[W. K. Lis]

6 months after this report was published I have heard nothing about transit projects for Yonge north of Finch.
I guess 2012 will be another year of failing to address the transportation issues on this "Gateway" to Toronto.

According to the current administration, transit usage on Yonge Street above Finch Avenue must be less than the transit usage on Sheppard Avenue East. Therefore, Sheppard gets a Subway extension before any Yonge Subway extension. Personally, I would have thought Yonge Street would be getting an extension before Sheppard would. Can someone show there is more transit usage on Sheppard East than Yonge, just to settle my curiosity?

 

[M II A II R II K]

Perhaps they could extend the route with an RT starting at Finch where you have to go up 3 flights of stairs to transfer onto it.

 

[Dan416]

According to the current administration, transit usage on Yonge Street above Finch Avenue must be less than the transit usage on Sheppard Avenue East. Therefore, Sheppard gets a Subway extension before any Yonge Subway extension. Personally, I would have thought Yonge Street would be getting an extension before Sheppard would. Can someone show there is more transit usage on Sheppard East than Yonge, just to settle my curiosity?

I think the only reason this hasn't been built is because it would overload the Yonge line, which means we need to build the DRL first.

 

[BurlOak]

I think the only reason why the DRL is only wanted by people on these forums is because only people on these forums even know the plan exists despite the fact that its existence originates from before I was born.

The best way I can think of to get the word out about the DRL (or any transit plans for that matter) is to get it in front of the average joe and to let people who don't care or have time to browse the web for transit enthusiast forums know that such a plan simply needs public outcry to gain traction as a political machine. Once this becomes a bigger public issue and votes become at play, people will start taking it more seriously.

Most people who know of the DRL, probably think it was some hairbrained idea from the late 1980's. Even the downtown Councillors such as Jack Layton opposed it so the idea just dissappeared from peoples mindset.

The people probably realize that the major problem is crowding at Yonge-Bloor, but they are not aware of the ways in which it might be fixed. They just saw Transit City as adding to this problem and not solving it.

 

[Disparishun]

I think the only reason this hasn't been built is because it would overload the Yonge line, which means we need to build the DRL first.

That's not going to happen anytime soon imho, although it would be nice. What we do need to do is the GO/TTC integration (all-day, station realignment, fare-by-distance) described by others. That will help offload the Yonge line at least somewhat, by diverting commuters in the middle/eastern 905 and middle/eastern 416 to routes that work better for them.

6 months after this report was published I have heard nothing about transit projects for Yonge north of Finch.
I guess 2012 will be another year of failing to address the transportation issues on this "Gateway" to Toronto.

I think things have to get worse -- maybe much worse -- before they get better, and 2012 may be the year in which they do. World in Yonge is supposed to begin retail in 2012 (and residential in 2013), which will create some new demand, and there is of course a lot of other construction going on in the corridor which will help.

As I have said in the past I firmly believe that the Yonge subway extension will not happen anytime soon any more than the DRL will, and maybe not ever, but whether or not my cynicism is well-founded I think it is important to look to other changes that are needed within the corridor. So here are some hopes for 2012.

One, some attention paid to arterial roads. Ongoing changes and enforcement that began 20 years ago and have continued apace along Hilda and Willowdale, and possibly other roads, are starting to build to the kind of virtual moat around the City of Toronto that some have joked about in the past. Between Bayview and Yonge, and between Yonge and Bathurst, there is very little for buses or cars to use road-wise.

This is already a big problem, but it is going to be harder and harder to avoid. I would like to see a recognition that through streets are needed that run from Finch (ideally, from south of Finch) north to the 407 and that are not Bathurst or Yonge or Bayview. Those streets would be ideal routes for some buses to take which currently run along Yonge, but which only end up Yonge as their route to the subway.

For two, of course, steps towards the GO/TTC integration described above, but related to that, a move toward better hubbing. I'm thinking of the Rideau Centre in Ottawa here, so the Promenade bus terminal or even the Vaughan Mills one, getting afield a bit, are the counter-examples. Wherever possible, bus routes should ensure to connect at least two hubs, and each hub should try and work as an actual place. At the Promenade, you have the Disera street experiment (which in a world that made sense would be pulled across Centre and connect the Promenade Shops plazas), and you have the shopping mall. And in between, fenced off and connected to nothing, you have the bus terminal -- cold, outdoors, nowhere to buy coffee. Makes no sense. I get that this is largely due to the facility owners (hello, Cadillac Fairview forward-thinkers), but surely some accommodation can be made.

For three and four, I'll add in more modest fare integration so that it actually made sense for anyone in the Finch-407 corridor to take the bus rather than drive to the subway, and denser zoning to allow Yonge-adjacent land to find its proper value and, in turn, to intensify the obvious case for better transportation options -- which, unfortunately, will not include a subway extension.

 

[nfitz]

According to the current administration, transit usage on Yonge Street above Finch Avenue must be less than the transit usage on Sheppard Avenue East.

That's a York Region report. I wouldn't be surprised if the usage of City of Toronto residents of Yonge north of Finch is lower than Sheppard East. City of Toronto doesn't have to worry about Yonge north of Finch ... that's for Metrolinx or York Region to deal with.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Some good points by Disparishun and I'll just add a few comments:

-IIRC, World on Yonge is doing some interesting stuff. As part of their deal with Markham they're obligated to help lobby for the subway (meaningless, but nice) and I believe they're also chartering a YRT bus, or something along those lines, effectively paying for residents to get to Finch Station, at least for a few years.

-The higher-density zoning is already in place on the entire Markham stretch of Yonge, up to 7, and I lost track of where Vaughan's secondary plan is but it's certainly well along as well. As you point out, there's going to be a major choke point if everyone raises their densities, projects start coming forward and the subway remains a pipe dream.

-Connecting the Promenade terminal to Disera is a good idea. The disconnect is a function of different developers and (very) different periods of development. But it would be nice to see the mall and Smart Centres work to bridge that gap, making the terminal more of a hub and the space between Disera and the mall a little more inviting.

-Fare integration of some kind is a no-brainer. It's probably years off but it can't happen soon enough.

-I don't think the DRL will happen first, whether it should or not. The EA for Yonge is ready to go and if funding was announced today they'd have shovels in the ground certainly by the end of the year. The DRL is way, way behind. Things like the ATO and Yonge-Bloor improvements could easily be done during the 6-7 year subway construction and the Spadina extension would be taking at least some of the load off in the meantime.

 

[BMO]

Source: North York Mirror
Date: Thu Jan 26 2012
Page: 1
Section: News
Byline: DAVID NICKLE, dnickle@insidetoronto.com

Pasternak solicits Crosstown cash to build Sheppard subway loop

If Toronto Council and the province agree to change the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT to run above-ground through Scarborough, there will be $1.5 billion in transit infrastructure money that could potentially be spent somewhere else.

Under the plan put forward by TTC chair Karen Stintz, that money would go to help extend the Sheppard subway to the east, possibly as far as Victoria Park Avenue.

But if York Centre Councillor James Pasternak has his way, the money would go to build a subway along another part of Sheppard: west of Yonge, between the Yonge Sheppard station and Downsview station.

"I ran on a campaign to fix that link and to close it in, and it's my view and certainly the view of many that that's the vital missing link in our small subway system," said Pasternak in an interview Thursday. "It would allow our commuters to go without transfer all the way from Vaughan and loop down to Scarborough."

Pasternak's idea to link up Downsview to Yonge would create a loop that in the Yonge-University line north of Bloor. But that logic will have to go against a long list of other political concerns.

First, the line would cost about $2 billion, which is more money than would actually be freed up by abandoning plans to bury the Crosstown line in Scarborough. And it would have to jump queue ahead of the plan to build a bit of the Sheppard east line that proponents are regarding as a face-saving project to bring Mayor Rob Ford on side.

And there are other infrastructure projects that would also be vying for that $1.5 billion - notably, the mothballed Finch LRT plan, which councillors like Giorgio Mammoliti, Anthony Perruzza and Maria Augimeri would promote.

Pasternak conceded he faces an uphill battle for his plan. He has hopes that funding might come from Ottawa to help finish his project, but when he visited Environment Minister Peter Kent at his corn roast last summer, he was told that if any more subway funding was coming from Ottawa, it would more likely be spent to extend the subway north along Yonge into Kent's Thornhill riding.

 

[drum118]

According to the current administration, transit usage on Yonge Street above Finch Avenue must be less than the transit usage on Sheppard Avenue East. Therefore, Sheppard gets a Subway extension before any Yonge Subway extension. Personally, I would have thought Yonge Street would be getting an extension before Sheppard would. Can someone show there is more transit usage on Sheppard East than Yonge, just to settle my curiosity?

If one walks or rides a bus on Yonge, very few riders get on/off a bus between Finch and Steeles.

The bulk of riders on the Yonge buses are deadheading to the routes the buses will operate on e/w of Yonge St.

I have no problem building an extension between Finch and Steeles, as it will save everyone time and money. It will save TTC tons of money having the buses stop at Steeles, than Finch.

I do have a problem taking the line to RHC, as the ridership is not there on the original plan opening date or 2031. Opening day would only see 1,800 riders at peak time compare to the current 775 riders. You would be luckily to see more than 5,000 at peak time come 2031 and that far below the threshold for a subway. Even if you ran 4 car trains in this section to RHC, headway would be 10-15 minutes at peak, 20-30 off peak. Weekend would be 30 minutes.

Never supported the BRT idea north of Steeles, as it should be LRT from day one.

Given the fact there one large development taking place north of Steeles and one to come at Cummer and a fair number in this section, the subway extension has to happen sooner than later to Steeles only.

The Ridership based on on/off on Sheppard between Don Mills and Warden exceeds the ridership on Yonge to RHC now on any opening date service.

To settle your curiosity, you need to spend some time ridding both routes to see what is taking place 7 days a week. Since YRT is going to offer free rides for a month, a good time to do some bus ridding. Take a pad and pencil with you and count the number of riders getting on/off at each stop and count the number of riders on the bus before this section to get a snapshot of what is taking place 7 days a week and at all hours.

That is the way I do my data counting to say what is going on various routes to the point I time the runtime and stops time down to the seconds. Transit planner and schedulers hate having that real data been used against them when backup various claims or statements.

 

[kkgg7]

According to the current administration, transit usage on Yonge Street above Finch Avenue must be less than the transit usage on Sheppard Avenue East. Therefore, Sheppard gets a Subway extension before any Yonge Subway extension. Personally, I would have thought Yonge Street would be getting an extension before Sheppard would. Can someone show there is more transit usage on Sheppard East than Yonge, just to settle my curiosity?

easy answer. Yonge may have more ridership, but look at the map, Yonge line simply won't be able to handle that many people from the middle of nowhere. Those people, living outside the City of Toronto, are supposed to take commuter trains, not subways. You can't move 35 km out of the city and ask "hey, how come I don't get a subway to the core？"

Yonge subway should NOT be extended (beyond Steeles at least) given the resources we have, not before a full DRL is completed. If York Region needs that, it can feel free to pay and construct it. Torontonians don't really need to go to Highway 7 or King City etc.

 

[Dan416]

I always find it odd when people complain that extending the Bloor line to Square One would make it too long. But no one says the same about Yonge or Spadina even though I'm the YUS is longer than BD and is undergoing extension now at one end and possibly the other in the future.

 

[GenerationW]

Source: North York Mirror
Date: Thu Jan 26 2012
Page: 1
Section: News
Byline: DAVID NICKLE, dnickle@insidetoronto.com

Pasternak solicits Crosstown cash to build Sheppard subway loop

Even though it's a huge long shot, this councilor is lobbying for Sheppard to be extended west in his own ward, yet the silence is deafening from downtown councilors regarding the DRL.

Pasternak conceded he faces an uphill battle for his plan. He has hopes that funding might come from Ottawa to help finish his project, but when he visited Environment Minister Peter Kent at his corn roast last summer, he was told that if any more subway funding was coming from Ottawa, it would more likely be spent to extend the subway north along Yonge into Kent's Thornhill riding.

What isn't deafening is the sound of York Region popping champagne bottles.

 

[Chuck]

easy answer. Yonge may have more ridership, but look at the map, Yonge line simply won't be able to handle that many people from the middle of nowhere. Those people, living outside the City of Toronto, are supposed to take commuter trains, not subways. You can't move 35 km out of the city and ask "hey, how come I don't get a subway to the core

Can't you just look at a map? Steeles lies a mere 14 km north of Bloor. With Bloor-Yonge as a home base, it's a shorter subway ride to York Region than it is to the end of the RT.

 

[Dan416]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Or something like that. Hence why we have and won't get a DRL.

 

[canarob]

Can't you just look at a map? Steeles lies a mere 14 km north of Bloor. With Bloor-Yonge as a home base, it's a shorter subway ride to York Region than it is to the end of the RT.

This.

The 416/905 divide is arbitrary. Yonge and Highway 7 to Union station isn't that much farther (under 5KM roughly) than Kennedy Station to Union (let alone the end of the SRT as mentioned above). York Region would need to pay for its share of the expansion. Of course if Metroxlinx were to fund the Yonge extension and the eastern DRL at the same time, all would be good.