Author: vivaNext

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Community Events Fun & Games

Help us wish Canada a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Canada!

VivaNext teams will be out in the community tomorrow to proudly celebrate Canada Day at two different locations.

One of our teams will be chatting up festival goers at Newmarket’s at Fairy Lake for the Kanata Day festivities.  You can start the day with a pancake breakfast from 8am until noon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church near the foot of Main Street in Newmarket. Then be sure to walk to Fairy Lake (Wesley Brooks Conservation Area), where there will also be all sorts of family fun including inflatable bouncers, an extreme bike demonstration, and live entertainment. At George Richardson Park on Bayview Parkway North, fireworks will begin at dusk.

Our second vivaNext team will celebrate the patriotism of the day at Richmond Hill’s Canada Day Celebrations. Be sure to drop by our booth in the Home Show area, 11am-5pm, and have fun with all the live performances, children’s games & inflatables, airbrush tattooing, teen zone, skating demonstrations, beer garden, and fireworks at dusk. It’s all happening at the Richmond Green Park and Sports Complex at 1300 Elgin Mills Road East.

There can’t be a better way to spend Canada Day than with the patriotic people of York Region. See you there!

Categories
General Press Rapidways

Transit ridership is way up: great news for everyone

Viva passengers getting on and off the bus at Warden Station in Markham

If you’re reading this blog, you have likely already seen the news release on our vivaNext.com website, describing the steady increase in transit ridership in York Region. But just to restate, on June 14 we announced that Viva ridership has increased 26% since this service was launched in September 2005. Overall ridership for both York Region Transit (YRT) and Viva Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has increased by 10.5% from January to April 2011, compared to the same period in 2010.

This increase is great news for a number of reasons, whether or not you’re a transit rider.

First, the more people take transit, the more successful our services will be – more riders means more revenue, which in turn can be put back into our route planning and frequency, making services even better for riders.

Second, more people leaving their car keys at home and boarding YRT\Viva means less air pollution for everyone. We all know how important air quality is to our health – especially during hot summer months.

Third, every loaded bus is equal to 70 cars. So even if you’re personally not a transit rider, every time you drive alongside a bus loaded with passengers, that’s 70 cars that aren’t in front of you. The result is less congestion and easier driving for people who need to get around by car.

The fourth, and in some ways the most important reason, is that increased ridership suggests a culture shift – a really important one for the future of this region, and how we manage growth.

There’s no doubt that the culture in York Region, in the past, was quite car-based. That’s not at all unusual in an area that expanded quickly as part of the GTA suburban growth; where new subdivisions were designed for people who travelled by car, and where it was convenient to drive to most places.

But that kind of urban design can only happen when there’s lots of room – room for big wide roads, room for huge parking lots, and room for all the homes and driveways. Not to mention room for all of the cars. With the growth coming to York Region, that design just isn’t sustainable – we don’t have enough room to accommodate everyone without making some adjustments. So going forward, our new growth will be managed with urban, higher density developments, clustered along major roads. These new developments are being planned to make it very convenient for people to live, work and play without needing to get in a car. Our vision is that people will be able to travel between their job, shopping and recreation while using transit.

The fact that our transit ridership is going up shows that our long-term plan is working, and that people are finding it easy to get around by hopping on board YRT\Viva.

With our rapidways and the Spadina Subway extension already under construction, and efforts being made to get funding for the Yonge Subway extension, transit is only going to get better and better, which is great news for all of us.

Categories
Subways

Launch of a connected region

Photo of Holey, the tunnel boring machine for the Spadina subway extension

Friday was a momentous day for anyone who dreams of when it will be easier to get around the GTA. On Friday, we took the first concrete step towards a true regional transit system. This was the day when “Holey”, the massive tunnel boring machine, was officially launched to build a subway connection between Toronto and York Region. On Friday the clock started ticking to the day in 2015, when, without needing to transfer, we’ll be able to buy one ticket, sit in comfort, and travel in and around the GTA to anywhere the subway goes. A momentous day, indeed.

I’m talking of course about the official start of tunnelling for the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension. This new service, when it’s finished in late 2015, will extend the Spadina Subway by 8.5 kilometres from Downsview Station, via six new stations, to a new terminus at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre development area on Highway 7. Vaughan’s new subway station will also link to the Viva rapidways along Highway 7, up Yonge Street and across Davis Drive in Newmarket.

It’s impossible to overstate the important role subway extensions play in connecting GTA regions, and how this first of two north-south subway extensions will change the way people take transit in the GTA. Until now, each municipality or Region has had its own separate rapid transit system, divided by geographic boundaries. In an area like the GTA, where so many people live in one municipality and work in another, having one connected rapid transit system will make life more convenient, more predictable, and much, much easier.

So Friday’s launch was a very big deal.

The subway, which is going to cost about $2.6 billion, is being paid for by the federal government, the provincial government through Metrolinx, The Regional Municipality of York, and the City of Toronto. A joint Toronto-York project team is collaborating to complete the project, and the engineering logistics of how the subway will actually connect to the Viva rapidways in Vaughan is a whole story unto itself, which I’ll write about soon.

We know from research that people love the idea of being able to commute by public transit, if they’re offered a fast, convenient and reliable alternative to driving. So extending subway lines will make a lot of people very happy.

“Holey” will soon be joined by her tunnel boring machine partner “Moley” to tunnel northwest from the Sheppard West launch site toward the Finch West site at Keele. Their twin cousins “Yorkie” and “Torkie”, will soon begin tunnelling southeast from their Steeles West launch site toward York University. We’ll be cheering them on, and judging by the excitement of the onlookers and circling helicopters at Friday’s launch, we know people all across the GTA will be cheering too.

Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension project: www.spadina.ttc.ca 
Subways in York Region: www.vivanext.com/subways 
The Missing Link – business case describing why a Yonge Subway extension should be considered a top priority: http://bit.ly/lFtNaC

Categories
General Rapidways

New fences make good neighbours

Example of paddock-style fencing

As we widen Davis Drive, one of our many priorities is to remember that for many people, Davis Drive isn’t just a busy street; it’s their home or workplace. Keeping that in mind, we’re doing whatever we can to be good neighbours while we build the Davis Drive rapidway.

That’s why last week we started installing paddock-style fencing around 19 properties on Davis Drive. We previously removed the buildings from these properties to make room for road widening, so they’re now vacant lots. Over the winter, they were surrounded by temporary construction fencing, but our intention was always that once demolition was done and warmer weather arrived, more attractive, permanent fencing would be installed.

Besides being attractive, the fencing is functional, keeping the properties secure and tidy. The new fences are set a bit back from the road to leave room for utility relocations and construction activity. As the project continues, we’ll use some properties to store construction materials, to stage crews and occasionally to park construction vehicles.

What will be done with the properties after the rapidway is complete? Well, that depends – each property is its own special case, with many factors for York Region and Metrolinx to consider and ensure the best possible use for the community.

In the meantime, your Community Liaison, Andrea Witty, is often out and about on Davis Drive, so if there’s something about the project that you’d like to talk about, please contact her.

Categories
General Rapidways

Why Bus Rapid Transit?

Warden Station: York Region's first built example of a rapid transit station

With GTA transit issues in the news so much lately, I’ve been asked why York Region chose to build Bus Rapid Transit instead of some other form of rapid transit. To help you understand how we decided to build vivaNext rapidways, here’s a bit of a primer on what BRT is, and why it’s great for York Region.

To begin with, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is defined as a public transit system that provides fast, frequent service, is able to move a lot of people, and runs on its own dedicated tracks or lanes. Other examples of rapid transit include subways and light rail transit (LRT). Some of the biggest cities in the world, including those with huge subway and LRT services, are increasingly turning to BRT as a key way to transport people quickly and reliably. And many major international cities, like New York City, are transforming their rapid transit systems by including BRT, at a fraction of what a rail system would cost. With limited resources and a lot of people to move, BRT is becoming seen as the smartest transit investment cities can make – like “a subway with a view.”

In general, the best BRT services have a number of things in common, including comfortable bus stations with amenities, well designed vehicles, a mechanism for rapid fare payment, use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs), dedicated roadway space, and frequent all day service. All aspects of a good BRT service are designed to work together to make travel faster than regular bus service. BRT vehicles need to be easy and convenient to enter, with close-to-level boarding, and rapid fare payment managed “off-board” (before passengers board). These elements help passengers get on and off more quickly, making the “dwell time” (the length of time the vehicle spends at a stop) as short as possible. And dedicated lanes through the most congested areas – as we will have here in York Region – are seen as the highest standard for BRT services.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) are a whole story on their own, and one of the most interesting aspects of planning a BRT service. In a future blog, I’ll talk about these technologies and their huge impact on the performance of a BRT system.

Other rapid transit services such as subways or light rail may also have most of the same elements. But the main advantage offered by BRT is it can be expanded in segments as funding becomes available, and implemented quickly compared to other rapid transit services. Developing a rapid transit system in segments allows capital costs to be spread over time, which also leaves time to refine the design between each segment.

Being able to expand with funding, and the relatively fast timelines to implement, is especially important to York Region. More and more people are coming to York Region every year, and as much as this growth will bring many benefits, it also means our roads are getting more crowded – which is bad for everyone. We wanted to plan for a system that we could get up and running quickly and affordably.

The flexibility of BRT also works well for us, since development is taking place at different stages across York Region. Building BRT in segments means we can focus on the areas with the worst traffic congestion now, and then expand the system to service other areas as their population grows.

Everyone loves trains and subways, but those technologies don’t make sense in every situation. The decision to use a particular technology has to take into account the number of riders and local circumstances on the existing roadways. Subways cost a lot and are the best option where there are huge numbers of transit riders (such as south of Highway 7 on Yonge Street, or between Downsview Station and Highway 7 West in Vaughan). Most other transit routes in York Region don’t have the big city volume of riders needed to justify a subway. Light rail transit also calls for higher ridership numbers, but not as high as that needed by subways. Depending on future growth, in the future we may decide to convert our dedicated rapidways to LRT.

All in all, York Region’s BRT system will make travelling around York Region faster – at a price that we can afford. And with the first built example of a vivastation and rapidway section already in service, our new BRT system is going to be ready for passengers before you know it. We think that’s a plan to be proud of.

Categories
General Rapidways

Our partners: building on strength

Blog photo: Our partners - building on strength

Last week, I described how our partnership with the private sector is helping us to build our rapid transit system on schedule, and on budget. This week, here’s a primer on who our partners are, in particular our construction lead.

York Consortium 2002, our partner for the design components of the project, includes some of the worlds’ most experienced engineering, design and construction firms. Members of this joint venture include:

  • > AECOM Enterprises – based in the United States, one of the largest transportation firms in the world;
  • > IBI Group – Toronto-based, with offices around the world;
  • > Delcan Corporation – a Toronto-based international company that has developed rail transit in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv;
  • > Peter Kiewit Infrastructure Co. – a leading heavy civil contractor with offices across Canada; and,
  • > EllisDon Corporation – a Canadian-based international construction company that has worked on numerous major transit and transportation projects.

Under the terms of our agreement with York Consortium, they were offered the first right to bid on the construction project to build the Highway 7 East rapidway, with their bid competing in a bid process where we’ve gathered a cost estimate from an independent source.

Following this process, last year a partnership between Kiewit and Ellis-Don (Kiewit-EllisDon or KED) led the successful bid to become the construction contractor for the Highway 7 East rapidway.

Having KED is a tremendous benefit for this project, as our rapidways require a broad range of expertise in building roads, bridges, rapidways and transit stations. Kiewit has built some of the most challenging road and highway projects all across North America, including the Sea to Sky Highway in British Columbia. And EllisDon is one of the best known construction firms in Canada, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in our region.

It’s worth repeating that this is a huge project, with many challenges and months of work ahead. But we’re confident that our construction project on Highway 7 is in experienced and capable hands, and so far we’re off to a great start.

Categories
Uncategorized

Partnering with the private sector to build vivaNext

Blog photo: Partnering with the private sector to build vivaNext

We’ve been blogging on all things vivaNext for over a year now, and have never really told you anything about the organizations behind the vivaNext project – who does what, and how we’re structured. So today, let me tell you about all the players in this project, and how we’re connected.

The Highway 7 East rapidway is one of several work programs being done by York Region Rapid Transit Corporation (YRRTC). YRRTC is a wholly owned corporation within The Regional Municipality of York, with the mandate to develop rapid transit across York Region. We planned, designed and constructed the viva service that’s currently in operation. Once it was completed and ready to go into service, it was handed over to York Region Transit, who actually operate it. VivaNext, the Region’s rapid transit plan, is now being implemented along the Davis Drive and Highway 7 East rapidways and the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, with other segments to come over the next few years.

Early on, we decided that the fastest and most cost effective way to build the viva system would be to partner with the private sector. So in 2002, the Region entered into a partnership with York Consortium, which is a consortium made up of several firms, all with significant world-wide experience in rapid transit engineering, design, finance, construction and operations. There have been clear advantages to this arrangement.

First, under this partnership arrangement, York Region controls revenues and retains ownership of all assets, and full policy control over the entire project through regular reports and updates to Regional Council.

We keep our project costs down by using a transparent, open and competitive procurement process. Our agreement gives York Consortium the right of first opportunity to do vivaNext work, by competing in a bid process where we’ve gathered a cost estimate from an independent source. The bottom line is that by working with our private sector partners, we benefit from their technical staffing support, and from their guarantee to deliver on schedule within a guaranteed maximum price.

So far, our partnership with York Consortium has worked well, and provided great value for taxpayers. Viva Phase 1 was delivered within budget and on schedule. In fact, this project has been seen by transit professionals as such a success, that YRRTC has been asked to speak about our project at transit conferences and by other cities around the world.

So we all have cause to feel very good about the quality and professionalism of the work going into this project, and the careful stewardship of the public funds being used to pay for it.

Our rapidways are being built following the same model of competitive procurement and private sector partnerships. To manage the construction project for the Highway 7 East rapidway, we’ve procured the services of a partnership between Peter Kiewit & Sons and EllisDon Corporation (Kiewit-Ellis Don or KED), who are members of York Consortium.  

Overall, we are very confident that vivaNext, the public/private partnerships we lead, and the rapid transit systems we build will provide great value and be something we can all be proud of for generations to come as the region continues to grow.

Categories
General Rapidways

Highway rapidways: shifting into the next phase

Illustration of shifted lanes: Traffic is shifted from one side to another along the roadway, to keep traffic lanes open

If you’ve been along Highway 7 East during the last few weeks, you’ll know that our work crews have been busily removing the raised concrete median that runs down the centre of the road. With that first phase of work almost complete and on schedule, here’s a primer on what we’ll be doing next, and how it will affect you.

As I described in last week’s note about construction staging, the reason we did that first phase of work was to free up some extra room so we could build the rapidway with a minimum impact on travel lanes. But that was just the warm-up act. Now that the median is gone, we’re about to shift into the heavy construction of the rapidway. To keep lanes open during peak hours we’ll be shifting traffic right and then eventually shifting traffic left – a little like a giant square dance without the fiddle music and funny clothes.

Swinging traffic right
May 11 and 12, starting at 7pm, we’re going to temporarily close all the centre lanes in both directions between Chalmers Road and Highway 404 (we’ll keep one lane open in each direction). Working over the two nights between 7pm and 7am, we’ll repaint the lanes as shown on the diagram above (we’ll reopen all lanes during the day). By Saturday, six travel lanes will be shifted to their temporary new positions. Then starting next week, our crews will begin working in the original curb lanes to widen the roadway and build the new boulevards. We expect this phase of work will take us until later this summer.

The diagram shows which lanes will be open for traffic, and where our crews will be working, starting at the west and east ends of this section of rapidway and working toward the middle at Pond Drive.

Swinging traffic left
Once the crews meet at Pond Drive, we’ll temporarily close the middle lanes again. This time we’ll repaint the lines to shift the lanes to the opposite side of the road. Then our crews will repeat the same steps, all along the second side.

We’re doing whatever we can to minimize the disruption for drivers and pedestrians. But you’ll definitely notice some changes while the lanes are in their temporary positions:

  • > There will still be left turn lanes and advance greens, but the lanes will be narrower and shorter.
  • > There will be no separate right turn lanes where construction is curbside.
  • > We’ll maintain access for businesses and intersections, although if temporary detours are needed we’ll be sure to point this out with clear signs.
  • > YRT\Viva stops will remain open, although some of them may be repositioned temporarily to allow for construction.
  • > If sidewalks have to be closed off, we’ll provide temporary sidewalks.

Although the temporary lanes will be clearly marked, they’ll be curved and slightly narrower than usual.

So please, drive carefully, watch for signs alerting you to construction zones and lane shifts, and be excited that our rapid transit future here in York Region is well and truly underway!

Categories
Rapidways Uncategorized

Staging rapidway construction to minimize the inconvenience

Staging construction in phases helps keep traffic lanes open

Today’s blog is about building our rapidways. But to kick things off, here’s a question for those of you who’ve ever had to paint a room, or lay down a new floor. What’s easier: working in your kitchen that has to be used every day and is filled with stuff, or in an empty room in the basement that no one goes into? That may seem like a pretty silly question, with a really obvious answer. But I’m asking it to give you a sense of the biggest challenge our rapidway construction contractors are up against as construction gets going: how to work in a confined, busy space that’s open for business 24/7 – meaning our roadways.

Modern roadway building is a well understood process, following clearly defined steps, and using modern technology, equipment and materials. And in York Region, where we are fortunate to have access to some of the best, most experienced construction contractors anywhere, people really know what they’re doing. So building a rapidway is – in some ways – a very straightforward project. Straightforward, that is, until you realize that the rapidways are being built down the middle of some of the most congested stretches of road in the GTA. And that it’s critical to minimize wherever possible the impact on people using the roadway, including keeping travel lanes open during construction. And that there’s no extra room down the outside of the road to widen the working space. That’s when things get more challenging. This is where the concept of “construction staging” comes in, meaning doing the work in specific phases or steps to manage within the available space.

The first step in rebuilding a road in an existing roadway (as we’re doing when we build a rapidway) is to create some extra room to put our construction crews. For the safety of both the public and our construction crews, construction needs to happen in its own separate space; excavators need to swing their buckets, we need a place to bring in concrete, and trucks need room to back up. So finding that room is the first challenge. Our approach is to take out the median, narrow each of the lanes and shift them over by repainting the lines. We will then work in the extra space that’s been freed up, constructing all along one stretch before we move to the next.

Once one side of the road is done, we’ll then repaint the lanes to shift the lanes back, then begin work on the other side, working in stages along the entire segment. Think of our kitchen example; it’s like putting down a new floor in your kitchen – you do one side, then move your fridge and stove over to the completed side so you can do the other half.

There’s no doubt that road building would be a lot easier and a lot faster if we could just block it off and do the full width all at once. Working around traffic means work progresses more slowly; we have to use smaller equipment, construction trucks get caught in traffic, and every stage takes longer. For example, paving requires only a few hours, but new pavement can’t have traffic on it right away, so we need to time the paving work carefully so it isn’t done during the most congested times of the day.

And sometimes you may get the feeling that we’ve returned to an area even though it seemed like we were finished. In fact, what you’re seeing is that we are coming back to complete additional steps which have to be done in a certain order. As much as possible, we like to get all the work done in one segment before we move on to the next. This is all part of staging, where work is done in small, careful steps.

And just as you wouldn’t be able to live without your kitchen while you renovate, we will keep our roads open during the project, relying on staging to minimize the impact of our work while we get it done as quickly as possible.

Categories
General

Highway 7 East Rapidway Week One Update

A backhoe scoops up pieces of the Highway 7 median near Leslie Street
A backhoe scoops up pieces of the Highway 7 median near Leslie Street

After all the planning and prepping, rapidway construction is well underway for our Highway 7 East rapidway. And so far so good – work is going according to schedule, the weather’s cooperating, and we hope to have this first stage of work done by late May.

Here’s an update on what’s happening, and what to expect over the next while.

Before we can get going on the heavy construction, we need to create some room to work. The way we do that is to remove and pave over the centre median all the way from Chalmers in the west end, to Highway 404 in the east. Using those extra feet of roadway, we will then repaint the lanes, shifting them away from the current edge of the road to give our crews room to work safely, while keeping all travel lanes open.

At that point, heavy construction will start to actually widen the future roadway. Starting at both the west and east ends (Chalmers and the 404) and working toward the middle at Pond Drive, work crews will get going on widening the road on one side, and putting in wide new boulevards. Once they have that first side done, they’ll switch sides.

Most of the widening and boulevard work west of 404 should be done by the end of this year. Once the work on the sides is finished, we’ll have to stop construction for the winter. In the spring of 2012 we’ll get going again, this time working down the middle to build the rapidway and stations.

Similar staging will be used for the eastern section, from the 404 to Town Centre then south to Enterprise, with most of the work to be done there in 2012 and 2013. The whole segment along Highway 7 East will be up and running in 2014.

The median removals require temporary lane closures during off-peak hours, and we know that is creating a bit of congestion. Fortunately, once this first short stage of work is over, our construction contractor, Kiewit-EllisDon (one of the largest construction companies in North America) will be able to minimize disruption as much as possible. They’ve planned the construction so that most of the time, all lanes will be kept open. If lanes are required to be closed, it generally won’t be during rush hour. Even though it’s a huge project, we’re counting on them to get it completed on schedule, and cause as little disruption as possible.

One of our priorities is to make sure it’s easy for drivers to drive through the construction zone, and ensure constant access to businesses and addresses along Highway 7. We’ll be installing construction signs, including electronic message signs, which will warn drivers if the road is congested up ahead, so you’ll know if you need to take an alternate route.

We will be keeping you updated on all the developments as they unfold, but there’s no doubt this is a major infrastructure project, and it’s going to take about three years to complete from one end to the other. So please, drive carefully, watch for signs showing where work is happening, and check your inbox for e-updates on what’s happening out there. If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s the time to register at vivaNext.com.