The proposed subway to Richmond Hill has an odd history as transit projects in the GTA go. Normally, we are lucky to see anyone pay attention to any scheme for a decade or more, but this subway has gone from a gleam in local organizers’ eyes (and a website) to a top priority transit project with amazing speed.
Along the way, the whole idea of “alternatives analysis”, that pesky part of an “Environment Assessment” that is only a memory, is completely absent. It’s a subway or nothing. That’s unfortunate, to say the least, because the whole idea of Metrolinx was to plan on a regional basis, to see how everything fits together and where money would be best spent to improve a transportation network.
The Richmond Hill subway snuck through into the new, fast-track transit project assessment process before Metrolinx had even approved the final version of the Regional Plan. Somebody wants a subway really, really badly.
As I have said in a comment thread elsewhere, I am not convinced that this line is a good idea especially when there are alternative ways to get people into central Toronto from the same catchment area as the subway extension. York Region itself has (had?) plans for an LRT network as an end state for VIVA, although I have never taken them particularly seriously. This may change once there is some real LRT running within Toronto, but as long as it’s an unknown quantity (or worse, something whose “best” example is on St. Clair West), nobody is going to take the mode seriously.
An argument can be made for an extension to Steeles as a way to relieve the bus congestion feeding into Finch Station, but there is some point where a subway has to end. We cannot keep building a subway north on Yonge Street until we find ourselves in Lake Simcoe. The demand simply isn’t there, and at some point the idea of a one-seat ride becomes laughable. Indeed, even going to Richmond Hill, many travellers will depend on bus feeders or commuter parking to access the subway, and the quality of their trip will depend a lot on the amount of local transit or the scarcity of parking. This problem is already familiar to GO Transit riders.
GO Transit, for their part, plans to upgrade service on their Richmond Hill line to 15 minutes peak, 30 minutes off peak. This is not the same as frequent subway service, and it will only take people to Union Station, but this is an important part of the mix of services in the corridor.
All the same, any review of the proposal needs to assume that it will be built and that whatever impact this has on the network will have to be addressed. If we are going down this path, we need to understand the consequences.
In the sections to follow, I will review the TTC report and presentation from December 17. Parts of York Region’s original EA for this area make interesting reading, especially the ridership forecasts.
The TTC report raises a long list of co-requisites to the RH subway project, and in some quarters this is interpreted as footdragging by the Commission, roadblocks to a project they don’t want to build. I will review these points first.
Capital funding must continue to be provided including replacement streetcars and timely implementation of the Transit City Lines.
The TTC’s worry is that so much capital is being sucked up by projects to extend rapid transit service, that the rest of the system, and in particular the LRT/streetcar portion of it, will simply fall off of the table. Personally, I am fed up with big-ticket subway projects soaking up every cent of available subsidy, giving politicians a chance to show their “support” for transit while building little that benefits the region as a whole. We can debate the merits of the Transit City lines (the network needs some fine-tuning, like any new proposal), but the momentum to build the first lines must not be lost. Otherwise, we will be repeating the “one subway per decade” style of “planning” that has stunted Toronto’s transit growth for many years.
Capital funding for rail yard expansion, an additional yard, a larger subway fleet and greater Yonge-Bloor station capacity must be in place.
This part is rather interesting because, depending on which part of the package you read, the need for additional cars and yard space varies quite a bit along with the reason for providing it.
Automatic train operation must be fully funded and operational.
The TTC managed to bamboozle various governments into accelerating funding for ATO on the grounds that it was an absolute requirement for expansion of the subway system. However, the TTC is now trying to downplay ridership growth and claims that today’s level of service will be quite adequate for opening day to Richmond Hill. This shell game has to stop, and I will look at various demand estimates in the next post of this series.
The cost of property for the extension, estimated at $125-million, must be eligible for Provincial funding.
A little-known part of recent machinations at Queen’s Park is that transit project costs fall into “eligible” and “ineligible” categories. The effect of this is to push part of a project that might otherwise be fully funded Provincially onto the local agencies and governments. The spin-masters try to give the impression that the locals will gold-plate their projects without Provincial oversight, but the real effect is that 100% funding really isn’t 100%.
A Brief Review of the Design
For the convenience of readers who don’t know the details (available in the documents linked above), here is a brief summary.
The existing terminal at Finch has a three-track section that extends some distance north from the platform. This will eventually be used as a turn-back point during the AM peak much as trains now turn back northbound at St. Clair West Station.
The line will be extended in box tunnel a short distance north to the first new station at Cummer/Drewry. From here it will continue mainly as a bored tunnel (like the line from Eglinton to Sheppard) with stations at Steeles, Clark, Royal Orchard, Langstaff/Longbridge and Richmond Hill. Station areas as well as adjacent crossovers and storage tracks (Steeles and Richmond Hill only) will be cut-and-cover.
There will be a large underground bus terminal at Steeles Station, and an equally large one at Richmond Hill where the subway, bus terminal and GO rail station will all sit side-by-side.
The line will be underground except for the crossing of the East Don River south of Royal Orchard Station where a new double-deck bridge will carry both Yonge Street and the subway over the river valley.
Cummer/Drewry Station
Cummer/Drewry will be a simple line station with minimal provision for connection to the two surface routes that now run down to Finch Station.
One intriguing part about the map of this station (page 14 in the presentation) is the proposed new road layout extending the North York Centre ring road further north. Why this is even shown as part of a subway extension plan, I don’t know, and it certainly should not be built as part of a transit scheme.
Steeles Station
Steeles Station is an odd duck in the overall scheme. It is not the end of the line, far from it, and yet the station will have a 26-bay underground bus terminal (page 15 in the presentation). This terminal is huge, and the platform is over 1,000 feet long. Luckless souls whose buses use western reaches of the station will find they have an immense walk just to reach their bus from the subway.
This design comes about through two factors. First, the nature of adjacent property is that most of the platform must be west of Yonge because of property constraints to the east. Second, the TTC appears to be trying to avoid having to expropriate commercial property on any of the four corners.
Even with the offset placement, a problem lies east of Yonge Street where the ramp structure (one of three) into the station requires road widening and property taking.
The project advocates need to explain both why we need such a huge terminal here at Steeles, and how it can possibly function when travellers must undertake long treks to reach their bus bays. The word “accessibility’ comes to mind.
Finally, if so much bus service will focus on Steeles Station, this should be the logical point for a short-turn service, not Finch which will become a relatively minor station.
Clark and Royal Orchard Stations
Both Clark and Royal Orchard are minor line stations, and projected demand for the latter is so light that it may not be built.
Langstaff/Longbridge Station
Langstaff/Longbridge station lies just south of Highway 407. Its raison-d’être is the large block of Hydro land west of Yonge Street that could hold a 2,000-space parking lot.
Richmond Hill Centre Station
As the line leaves Langstaff, it swings east of Yonge Street to meet up with the GO Richmond Hill corridor. The intent is to have a major transit hub at Richmond Hill including local YRT and VIVA services, GO, the 407 Transitway and the subway. A 28-bay bus terminal will serve this station.
Additional details of the proposed stations can be found in the report and presentation.
Demand Patterns
In the next installment of this series, I will look at the various demand estimates for the Yonge line and the effect of new riding on the existing route.
Steve Munro 
Gee. Perhaps they’ll want to go all the way to Sutton and Jackson’s Point. After all, if the streetcars did it….
It really makes me wonder what sort of transit system Toronto would have had if the decision was not for a heavy subway under Yonge, but a Boston-style streetcar system with double-track above ground service west towards the wilds of Etobicoke and north to Richmond Hill (as was actually planned).
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A few quick comments:
The overbuilt bus terminal at Steeles leaves me wondering if we mightn’t see a situation analagous to Sheppard (i.e. a staged line truncated in perpetuity). Your thoughts?
Where in the planning/design process are project staging considerations examined/determined?
Steve: I suspect that any idea of “staging” is utterly out of the question to project advocates because it raises the possibility the line might not make it past Steeles Avenue. That said, the gigantic bus terminal simply does not make sense.
Steve, I’m furious at your suggestion that the RH line is superfluous. The need is clear. Please redirect your attention to more reasonable debates, such as: (a) future alignment options through Aurora, (b) tunnel options under Lake Simcoe, and (c) whether the line should turn west at Cochrane or continue north along the ONR ROW to service Moononee.
Steve: This would require further revamp of Bloor-Yonge station to provide a pre-boarding area for sleeping car passengers.
Your insight, knowledge, and wit and an example to us all. Cheers
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Hi Steve,
While I agree with you that the Yonge extension to Richmond Hill is not warranted and should not be an urgent priority. However, the extension to Steeles should be made an absolute priority.
The TTC’s BRT from Steeles to Finch proposal is ludicrous. The amount of TTC and YRT buses that travel for that portion as well as the local/express mix make a BRT scheme useless, and result in worse congestion on Yonge. The subway extension to Steeles is the only viable option to relieve this.
Finch station at rush hour is ridiculous to the point where now almost every weekday there is a police officer directing traffic out of the TTC bus terminal. The Yonge-Finch area is over built to be an end terminal to the subway.
Steeles is the natural choice to extend as it will mainly shorten the ride of many TTC riders as well as relieve traffic on Yonge. Ridership to Steeles is already at subway levels so in terms of cost, it is most effective to stretch the line to Steeles.
I attended the public meetings for this extension and myself and others kept asking the TTC to do this in phases by extending the line to Steeles first, and then do RHC later on, but TTC/YRT seems to not like this idea and wants the line built entirely and opened entirely at the same time. Is there a reason why we can’t phase in this extension?
York Region should have continued with it’s plan to build VIVA BRT/LRT on Yonge. My main problem with the extension to RHC is that it actually encourages more sprawl by shortening the commute of suburban residents that would be better serviced by GO transit.
Steve: You may have seen that in other replies on this thread, I have noted that there is an argument to be made for a Steeles extension as a replacement for bus congestion. From there north is quite another matter.
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It’s no surprise that you’d come out against this extension. As I’ve said before, all paths do not lead to Union. If Union Stn was located at Yonge and Eglinton, then yes, I’d say, forget the subway extension … but it doesn’t.
Personally, I think this extension should have been up and running in 1990, but having said that, aren’t you guilty of a double standard? It’s OK for TC to skip the technology alternatives, but it’s not OK for an obvious route extension to an existing subway technology to skip the process?
The TTC grid system is riddled with enough transfers already. Do we need to add more? Do we have to tack on an RT (or LRT) to Finch only to find it constrained in 20 years like the Kennedy/SRT situation? Is this a 905/416 us/them situation? The world does not suddenly end at Steeles Av. you know. If tomorrow, the province extended the borders of Toronto to Hwy 7, would you then say that the subway should stop there? Can you tell by driving along Yonge where Toronto ends and YR starts? This is the same kind of garbage we used to see with the old City of Toronto and North York.
An extension north would start to push it when the trip time from the terminus to Union would be about an hour — and we’re nowhere near there yet.
I think the extension should proceed, but only with a concurrent downtown relief line to solve the passenger travel patterns that have emerged since the TTC foolishly insisted on running a system contrary to its basic design.
Steve: My opposition to this extension is that it is being proposed in isolation from other necessary changes in the network, and because the premise that we can keep extending subways indefinitely is flawed and needs challenging.
At some point — Steeles, Richmond Hill, Barrie — the subway must give way to something of lower capacity and better regional coverage. A transfer is inevitable somewhere. Even GO passengers will increasingly be dependent on a local bus to get them to their trains.
I am very concerned about the question of where the YUS demand originates and where it is going. Clearly with the volume of buses northbound from Finch, there is solid demand to Steeles. North into York, do we really need a subway, or is this the place to start an LRT network that can serve not only commuters to downtown, but local travel within the 905?
I will turn to demand issues in a separate post.
As for the DRL, you know that my position is that it should be built sooner rather than later not just for capacity, but for redundancy of route choices out of the core area and avoidance of choke points like Bloor-Yonge.
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Steve wrote, “Somebody wants a subway really, really badly.”
Very true, and here is my speculation about part of this desire: to squeeze out Veolia. I won’t name names here, but from some “political communications” involving my website, it appears that some politicians on York Council do not exactly have a liking to Veolia. While the day will come for their contract to be cancelled, I suspect the only way to cut them down a bit is to replace some of VIVA’s service with something of a “higher order” system. LRT probably would not do it, because if it were branded as VIVA, I suspect the contract with Veolia may give them right of first refusal to operate it. Extending the TTC’s subway would mean that the TTC, and not Veolia, would operate it.
This seems rather petty, as it would only displace 6 km of VIVA’s operations, but I think we are dealing with some very petty individuals who would want to spend billions of taxpayers’ money to stick their tongues out at Veolia.
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The place at which the subway must give way to something of lower capacity and better regional coverage, is the place at which the built urban form subsides and the city is no longer a dense agglomeration.
Steeles is not the point at which that takes place now, and it will certainly not be the point at which that takes place in the future — even without all the development projects that have been in abeyance for years while the TTC gets its act together on the subway. (On which, I would suggest having a word with any of the car lots that line Yonge St. headed north. Among many other landholders.)
Finally, the idea of “local travel within 905” ignores the actual travel patterns of those of us who live in the immediate southern portion of the 905. Nothing magical happens at Steeles. Most of our “local travel” patterns criss-cross that street with abandon, and on a constant basis. Willowdale and Thornhill are stitched together at least as tightly as (and probably far more so than), say, Thornhill and Woodbridge. Or Thornhill and Richmond Hill, for that matter.
Slippery slope arguments are no less a fallacy in transit planning than anywhere else. Sneering about Barrie and Keswick in the same breath as talking about Clark Ave. is merely laziness — a refusal to attend to the actually-existing details of how we interact in the urban agglomeration which, some will be surprised to learn, spreads across more than one municipality.
Steve: In the course of various discussions of a possible Richmond Hill line, we have seen its proposed northern boundary creep up to Richmond Hill Centre. Given York Region’s appetite for subway construction, joking about Barrie is not entirely out of context.
I can imagine some future debate about a VIVA North LRT in which someone says that it won’t fit on the street in the built up area, must therefore be underground, and therefore might as well be a subway extension rather than an inner part of a larger LRT network.
Having said that, the real issue here is the behaviour of demand now and in the future. A big problem with the subway is that it’s great for moving people up and down Yonge Street, but local demand in both the outer 416 and the inner 905 has many more places to go, in particular, in the east-west direction. We keep hearing about how transit will reduce auto congestion, but the lines we propose to build mainly address core-oriented travel, not the auto trips that are poorly served, if at all, by transit today.
At the same time we are providing new, relatively comfortable rides from Richmond Hill to downtown via the subway, we are chewing up capacity that is needed further south. We need to understand how this might be avoided by providing additional parallel capacity to various parts of the Yonge Street corridor.
The cost of those parallel routes is part of the overall network cost, and we should not lowball the spending needed at the network level as a ruse to get one part of it funded.
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I was thinking abour Royal Orchard and Clark stations, and I think if this line does get built these stations should be roughed in and wait for the density to come in first. Of course I think extending the subway this far out is a joke.
The Richmond Hill line has some potential south of Oriole, and north of Union. I think that a station on Eglinton is what the doctor ordered and I think it will encourage people not only to avoid the Yonge Subway, but also to keep the car at home for people going north on the DVP. A lot of people are buying condos in the Wynford-DVP area, and the direct 20 second drive to the DVP is the top selling pitch. They have their own cutoff from the southbound DVP and their own on ramp on the DVP northbound.
Getting back on topic, why was Veolia given the contract to provide services to YRT’s VIVA? Is a subway the only way they can get out of the contract? Providing a couple of KM of service, at the multi billion dollar range. How much would it cost to just eliminate the contract all together? More political garbage from people who think the billions we pay are their own money.
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To Calvin H.C.: York can perfectly get rid of Veolia by themselves. The garage and buses that VIVA currently uses are owned by the region, not Veolia. Veolia only provides the drivers and maintenance staff. If YRT/VIVA really wanted to get rid of Veolia all they need to do is wait for the next contract renewal and either find someone new, or bring it under their own operation.
Now back to the topic:
I’ve ridden Yonge Street many many times in the past 2 years. The 60ft articulated VIVA vehicles are running at 4 minute intervals down Yonge (once you add in Pink service, and I haven’t even mentioned all the other local YRT routes joining at odd intervals down Yonge). VIVA Blue is packed (many standees just leaving Finch!) as it is, and we’re currently scrambling to order a number of articulated buses to try and cope with demand. The spare ratio is incredibly low for the articulated buses, that is how much they are used.
For Yonge Street, there is a very narrow ROW. The two lanes in each direction is often backed up, and expansion is impossible because properties have been built right to the edge of the sidewalk, and also I’m sure residents would have been thrilled to see the historic Thornhill district be demolished for those 3rd lanes. There is no room on the surface; therefore, underground is the only option (as an elevated guideway over Yonge is probably not the best idea.)
If we go to your beloved example Transit City, what line are we finding is too tight to fit on ground, so it’s going underground? … why that reminds me of Eglinton. Have we not been hearing numerous whispers about subway technology for that corridor? Well, there’s argument for LRT there because there is no existing subway along that corridor, but what’s at the south end pointing northward but two subway lines?
Steve, I’m not at all saying we should always be extending the subway at every possible place (in fact I’m a huge fan of LRT like you are), but the Yonge corridor south of RHC is extremely busy and all the points above make a very good argument for a subway extension. I’ve heard it mentioned many places that it’s the only place in the GTA that has density and demand to support a subway that isn’t already served by one.
Steve: The Transit City discussion does bear on this in the sense that there are corridors with heavy demand and no place on the surface for construction. The question, then, is whether we should use a technology that demands full grade separation or one that can come to the surface where space and operations permit.
If we were looking at both lines into York Region (VCC and RH), then clearly the RH line outshines VCC by a wide margin as a corridor where there is already greater demand. The important word here is “corridor”. Many people are on all those buses because the only alternative is a half-hourly GO service that charges a separate fare and only runs in the peak period/direction.
Yes, there are also riders whose destinations are not conveniently served by a trip from Richmond Hill to Union, but the usage at stations north of Steeles (which I will address in the next post) is overwhelmingly at Richmond Hill with Langstaff in second place thanks to the parking lot.
Coming back to the comparison between Eglinton LRT/subway and the RH line, Eglinton is underground where it needs to be and then on the surface where demand is lighter and road space permits. It would never be built as a full subway because we could not possibly afford that technology all the way from Kennedy to the Airport.
As I have said before, if the RH line is built, we need to understand the full impact including the need to provide alternative capacity in the corridor wherever possible. Getting rid of bus parades on Yonge Street only to overload the central subway system is not a valid tradeoff.
TTC staff are playing fast and loose with demand projections and claiming that no additional subway service will be needed right out to 2017. This fantasy allows proponents of the RH line to understate the full cost and impact of their scheme, and threatens the whole Metrolinx plan with the unexpected appearance of high-priority projects to deal with the overcrowding.
When I see this sort of behaviour, I have to distrust everything about the proposal, even the parts that superficially make sense. A full, open debate will bring out the details so that we can all agree on what is really needed.
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(Note – there seems to an unusual formatting problem on the comments – the left hand margin narrows progressively as you scroll down.)
Steve: What browser are you using? It’s working fine for me on both IE7 and Safari.
I’m not that familiar with the area around Yonge & Hwy 7.
I would say that there are fixed costs with any rail extension project – so building a short distance carries a greater fixed cost per distance. The Hwy 7 and Yonge area is ultimately going to be more of a transportation hub than Yonge & Steeles.
Today, we are wondering why the platforms at Yonge and Bloor are so small. We’re wondering why the ‘LRT’ loop an Union is so tight. We’re already spending money rebuilding the subway platforms at Union. In 20 years, will be asking why the subway ends at Centerpoint Mall?
Steve: Actually, the platforms at Bloor-Yonge were widened some time ago. The proposed three-platform option mainly transfers space from the current wide side platforms to a new centre platform. The total amount of space is not increased.
Both ends of the station are constrained by footings of adjacent buildings that limit the platform width.
The LRT loop at Union is so tight because TTC engineering flatly refused to look at any alternative. They actually claimed a much higher hourly capacity in the loop while ignoring two vital facts: the tight radius causes swingout of cars that limits the useable platform space, and the demand pattern is bidirectional requiring segregation of pedestrian flows in the connecting tunnel. They were told this would be a problem when they designed it by people like me, but chose to ignore our comments.
Union is tight again because of underground constraints that have now been removed at considerable expense.
This is not to excuse a lack of foresight, but if we built every piece of infrastructure for demands that might show up in half a century, we would waste a lot of money. The worst problem in all this is that we chose not to build transit when much of the 905 was undeveloped, and we now have a built form that is very hard to serve.
Why is Veoila running VIVA? That would seem pretty simple: they won the contract in the tendering process. The contract goes for 5 year (per my understanding) – anyone can bid on the renewal after that.
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After re-reading your post, it’s very hard for me to picture multiple LRT services heading north from a Steeles Stn. that branch out east and west on Hwy 7 and every major road in between. That’s simply not the way our grid system works … unless you want to force two transfers on everyone heading to the subway. Is that what you’re advocating for? … east-west light rail … transfer to north-south light rail … transfer to subway at Steeles? Come on! Tell me specifically how your LRT network feeding into Steeles Stn. would work.
Rather than come out against this, it’s better to push for the concurrent construction of the eastern leg of the DRL to Queen and Yonge. But, if I remember right, you said that should be built as light rail as well.
Steve: I believe that the DRL is a long-overlooked part of our future network. The question turns on the demand that the line must carry. If it is in subway territory, then this should be a subway line, but if LRT, then don’t overbuild and take advantage of the fact that there will be a large LRT network with which this could connect and share equipment.
As you will see later in this series, I believe that the DRL should extend north to Eglinton. We can talk about technologies separately.
Up in York Region, one might argue for a selectively underground LRT system much as we are planning to do in Toronto. I don’t see anything wrong with, say, three major services heading up Yonge and then fanning east, north and west at Highway 7. That’s what the VIVA network does anyhow, and probably what a VIVA LRT network would have built were it not for the subway extension.
As for grid systems, just look at the way any TTC subway station, especially terminals like Finch and Kennedy, distort the “grid” of routes around them. We don’t force people to transfer from the Steeles bus to the Yonge bus just to get to Finch.
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M. Briganti Says:
“The TTC grid system is riddled with enough transfers already. Do we need to add more? Do we have to tack on an RT (or LRT) to Finch only to find it constrained in 20 years like the Kennedy/SRT situation? Is this a 905/416 us/them situation? The world does not suddenly end at Steeles Av. you know. If tomorrow, the province extended the borders of Toronto to Hwy 7, would you then say that the subway should stop there? Can you tell by driving along Yonge where Toronto ends and YR starts? This is the same kind of garbage we used to see with the old City of Toronto and North York.”
There was a study done in the late 60’s or early 70’s about transit ridership versus one seat or ride with transfers. The cities that had the highest transfer ratio also had the highest per capita ridership. Could it be that with a grid system it is possible to get to a destination without having to go down town. Transfers make travel more convenient if the lines have a frequent enough service. Running a myriad of lines that cover all possible travel routes actually makes for a more inconvenient service.
I believe that a frequent service on GO from Richmond Hill with a convenient transfer at Shepard and Leslie to the Subway and at Union would be more cost effective than extending the subway all the way to Richmond Hill. It would get people downtown in 40 minutes. A 15 minute service of 12 car trains could carry 8000 people per hour per direction from Richmond Hill to Union at a far more cost efficient service than the subway. For those who wish to go onto the Yonge subway build an LRT or BRT on Yonge street that connects to the Richmond Hill Transit Centre and Steel’s Station. Yes I believe that an extension to Steeles is reasonable, especially since the track already goes about 1/3 of the way there.
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On the idea of making the subway “ready” to add stations easily – I’d like to note this was done in the 70’s with North York Centre, as well as Glencarin, and Yonge Blvd on the Yonge line. In the 40 years since then, only 1 of those three has actually seen a station come out of it. We could wait until 2088, of course, to see the other two in action, but I think the answer to “does this work” is clear.
Steve: I assume you speak of a possible station at Glencairn and Yonge as we already have one on the Spadina line.
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@Steve: “In the course of various discussions of a possible Richmond Hill line, we have seen its proposed northern boundary creep up to Richmond Hill Centre. Given York Region’s appetite for subway construction, joking about Barrie is not entirely out of context.”
Ah, but you’re forgetting the Province’s Green Belt legislation, essentially freezing development through York Region to what was site-plan-approved at the time of passage. The areas between Oak Ridges and Aurora, Aurora and Newmarket, and Newmarket to points north will not be allowed to develop in the way that Richmond Hill, Markham, Vaughan etc. have been. At some point this will lead to intensification throughout the 416 and YRT “Zone 1”.
I’m not going to suggest I rationally support the YS extension to Richmond Hill – I want it but that’s purely for selfish reasons. I’d have been satisfied with the Yonge BRT that was proposed (and engineered to detailed-design level) for Yonge south of Highway 7. (This project was killed by local politics – http://www.peterkent.ca/6panelsubway.pdf.) In fact, I’d be most happy to see GO’s service to Richmond Hill bumped up to frequent service, but the Doncaster grade separation and the track twinning through the Don Valley is going to cost a lot… And walking from Oriole to Leslie Station is a pain in good weather.
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What I find to be the biggest hole in the argument lies in the capacity expansion angle. The projections for Yonge with a DRL drop dramatically from anywhere between 36K-42Kppdph (depends if you go by TTC or Metrolinx figures, respectively) to only 25K-26Kppdph, which is less than the demand placed upon the line today, estimated at 27-28Kppdph. With proponents saying that the DRL will still be built later anyway, the question that seems to be flying under the radar is “why should we spend of billions of dollars on capacity enhancents for Yonge to support this extension if the measures are only going to be needed temporarily!?”
We cannot save money by not building a DRL, in the east it is going to be required at some point. However, we can save billions by not investing in these capacity enhancements that would not be necessary if the DRL east is built first, something that, by Metrolinx’s own projections, should be quite obvious. That brings it back to Steve’s original point: Somebody really wants a subway to Richmond Hill.
Steve: This is precisely the argument I will be making later in this series.
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On the bright side, even the TTC will have to acknowledge that tunnelling is impractical once we’ve hit the permafrost line.
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I say we build this thing out as far as they want. Let it bombard Bloor-Yonge with people, let the TTC learn the error of their ways by overloading the station and the system with more people that it can handle. I would love to see the Subway and the RT be overloaded due to insufficent capacity. I would love to see train, after train, after train go through the stations with people packed in like sardines making the trains unable to board simply because some half brained, half thought out idea was put into practice without thinking of the consequences/ long term rammifications as per usual. THEN AND ONLY THEN will we get to see some real action on things such as the Downtown relief line in order to ease congestion and provide more capacity in Toronto without kissing the butts of the MP’s and MPP’s of the 905.
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While it is true that VIVA buses are running every 4 minutes (combined frequency) down Yonge street, even if you factor in the articulated vehicles, there are many routes in Toronto that are much more frequent, and yet have no relief in sight. Dufferin, King, Finch East come to mind. If anyone was motivated to do so, a very quick link could be provided between Richmond Hill Centre and Downsview Station via Hwy 7 and the Allen Road in order to relieve pressure on Yonge Street, and the same could be done to divert passengers coming through the Promenade Terminal while trying to make use of the Spadina subway and planned busway therefrom.
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Andrew C wrote, “If YRT/VIVA really wanted to get rid of Veolia all they need to do is wait for the next contract renewal and either find someone new, or bring it under their own operation.”
Absolutely, which makes the obsession with subway expansion all the more questionable. To put it as simply as possible, when I began promoting LRT over subway expansion in York on my website, a certain politician involved with the transit board and Subwaynow, made inquiries about who I was. The inquiries made the implication that I was really a certain individual who was on the board of the York Region Rapid Transit Corporation (4286847 Canada Incorporated, the official name of the operator of VIVA).
Why someone who wanted to promote LRT over subway for their own benefit would create a pseudonym that actually existed in the phone book is beyond me. Suffice it to say that I have no affiliation with any of the operators or YRT itself. I simply believe (from careful analysis) that a pre-metro LRT network in York Region, costing no more and likely less, than the proposed subway extensions would serve more people in a wider catchment area with less need for car use and ultimately a faster commute than a pair of relatively short subway extensions.
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Steve wrote: “One intriguing part about the map of this station (page 14 in the presentation) is the proposed new road layout extending the North York Centre ring road further north. Why this is even shown as part of a subway extension plan, I don’t know, and it certainly should not be built as part of a transit scheme.”
It could be that they believe that the tunnel construction between Finch and Cummer/Drewry would be so disruptive to vehicle traffic, both car and bus, in the area that a bypass would have to be built before they could start. However, that doesn’t really explain why they also want to extend Doris avenue to Bishop as part of the extension.
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That’s good … your argument is harder to refute if you take it one step further and make a *specific* alternate pitch.
Say that in exchange for the extra transfer, and for roughly the same amount of money, the TTC can take the subway to Steeles, and from there YRT can build two LRT routes on its own without having to rely on the TTC …
a) Steeles Stn. to Elgin Mills Rd. & Yonge (dipping underground where necessary)
b) Steeles Stn. to Hwy 7 & the 404 (Markham Business Park)
Next, you’ll have to convince them that these services would be more than just electric buses on steel wheels — just trying to get you to think like the enemy 😉
Steve: I make a point of “thinking like the enemy” all the time. However, I try not to write too many posts that suggest there are dark conspiracies everywhere.
As for electric buses on steel wheels, well, if the demand for service is so light that it can be handled by a bus route, why do we need a subway extension?
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I got a few points regarding the extension of the Yonge line to Richmond Hill Centre:
1. The turnback should be at Steeles rather than Finch. Currently riders of the 53/60 have 2.5 minute service on the subway, their trip down Yonge will be eliminated, but they now have to wait almost 5 minutes for a southbound train and have a 3 minute subway ride to Finch. I am not sure they will be winners in this situation.
I ride the 60 to the subway every morning during rush hour and the trip on Yonge is pretty much always around 5 minutes and there is always a train waiting for us at the platform. With the subway only operating every 5 minutes southbound from Steeles, I would forgo the 5 minutes but gain on average 5.5-6 minutes of subway wait/ride time.
Besides why should the riders of 42/53/660/125 get shafted for the benefit of the riders of 36/39. Is the whole point of the turnback at Finch so that those “pesky” 905ers don’t crowd the trains?
2. The proposed interline of routes 42/125 is a terrible idea. The service on the 42 is erratic at best because the route is relatively long, while the service on 125 is exemplary. As an example, last Friday about 9 p.m. right after the big snow storm I was at Finch Station waiting for the 60 and I saw the 125 depart right on time at 9 p.m. Then I saw 3 42 buses arrive at the same time and I believe 1 of them left. At 9:15 on the dot the next 125 showed up at the platform ready for departure. All of this was happening and there was still no 60. So I took the 125 to get home.
I fear that if the 42 is interlined with the 125, the service on the 125 would become erratic and at times unusable. I also don’t think there would be too many people (except maybe some students) who so dearly need this interline that they can’t simply change buses at the new Drewry/Cummer Loop.
Also, I don’t think that the interline will save any buses, so it wouldn’t provide any operational efficiencies.
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Steve says:
“Cummer/Drewry will be a simple line station with minimal provision for connection to the two surface routes that now run down to Finch Station.” “One intriguing part about the map of this station (page 14 in the presentation) is the proposed new road layout extending the North York Centre ring road further north. Why this is even shown as part of a subway extension plan, I don’t know, and it certainly should not be built as part of a transit scheme.”
From the Yonge Subway extension information session,…. as I recall, they’re showing the proposed new road layout extending the North York Centre ring road to show where it would be relative to the bus loop they plan to build to support the existing two surface routes that will no longer be going down to Finch,… in other words, that they considered the future extended North York Centre ring road and that it wasn’t feasible for the two surface routes so they’re going to buy some properties to build a bus loop.
David Arthur Says:
“On the bright side, even the TTC will have to acknowledge that tunnelling is impractical once we’ve hit the permafrost line.”
Where’s the permafrost line,…. they’re talking about building a 68 mile underground tunnel below the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. Oops,… think I’m giving too many ideas to those York Region and TTC subway planners! All aboard,… if you fall asleep on the northbound Yonge subway, you might end up in Russia! 🙂
Steve: This project has the makings of both a Northern Development and International Trade route. Think of the subsidies that will be available!
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On Steeles Station Steve Says:
“This design comes about through two factors. First, the nature of adjacent property is that most of the platform must be west of Yonge because of property constraints to the east.”
Yeah,…. property constraints like an Esso gas station at the north east corner of Yonge and Steeles,… can you say Ka-Boom!
“Steeles Station is an odd duck in the overall scheme. It is not the end of the line, far from it, and yet the station will have a 26-bay underground bus terminal (page 15 in the presentation). This terminal is huge, and the platform is over 1,000 feet long.”
“Even with the offset placement, a problem lies east of Yonge Street where the ramp structure (one of three) into the station requires road widening and property taking.”
These ramps structure in the middle of the road (example would be like the Streetcar ramp on Spadina going into Spadina station just south of Bloor,… ditto for streetcar ramp on Queen’s Quay near Bay Street) near the Yonge – Steeles intersection will be all 4 entry to the intersection except the south side. I’m scratching my head trying to wonder why on earth they would need a bus ramp along Yonge coming from the North from York Region? Hello, their main reason for putting in this subway extension along Yonge is to get rid of the heavy bus traffic,…. but why is York Region still running buses on Yonge? The distance between Clark station and Steeles isn’t that far,… so have the bus go to Clark Station,… or another station further north.
BTW, why does the TTC still run the 97 Yonge bus on Yonge in the daytime when the subway is working??? The 97 bus comes along every 30 minutes during the day and it’s often empty without any passengers,… I can always count the number of passengers on that bus on one hand!
“The project advocates need to explain both why we need such a huge terminal here at Steeles, and how it can possibly function when travellers must undertake long treks to reach their bus bays. The word “accessibility’ comes to mind.”
Simple,… when coming up with this Yonge Subway extension plan to Richmond Hill, the planners only considered the current system of bus traffic along Yonge between Steeles and Finch. That volume is around 350-650 buses per hour during rush hours (I still can’t find where I put those numbers). It’s extremely heavy bus volume,… and no wonder, all the buses along Yonge from north of Steeles, buses along Steeles West and buses coming from Steeles East. Not just TTC buses but Go, Viva, YRT and other buses from York Region.
Is this underground Mother of all Mega bus terminal overkill,… YES! The Yonge Subway extension planners (ie York Region!) did NOT factor in York Regions (ie their own) promise to divert bus traffic off the 100% full capacity Yonge Subway line onto the […] Spadina subway line (80% capacity). Remember when the […] Spadina subway extension was announced in 2004 to […] Vaughan Corporate Centre,… the main reason they used to justify that line instead of extending Yonge was that Yonge line was already operating at 100% capacity while Spadina line was 80% capacity and York Region would be diverting buses away from the Yonge line and onto the Spadina line to help make the Spadina line feasible!!! The Yonge Subway extension planners (ie York Region!) also did NOT consider the new proposed LRT along Finch West that would alleviate a lot of the current transit traffic along Steeles Avenue West coming onto Yonge. Likewise they didn’t take into consideration the new Don Mills LRT running along the northern part taking transit passengers to the Sheppard Subway line and thus to Yonge. In other words,… this Yonge subway extension plan did not consider the future network,… hey, isn’t that’s what Metrolinx and you guys want to do,… see how new lines fit into the network,… now and in the future.
Steve: You raise an intriguing point here. How much of the potential demand on the Spadina VCC subway has been siphoned off by the availability of a line all the way up Yonge Street?
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Cummer/Drewry station is WAY too close to Finch Station, 0.8 km between Cummer/Drewry & Yonge to Finch & Yonge.
Also the second last station is TOO CLOSE to the Richmond Hill Centre, it is placed beside a cemetery……”Hello Ms. Janet Smith, I hate to tell you this but we have to dig your dead grandfather for our subway”.
Those two last stations are on each side of the 407, the one on the south side is been built because of that new community that doesn’t exist (between Cementery and the 407). They are building a passage way to Richmond Hill Centre from that community under the 407…So why do they need the station south of the 407? Either than that parking lot……..it is going to be huge and if you are the sucker that is forced to park at the END of the parking lot, during weather like we have been having in the past week……..it will be bad.
Why can’t they just build that passage under the 407 for people to walk to the RHC and add the parking lot to the RHC and make the RHC the Union Station of York Region?
RHC and that second last station are technically like Spadina station and Lowther station (if you get the drift).
Steve: Originally (see York Region’s 2005 EA), the northern end of the line was to be Highway 407, and the large parking lot at Langstaff. Without that parking lot, the station would be a minor location on the network.
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Steve:
“You raise an intriguing point here. How much of the potential demand on the Spadina VCC subway has been siphoned off by the availability of a line all the way up Yonge Street?”
What potential demand on the Spadina VCC subway? Was there really any to begin with???
As I recall, back in 2004 when they first announced the Spadina subway extension (with no assumption of a Yonge subway extension),… the projected volume of passengers was 80,000 and that was greatly inflated by diverting some of the York Region buses away from the existing 100% full capacity Yonge Subway line stopping at Finch and onto the new 80% capacity Spadina subway extension.
At the final Yonge Subway extension information presentation earlier this month at Mitchell Field, someone asked the lead technical presentor (Tom Middlebrook, Owner’s Engineer, McCormick Rankin Corporation) about the expected volume of passengers once both lines are finished on both the Yonge Subway extension and the Spadina Subway extension; his answer was that the expected volume of passengers on the Yonge subway extension at opening would be about 80,000 passengers per day “conservatively”,… and that the expected volume of passengers on the Spadina subway extension would also be “about the same” (80,000) passengers per day as well. If you listen to the webcast at http://www.vivayork.com – System phases / vivanext subways – webcast – December 3, 2008 – Q&A; you’ll hear the lead technical presenter saying “about the same” quite hesitantly.
Translation: York Region is saying the potential demand on the Spadina VCC subway WILL BE UNTOUCHED by the availability of a line all the way up Yonge Street! Do you believe that???? I don’t. These are basically two parallel subway lines! The Spadina subway extention is only 4 to 8 km away from Yonge Street.
York Region says once both the Spadina subway extension and the Yonge subway extension are complete, the passengers who are between the Yonge subway extension and the Spadina subway extension would be routed towards the Spadina subway extension. This amount to about 2700 to 2800 passengers per day (according to York Region and TTC report). That’s very small,… so York Region is saying the Spadina subway extension will service 77,000 passengers a day without diverting these in between line passengers???? That’s ignoring everyone in York Region east of Yonge,… who would be using the Yonge line. BTW, at Hwy 7,… 2 out of 3 buses goes to Yonge coming from the east.
Think about it,… so basically someone living at Hwy 7 and Bathurst going to work downtown at Yonge and Queen will be “routed” away from Yonge (2km east) and be forced all the way to the Vaughan Corporate Centre at Hwy 7 and Jane (6km west) to take the Spadina subway extension (going south east – east a total of 8 km) down to Union and hook back up to Yonge and Dundas. How much longer time is this going to take then just going east 2km to Yonge and then taking Yonge subway down to Dundas?
The only time the Spadina Subway extension from Downsview to VCC (Hwy 7 & Jane) will ever possibly see 80,000 passenger in one day will be on December 26,… when people go up to VCC (Vaughan Costco Centre!) for boxing day sales at all those big box stores up there!
The thought that they can create a Vaughan Corporate Centre with office buildings is ridiculous to say the least,…. see the article in the Toronto Star that said how business were actually avoiding Vaughan because of the disfunctional politics up there. Look at the Sheppard subway line there hasn’t been any new office building built there because of the subway,… but there has been a number of condos! In fact look at Yonge between 401 to Finch, 10-15 years ago North York City had wanted only office buildings built onto Yonge Street with Yonge street frontage and condos built behind these office buildings away from Yonge (along the North York centre Yonge ring road),… since then there’s only been one new office building built on Yonge and a whole lot of condos with Yonge street frontage,.. because there’s no demand for offices,… only demand for condos on subway lines!
Nobody is surprised that the Spadina subway line was extended to York University since York University have been crying for one for decades,… but even the technical engineering experts from York Region were shocked that it actually goes north of Steeles to VCC!
Mike Vainchtein Says:
“Besides why should the riders of 42/53/660/125 get shafted for the benefit of the riders of 36/39. Is the whole point of the turnback at Finch so that those “pesky” 905ers don’t crowd the trains?”
Think about it,… for the Steeles Avenue EAST and WEST buses which run on the border between the city of Toronto and York Region, half the passengers live north of Steeles and are “pesky” 905ers that enjoy much lower municipal taxes that don’t financially support the TTC. Because the cash fare and metropass does not fully finance the operation of the TTC and the higher municipal property tax of city of Toronto residents are used to finance the operation of the TTC,… use Toronto residents are really subsidizing these “pesky” 905ers using our TTC service.
Steve: For the record, this is the same Tom Middlebrook who concocted the fantastical explanation of why LRT wasn’t considered for the Spadina extension. He claimed that it was already rejected in a previous EA. Hmmm. The EA in question was dealing with the loop subway proposal where, quite obviously, any alternative technology wouldn’t work since the whole idea was to get rid of the subway terminals.
In fact, LRT was never examined or given a fair chance in the whole process whose purpose was to railroad a subway line as the only “suitable” option.
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I just got done looking at the link in PSC’s entry and I’ve got to tell you that I never dreamed that I’d be reading anything promoting a rail transportation proposal and actually not agreeing with it. If the proposal only called for an extension to Steeles my position on it would be a resounding HELL YEAH but but to extend the line any further north I say a resounding HELL NO!
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With respect to Langstaff/Longbridge, I should point out that the other half of the justification for this station appears to be some fairly significant redevelopment in the parcel bounded by Langstaff, the 407, Yonge and Bayview. This is shown in the TTC presentation (both as a conceptual plan and in the FSI maps).
The question is what the likelihood is of this redevelopment happening, and happening at the densities shown. Even if it does occur as shown, most of it lies outside the walking distance radius, so it will need a decent feeder bus service if a significant proportion of riders are to be attracted to that station.
Steve: I am reminded of Bayview Station where a cluster of condos sits considerably south-east of the automatic entrance to the station, a very, very deep entrance served only by an elevator that may or may not be working and no escalators. You have to be very fit to want to use this entrance on a regular basis.
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Wow! The 28 bays at Steeles is absolutely insane! Here’s why: someone I know calculated that that combined, the TTC and YRT/GO terminals combined have 27 bays, including unloading bays. At Steeles, at a minimum, you would lose the 36 Finch West, 39 Finch East, 42 Cummer and 125 Drewey buses, even if it stopped at Steeles, and probably most of the 401-based GO buses that terminate there (Milton/Oakville/Oshawa). So we’re down to perhaps 20 bays at most if the subway terminates at Steeles.
If the subway is extended past Steeles, you wouldn’t need the Viva platforms or the Markham 300-series express buses, or the GO Newmarket B express. So why are 28 platforms proposed at Steeles? You probably need 10 at most – for the TTC 53 and 60 (and maybe the 97 and 98), and the YRT 91 Bayview, 99 Yonge local, 23 Thornhill Woods and 88 Bathurst buses.
I also find that the estimated costs of building subways here have gone through the roof ($2.4 Billion), and unnecessarily so. The additional $800 million in contingencies is incredible – and if you know you have that much extra money, most of it will likely get spent. Subways shouldn’t be that expensive. Sheppard was about $1 Billion – and that was a brand-new line with complex tail tracks and connections to the Yonge Line, and having to build a brand new three-platform station above a working station and below a busy intersection. A simple extension shouldn’t cost as much as proposed here.
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Madness! When will people understand that subways need a multitude of destinations in a closely-knit environment to work? You cannot extend them indefinitely into an ever thinner landscape and expect them to work. Outside of rush hours they would be dead.
Queen/King is where new subway is actually needed and makes sense.
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Steve say:
“For the record, this is the same Tom Middlebrook who concocted the fantastical explanation of why LRT wasn’t considered for the Spadina extension. He claimed that it was already rejected in a previous EA. Hmmm. The EA in question was dealing with the loop subway proposal where, quite obviously, any alternative technology wouldn’t work since the whole idea was to get rid of the subway terminals.” “In fact, LRT was never examined or given a fair chance in the whole process whose purpose was to railroad a subway line as the only “suitable” option.”
Steve ask yourself,… how much would an engineering company get for a ground level LRT line at about $40 million per km? How much would an engineering company get for a expensive underground subway line that cost 8 to 9 times more per km? The $2.63 billion 8.6 km Spadina Subway Extension is coming in at $305.8 million/km. The proposed $2.4 billion 6.8 km Yonge Subway Extension works out to $352.9 million/km. How much would Tom Middlebrook (Owner’s Engineer, McCormick Rankin Corporation) and his engineering buddies make on a subway multi-Billion dollar underground subway project VS a multi-Million dollar ground level LRT project?
BTW, for comparison sake,… the $1.1 Billion (actually can in at just under $1.0 Billion when completed in 2004 but in 2008 dollars it work out to $1.1 Billion) 6.4 km Sheppard Subway line works out to $171.9 million/km.
For the Yonge Subway extension from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre here’s the final Project Cost Estimates (2008 dollars)
$650 million Stations and Area Facilities
($5 million Finch Improvements)
($70 million Cummer/Drewry)
($195 million Steeles)
($70 million Clark)
($65 million Royal Orchard)
($85 million Langstaff/Longbridge)
($160 million Richmond Hill Centre)
$600 million Tunnels, Special Structures and Operating Systems
$240 million Subway Trains
$110 million Storage and Maintenance Facilities for Subway Trains
$675 million Engineering and Other Costs
$125 million Property
—————————————
$2,400 million $2.4 BILLION total
On the $2.4 BILLION 6.8 km 6 station Yonge Subway extension from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre,… the biggest cost is the $675 million for Engineering and Other Cost,… that’s what Tom Middlebrook and his engineering buddies will get!
The 6.4 km 5 station Sheppard subway line costed a bit under $1.0 billion in 2004 (factor in inflation and that works out to $1.1 billion in 2008 dollars). Less than half of the projected cost of the 6.8 km 6 station $2.4 billion Yonge subway extension. http://lrt.daxack.ca/LRTvsHRT/CostCompare.html Huh,… did I miss something here? Why did the cost of building a 6-something km underground subway line all the sudden more than double within the last 4 years?
Seriously,… I really want to know why the 6.8 km 6 station Yonge Subway extension from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre is projected to cost more than double the cost of the 6.4 km 5 station Sheppard subway line completed just 4 years ago.
– Both uses the same construction techniques – tunnel boring machine for the tunnels and Cut and Cover at the subway stations
– Both of them had to deal with the Don River East,… the Yonge subway extension choose to build a bridge over it,… Sheppard subway line dug under it at Leslie that’s why Leslie station is so deep,.. along with Bayview and Bessarion
– The Yonge Subway extension includes a mega underground 26 bay bus terminal at Steeles,… the Sheppard line has a very large underground bus terminal at Don Mills.
– The Yonge Subway extension includes a large Union Station of the North terminal at Richmond Hill Centre,… but the GO station and Bus terminals are already there today and are quite new so they don’t need to be built.
– The most challenging part of building the Sheppard Subway line was placing the new East-West Sheppard Subway station directly on top of the existing North-South Sheppard Subway station on the Yonge Line,… all without distrupting service while passengers were still using Sheppard station on the Yonge Line! At the intersection of Yonge and Sheppard, during construction the whole intersection was just a big hole in the ground!,… right on top of the Yonge Subway line,… they had to build a temporary roadway for Yonge beside this huge hole,… and another temporary roadway for Sheppard too! There is absolutely nothing on the proposed Yonge subway extension that even comes close to the kind of complexity at the Sheppard-Yonge Subway station.
True, the Sheppard Subway line now uses only 4 car trains instead of 6 cars,… and thus most of the station along the Sheppard lines have subway platform finished for 4 car trains even though the subway station and platform are built long enough for 6-7 cars like regular subway station. What’s the difference between the proposed 6.8km Yonge Subway extension from Finch to RHC and the 6.4km Sheppard subway line??? Are you telling me,… to put another 2 car length of “bathroom” tiles on the subway platform walls (100 ft) at the 5 stations along the Sheppard line will cost $1.3 BILLION???? What are these tiles made of? GOLD or Diamonds???
Why is the 6.4 km 6 station Yonge Subway extension from Finch to RHC coming in at $2.4 BILLION??? Is it because some idiots in Ottawa and Queens Park are willing to pay $2.63 BILLION of OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS for the 8.6 km 6 station Spadina Subway extension from Downsview to VCC (Vaughan Costco Cente – land of big box stores)??? Folks,… the 2 and a half BILLION dollar cost of just ONE of these subway extension SHOULD BE ABLE TO PAY FOR BOTH SUBWAY EXTENSION! Folks,… your tax dollars at work!,… and TTC Chair is afraid to fully back the Yonge Subway extension because he fear the $2.4 billion price tag can balloon to $4 BILLION!
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In a resposnse to a previous comment Steve posed the idea of a selectively underground LRT network for York.
Because of the narrow width of Yonge Street up into Richmond Hill this section would have to be underground. What is the cost differential for building this section as LRT rather than as a full-fledged subway as YRT and York Region would like?
Steve: Tunnels tend to cost about the same regardless of what you are going to run in them, especially because everyone wants to build them with the capability of future subway conversion. Some savings may be possible in stations, depending on how long you make the finished portion and whether you provide two full exits or only one regular exit plus an emergency alternate for fire code purposes.
The main advantage is to get back up to the surface when possible. If you look at the York Region EA from 2005, you can get some idea of the design north of Richmond Hill Centre (warning: large PDFs).
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The Hwy 407 & Yonge intersection in Richmond Hill has a unique collection of attributes and assets that position it as a logical location to develop as a transportation hub of major significance.
The Hwy 407, and Hydro Grid right-of-way at this site provide both near-term and future East-West options for mass transportation expansion. The intersection of the TTC Yonge Subway and GO Transit rail lines are an important attribute of this new hub that could develop on the scale of Kipling.
While not large in rider volume, this location could also serve as an interchange stop for inter-region trains – the Ontario Northlander and VIA trains – also running on the Bala sub.
The confluence of these physical attributes are unique and could provide for the efficient and timely interchange of passengers between systems.
We need to rise above political geographic boundaries of the municipalities and make public transportation quick and efficient across these boundaries and throughout the Toronto region.
I feel that the Yonge Subway extension to this hub point is a very important project to develop this hub and that should be funded from all levels of government. It seems like an ideal project for federal infrastructure funding of major proportions.
My principle concern with the project is the meager station plans for Richmond Hill Center/Langstaff.
I feel that the separate physical stations for TTC and GO, joined by a bridge will not ensure a quick and easy interchange, and will squander the future potential of this important hub location.
It is clear that the TTC is intending to use this project to fund a very elaborate bus hub at Steeles, but attention to developing the RHC as a hub seems absent.
Please don’t squander the potential of the Richmond Hill Hub.
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Kevin Reidy asked about the cost of an LRT tunnel in Richmond Hill compared to a full subway. Steve mentioned, “The main advantage is to get back up to the surface when possible.”
If an LRT were to be build all the way to Elgin Mills, the only section that would need to be tunneled is between Major Mac and Crosby. This would be about 1.3 km, as the tunnel would need to begin south of Major Mac and continue to just north of Crosby. Thus, the Major Mac and Crosby Vivastations would be underground.
In my proposal for an alternative to building subways into York Region (see http://lrt.daxack.ca/YorkRegion.html for the current outline), I only propose going to Major Mac on this line, but I am working on a revision that will go to Elgin Mills with this underground section.
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Brent stated: “With respect to Langstaff/Longbridge, I should point out that the other half of the justification for this station appears to be some fairly significant redevelopment in the parcel bounded by Langstaff, the 407, Yonge and Bayview. This is shown in the TTC presentation (both as a conceptual plan and in the FSI maps).
“The question is what the likelihood is of this redevelopment happening, and happening at the densities shown.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081226.ROB1PG46/TPStory/?query=toronto
I issue you a challenge: find the name of the developer of the land between Holy Cross and the 407. That should answer your question about the likelihood of it ever occurring. 🙂
On a separate comment, tt should be noted that Tom Middlebrook, for the purposes of the TTC-led EA for the Spadina Subway Extension, was not an MRC employee at the time. He was the lead within the TTC. He’s not greasing skids for the consulting engineering world; he’s responding to political reality.
To better understand the drive for this subway, you should take note of who issued the Notice of Commencement of the study.
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Kevin Reidy Says:
“Because of the narrow width of Yonge Street up into Richmond Hill this section would have to be underground. What is the cost differential for building this section as LRT rather than as a full-fledged subway as YRT and York Region would like?”
Steve says:
“Tunnels tend to cost about the same regardless of what you are going to run in them, especially because everyone wants to build them with the capability of future subway conversion. Some savings may be possible in stations, depending on how long you make the finished portion and whether you provide two full exits or only one regular exit plus an emergency alternate for fire code purposes.”
So you can build tunnel for LRT now and later (when demand increases on that line) with minimal conversion use this tunnel to run conventional subway trains. Oh course, we’ve never seen this done in Toronto since we don’t have LRT, yet.
What I’m now wondering is,… can you go backward? Can you convert a current subway line to a LRT line? Basically can the current Sheppard Subway line with 4 car trains be converted with minimal cost to a 4 car LRT line??? Can this be done using the same tracks? Same (subway) station platforms? Same tunnel height or will more space needed for LRT overhead cable line/rod? Can LRT use the subway’s third rail for power? The reason, I’m asking is because one of the top 3 priority LRT Transit City lines the TTC have identified is the Sheppard LRT line from Malvern/Scarborough Town Centre to Don Mill Station. Passengers talking this future Sheppard LRT line westbound would need to get off at Don Mills to transfer onto the Sheppard Subway to continue their westbound trip. Ditto for those going eastbound from Sheppard Subway at Don Mills to eastbound Sheppard LRT. But if the Sheppard Subway line was converted to LRT, it would be one continuous LRT ride from Malvern/Scarborough Town Centre to Yonge.
Things to consider would be,… by the time the Sheppard LRT line is finished from Malvern/Scarborough Town Centre to Don Mills station would the passenger volume on the Sheppard Subway line justify a Subway system on Sheppard between Yonge and Don Mills station. What about by the time the Don Mills LRT line is completed? Will the Sheppard Subway line ever see a real 6 or 7 car subway train???
Steve: Conversion of the Sheppard subway to LRT is one of the options seriously under consideration, although for politicial reasons I doubt it would ever happen. There is, I am told, enough headroom for overhead, but one issue is the conversion of existing platforms for use by low floor cars.
As for 6 or 7 car trains, no, the Sheppard line will never have that kind of demand. I can hear the cries now about my pessimism, but if Sheppard were such a critical link in the network that its demand ever built up that high, we would have far more serious problems elsewhere.
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Persuant to the comment on conversion of the Sheppard line, I have an out-there feasability question:
If the Sheppard line were converted to LRT and extended west to Downsview at grade, would it be possible to use the at-grade traction to facilitate RH-to-Wilson carhouse moves (aleviating the potential requirement for an overbuilt tunnelled connection?).
To be clear, I’m not proposing running a third rail down Sheppard West (although it would add an atmosphere of electricity to the character of the street), but rather some other means of propulsion over the section (maybe caternary mounted on select subway cars?)
The street ROW seems wide enough to accomodate subway cars on-street and considering that this would only happen several times a day (off-hours), wouldn’t impose too much on the local community (might actually have a Sudbury-slag pour tourism effect).
Whatddya think?
Steve: The problem remains that there is no west to north or south to west curve in the subway structure at Sheppad/Yonge. I think that some folks in the TTC are making more out of this connection than it is really worth in an attempt to get funding for the subway extension.
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Steve says:
“The problem remains that there is no west to north or south to west curve in the subway structure at Sheppad/Yonge. I think that some folks in the TTC are making more out of this connection than it is really worth in an attempt to get funding for the subway extension.”
Persuant to Steve’s comment,… Actually, there is a “south to west curve in the subway structure at Sheppard/Yonge”. When the TTC built the Sheppard subway line they also built TWO underground connections (called wyes) on the southeast and southwest quadrant at the Yonge-Sheppard intersection to bring trains in or out of service from Davisville Yard, on the Yonge Line.
This south to west curve (wyes) in the subway structure at Sheppad/Yonge goes to the West Tailtrack of the Sheppard line and is under the Marathon Development site at the South-West corner, which is still an empty parking lot (originally planed to be twin office tower of existing Nestle buildinga at 25 Sheppard West). I’m not sure if there are crossover tracks just south of the Sheppard-Yonge station on the Yonge Line,… but as I recall when a train goes by there it sure sounds like it does have cross over tracks there.
The south to east curve (wyes) in the subway structure at Sheppad/Yonge is at the South-West corner and is under the parking lot of the plaza with the Dominion/Metro and National Gym. This site will be developed by Tridel into the Hullmark Centre consisting of two towers (one condo tower and the tallest office-condo tower in North York) retail interface like the Yonge-Dundas square of the north.
BTW, the north-west corner of Yonge and Sheppard is currently an empty lot (former historic Dempsey building site) with a couple of old two story retail buildings to the north and slated for demolishion and new retail development soon,…. thus it would not be difficult for the TTC to build another wyes going West to North at the intersection of Yonge and Sheppard.
Steve: You have your directions turned around. A “south to west curve” allows a southbound train to turn west. The curves you describe are east to south (eastbound out of the tail tracks to the southbound Yonge line) and north to east (northbound Yonge line to eastbound Sheppard at the crossover east of Yonge Station. No curves exist for trains to travel eastbound on Sheppard from Downsview and turn north to Richmond Hill, nor for trains to make a turn in the opposite direction.
As for the former Dempsey lot, it’s a lot smaller than you need for a pair of curves (both curve radius and grade problems), and you have the added issue that existing station structures are in the way.
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Steve says:
“You have your directions turned around. A “south to west curve” allows a southbound train to turn west. The curves you describe are east to south (eastbound out of the tail tracks to the southbound Yonge line) and north to east (northbound Yonge line to eastbound Sheppard at the crossover east of Yonge Station. No curves exist for trains to travel eastbound on Sheppard from Downsview and turn north to Richmond Hill, nor for trains to make a turn in the opposite direction.”
Ah,… I stand corrected with regards to my directions. No wonder why I never got any boy scout badges! 😦
“As for the former Dempsey lot, it’s a lot smaller than you need for a pair of curves (both curve radius and grade problems), and you have the added issue that existing station structures are in the way.”
Instead of building another pair of curves on the north side of the Sheppard-Yonge subway interchange, why can’t they just use the pair of curves on the south side? “For trains to travel eastbound on Sheppard from Downsview and turn north to Richmond Hill”,… can’t the eastbound train travel past the Sheppard-Yonge station on Sheppard line and slightly past the existing north to east curve, then reverse (driver needs to go to tail end of train) into the existing “north to east” (northbound Yonge line to eastbound Sheppard at the crossover east of Yonge) curve (travelling the opposite way on the curve) onto the northbound Yonge subway line and now with the head of the train facing north (driver goes back to head of train) will proceed into the Sheppard-Yonge subway station’s northbound platform and head north to Richmond Hill Centre,… effectively using the existing “north to east” curve to go east to north,… this would be a subway’s version of a 3 point turn!
Like-wise, for trains to make a turn in the opposite direction,…. a “south to west curve” allows a southbound train to turn west,…. “For trains to travel Southbound on Yonge from Richmond Hill Centre and turn west to Downsview”,… can’t the southbound train travel past the Sheppard-Yonge station on Yonge line and slightly past the existing east to south curve, then reverse (driver goes to tail of train) into this “east to south” (eastbound Sheppard line to southbound Yonge at the crossover west of Yonge) curve (travelling the opposite way on the curve) onto the eastbound Sheppard subway line west of the Sheppard-Yonge station. Ahhh,… but now the train is now backward on the eastbound track west of Sheppard-Yonge station! So driver stays at former tail of train which now becomes head and is now facing west on eastbound track. To correct this the TTC would need crossover tracks west of Sheppard-Yonge station on the Sheppard line west of the existing “east to south” curve, so that this train can get on the westbound track to proceed to Downsview,…. with it’s former tail being it’s head now.
Don’t tell me all the other interchange subway stations like Bloor-Yonge and St.George have all 4 curves going everywhere,… north to east, east to south, west to north, and south to west. All these “north to east”, “east to south”, “west to north”, and “south to west” curves are just right hand turns! Steve, when you were a kid, didn’t you ever have those really cheap battery powered “remote controlled” toy cars that had wheels that only went forward or backwards and couldn’t turn at all,… but it had a weird small fifth wheel hidden underneath in the middle that was diagonal to the other four wheels and was only activated when the car went into reverse and forced the car to turn. The only way to turn these toy cars was by going in reverse. Basically,… this is the same cheap fustrating principle here.
Steve: Somewhere in the series of posts, this is exactly the sort of move I described. The constraint is that it can only occur at the start or end of service hours when it would not conflict with regular service.
And when I was a kid, I had a model trains.
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