MrsNesbitt
Active Member
@tj pootertoot
Meh. Overly ambitious top-down planning which more than likely won’t come anywhere close to the expected employment, population, transit mode share numbers. Similar to other “centres†in the GTA. Funds are finite, we have numerous transportation infrastructure priorities, and light rail has been embraced worldwide for its cost-effectiveness in the RT department. Why build big to (more than likely) get medium? Oh right, to “prevent sprawl†(which has already been prevented with Greenbelt legislation); as well, to thwart the crazy notion of transferring between modes at Finch Stn (which isn’t really crazy at all, and would be thwarted regardless with interlined DRL-RH RER in place).
Although your statement is logically unsound, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Rather pointing out that John Q will be stuck with the very hefty bill for little other reason than to give a region some higher towers than they could’ve gotten with a realistic and affordable transit system in-line with their pre-existing auto-centric, low-density, suburban environment. And I guess to also have the region temporarily put off tackling realistic growth management strategies – strategies which tend to come about regardless.
This is the reason Toronto has a threadbare transit system.
Thank you for making this argument 44, because I would love to be making it here too if I had more than a few minutes per day to spend perusing UT.
There's a lot of optimism in the plans and renders that I've been seeing thrown around here and I have real serious doubts about how most of this massive development, supposedly housing tens of thousands of new jobs and residents, will pan out. Like 44 has stated quite a few times, this is no different whatsoever with the faulty logic that has led us to such "premium dense cores" as Scarborough or Etobicoke City Centres. To repeat the same process over and over again and expect a different result is the very definition of unsound reasoning.
Anyhow, the billions of dollars spent throwing a subway to a single "newly developed core" could far better be spent elsewhere in this cash-strapped region. I'd like to see a subway go to the already-proven dense downtown - the actual downtown, in the form of a DRL. Because besides a few piecemeal extensions here and there to ensure a better set of hubs for surface route connections, like BD to Cloverdale, or yes, Yonge to Steeles, the DRL is (in my opinion) the last heavy rail subway that should be built in the GTA for a long time, unless the face of this region changes in an extremely dramatic way. Subway is rapidly approaching a point where the benefits just can't justify the exorbitant cost anymore. This region needs to start embracing a proper S-Bahn style system of GO RER for travel to and from further-flung areas, with the associated lower costs and higher speeds. Any other expansion of rapid transit needs to find a less expensive and more suitable mode than subway - perhaps LRT, which we've as-to-yet never given a fair chance in Toronto (until Eglinton opens).
I don't honestly believe that there is benefit in spending billions of dollars to pour more riders from York Region down the already-full tube that is the Yonge Line (and by the way, all of the illustrious "ridership projections" and "requirements for subway capacity" have shown absolutely zero strategies for what the supposed tens of thousands of new riders on the Yonge Line are going to do when they enter a line already at capacity - there's a glaring, glaring problem staring us all right in the face that I'm seeing no solutions for). If Richmond Hill wants rapid transit to deal with its "new downtown core" - and we'll see how that turns out - then perhaps it should justify it first by upgrading the Yonge VIVA route to LRT and waiting until the traffic on that route approaches crush loads. Here's a hint: with anyone who is heading downtown from Richmond Hill taking RER as they should be, instead of piling on the TTC, it's not going to happen any time soon.
Oh, and if York Region starts to design plans for urban growth centres that can't be accomplished without subways from transit agencies that they don't own, operate, or pay for, then they need to get their priorities straight and find their own solutions, or else buy into GO RER a little more. Vaughan was enough.