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Can someone explain the reason why there won't be rapidways or streetscape improvements in the heritage area?
 
I couldn't agree more. Richmond Hill Centre and VMC (the 2 most important terminals in the region) are extremely underwhelming. They're supposed to be the "gateway to the york region" terminals but just comes off as a huge lack with terrible service and confusing infrastructure (I mean when you got BT's 501 Zum providing 6 minute service during peak time, 4 times more frequent than YRT's own equivalent BRT, you know there's a huge problem). Anyways, Promenade, Vaughan Mills, Pioneer Village, Bernard and even Finch are decent at best with what all of them purpose in their respective areas, but still lack compared to other terminals in other regions
YRT is all sizzle, no steak. Brampton, OTOH, is doing a great job building ridership by increasing frequencies.
 
Can someone explain the reason why there won't be rapidways or streetscape improvements in the heritage area?
Literally isn't enough room. The area can barely fit 4 car lanes as it is (one of the lanes is pretty much exclusively used for on-street parking), and even if you narrowed the road to just one lane with the other lane being for busses, you still have no room to fit any stations in. Not to mention that Yonge Street is still a major through street so closing it to traffic would cause a ton of problems for the local community, who would have to travel a kilometer east onto the already crowded Newkirk St. and Major Mackenzie Drive just to bypass downtown. It would be an absolute disaster. Early renderings suggested a tunnel under Yonge Street for the busses to bypass the heritage area (since the only stop there is on Crosby Avenue), but that hasn't come to fruition. However, if in the future the rapidways get replaced by LRT, or a major service expansion is done, its likely that the heritage area will have a tunnel underneath.
 
The Yonge Street lanes through Richmond Hill are the one set of lanes that will actually have significant amounts of service on them, at least.

YRT's Highway 7 services are rather lacklustre, but even that I see improving over time, even despite YRTs terrible management.
 
Literally isn't enough room. The area can barely fit 4 car lanes as it is (one of the lanes is pretty much exclusively used for on-street parking), and even if you narrowed the road to just one lane with the other lane being for busses, you still have no room to fit any stations in. Not to mention that Yonge Street is still a major through street so closing it to traffic would cause a ton of problems for the local community, who would have to travel a kilometer east onto the already crowded Newkirk St. and Major Mackenzie Drive just to bypass downtown. It would be an absolute disaster. Early renderings suggested a tunnel under Yonge Street for the busses to bypass the heritage area (since the only stop there is on Crosby Avenue), but that hasn't come to fruition. However, if in the future the rapidways get replaced by LRT, or a major service expansion is done, its likely that the heritage area will have a tunnel underneath.

I wonder if building a tunnel between Major Mack and Elgin Mills is a good idea? If they plan it out and build it right, when this is converted to an LRT, they could just lay the tracks without rebuilding it.
 
I wonder if building a tunnel between Major Mack and Elgin Mills is a good idea? If they plan it out and build it right, when this is converted to an LRT, they could just lay the tracks without rebuilding it.
the prices for that would be astronomical considering the short stretch of road that is mixed. not to mention you would have to go deep in order to prevent disturbances to the centuries old church buildings
 
meh, it'll be difficult. really expensive to do a TBM when the narrow section only really goes up to Crosby, so I would reckon cut/cover would be the decision, but that'll really kill the traffic through central RHill, plus there's probably some sort of utility stuff underground that'll be a horrible pain to move considering all the heritage stuff around
 
I wonder if building a tunnel between Major Mack and Elgin Mills is a good idea? If they plan it out and build it right, when this is converted to an LRT, they could just lay the tracks without rebuilding it.
IMO tunnelling under Downtown Richmond Hill is about as good of an idea as tunnelling under Downtown Brampton
 
I wonder if building a tunnel between Major Mack and Elgin Mills is a good idea? If they plan it out and build it right, when this is converted to an LRT, they could just lay the tracks without rebuilding it.
It'll probably be best to do so when the LRT is needed. As it stands, you're going to dig underground, spend billions of dollars, and spend extra billions maintaining a tunnel that won't see much use for a while. As much as I'd love an LRT
IMO tunnelling under Downtown Richmond Hill is about as good of an idea as tunnelling under Downtown Brampton
Brampton's different since its an LRT, and unless you're planning to shut down main street for on an street LRT, or are going to have the LRT run in mixed traffic (both of which are terrible ideas), tunnel is the only way to go.
 
^ Actually, the HMLRT EPR proposed a dedicated lane for the LRT between roughly Wellington and the Brampton GO Station on Main. It would have used one of the car lanes that's used a lot of on street parking. So the LRT in this stretch would not have been in "mixed traffic". Want to see the drawing?
 

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