compliance while waiting for a change of government to avoid meeting those targets.

That's a good point. The Places To Grow act gave density targets as more of a gentle suggestion without any real enforcement. And the targets were laughably low to begin with. It was a "we pinkie swear not to sprawl at a rate any worse than the rate we've already been sprawling in the sprawliest decade in our history" promise with municipalities.

There's been a lot of huffing and puffing about Ford upzoning around Eglinton LRT stations and in downtown, so I would expect that there's some teeth to them. He also brought back the OMB, which was the only reason anything could get built in this province. So it's a fair bet that the legislation actually accomplishes something.

 

[MrGoose]

Seems to me that the government is angling to push forward Alignment 2, preferably with federal and York Region money to build extra stations.

They have the already designed case, their preferred case, and the weird value engineered case.

 

[ARG1]

Seems to me that the government is angling to push forward Alignment 2, preferably with federal and York Region money to build extra stations.

They have the already designed case, their preferred case, and the weird value engineered case.

Tbh, I actually prefer Option 3 the most. Sure its not direct, but what it does is maybe make above ground subway extensions more popular and more common, and it would make future north extensions extremely cheap and easy. Stations like the proposed High Tech station only make sense with Option 3, and based off many diagrams they show us, it really does feel like Option 3 is the one they think they'll end up building.

 

[Rainforest]

It would be strange to aim for densities, and then drop either Cummer of Clark.

Once the subway opens, frequent bus service along that stretch of Yonge will end. From Finch to Steeles, it is almost 2 km. What are the residents of all towers in between supposed to do, if there is no Cummer station? Walk for 1 km? Not a big deal for those in good health and during good weather, but that doesn't cover all people and all situations. Or, should they wait for bus 97, which comes once in 15 min at best?

Steeles to Hwy 7, that's an even longer stretch, although it has much less towers and the density is uneven.

In the LRT discussions, a 800 m stop spacing was considered problematic because of the walking distances, but here, 2+ km seems to be OK ..

 

[Northern Light]

Here's a link. It helps to see the topography if you don't know the area, as there's a big valley to the south.
View attachment 306496

If there's one benefit to this subway extension, it's that it puts developer pressure to make those golf courses disappear

So, you both made me look.............

At the floodplain maps for this area.

Surprisingly, perhaps, lots of developable table land.

Blue is floodplain. So anything still green could, in theory, be considered for development, in whole, or in part.

Lets look at the course on the west side of Yonge:

The potential density here is fair, but its a bit further and more disconnected from Yonge.

It would almost certainly require at least one new bridge across the valley to be efficiently exploited.

 

[Leo_Chan]

I think the idea of the "Bridge-center" station between Highway 7 and Highway 407 is neat. It makes use of that dead space and has great potential for transfers to the Richmond Hill Line. Would it be considered a partially elevated bus terminal? I think the station at High Tech Road is fine as long as there are entrances north of the station to lead to the developments.

As for which station gets picked to be the midblock station, I wouldn't be surprised if none of them are chosen to lower cost. Leading to the 4 km section of tunnel.

I wonder if YRT will widen the Highway 7 Yonge connector road to allow for 2 dedicated bus lanes for Viva Blue to go directly into the new bus terminal? Also, would YRT be angry that their bus terminal building extension will go to waste after 10 years?

 

[Rainforest]

Speaking of redeveloping the green spaces .. one can maintain that Golf Courses take lots of space and serve relatively few people, and therefore should be moved away from the prime land near major transit lines.

But, wouldn't you want to convert them to public parks, instead of just build condos? All those new residents need green space, too ..

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

View attachment 306564

The potential density here is fair, but its a bit further and more disconnected from Yonge.

It would almost certainly require at least one new bridge across the valley to be efficiently exploited.

Yeah, there's land... but you have to go kinda far from Yonge to get to it, which defeats the point. No one wants a condo out where it says "Thornhill Country Club."
As you can kind of see, that row of houses south of the country club and north of the pond and Bridle Path-style, $5M+ houses, up on a hill. I dunno what you can build down below that...
But it's all interesting, the moving pieces here.

Cummer remains a tricky one. What I should do (and I apologize for laziness!) is look at Toronto's draft MTSA delineation (if there is one yet?) for Cummer. I'm not 100% sure how much land there is that's marked for intensification there, that's really outside the Finch and/or Steeles radii. Definitely some, but enough to justify $500M (which is crazy, but that's what they say a station costs)?

 

[Northern Light]

As you can kind of see, that row of houses south of the country club and north of the pond and Bridle Path-style, $5M+ houses, up on a hill. I dunno what you can build down below that...

Nothing. There's no meaningful space east of the Valley, unless you want to buy up and redevelop those homes themselves.

The area outside the floodplain is on the west side.

*****

But the course on the east side of Yonge has much more connected, closer real estate available.

But I imagine you'd see development pressure on this site first:

There's about 4ha/10 acres here that could be massively intensified.