Category: General

Categories
General Live-work-play Rapidways

making your trip more comfortable across the YRT\Viva system

You already know how excited we are to be introducing you to our new vivaNext rapidway system, with its comfortable and convenient stations and amenities, now open on Highway 7.   But for many transit riders across York Region, you’re YRT riders as well, and your comfort on that part of your commute is just as important to us.

YRT is currently carrying out upgrades to all their curbside stops across the YRT system to add new amenities and freshen up existing ones.  If you’ve been to the YRT stop at 16th Avenue and Warden you’ll already have seen the prototype that’s going to be installed everywhere.

Each YRT stop will get a modern new shelter, which will provide superior protection from the elements.  And for more comfort, each station will have new benches and garbage containers.  More and more people are choosing to commute by bike but if biking part-way then jumping on YRT\Viva suits you better, YRT is installing bike racks at each stop so you can leave your bike with confidence until your return.

YRT is going to be working their way through the entire system across the Region to upgrade all the YRT stops over the summer, with the Highway 7 rapidway sections being the first to change over to the new amenities this summer.  With the rapidways now open and the new YRT local stops being refreshed, Highway 7 has taken on a refurbished look and feel that highlights York Region’s commitment to serving its residents. Check out this video

These upgrades will bring a new level of comfort to YRT riders, and show the commitment YRT\Viva has to providing all its riders with a great customer experience, no matter what route they’re taking.  We encourage you to come visit the area!

Categories
General Live-work-play Rapidways Urban Planning

need some retail therapy? ….your neighbourhood shops are open

We’ve all heard the term “retail therapy.” For some, shopping can be a remedy to cheer us up and for other’s it’s a way to relieve stress. Perhaps as you read this, you can relate to doing some of your own retail therapy at one time or another.  Whether we’re shopping for a pick-me-up, or need a few items from the store, I’m sure we can all agree there is nothing better than stopping at a good restaurant or finding a little boutique around the corner.

The businesses along the vivaNext rapidway corridors are a great example of the variety of unique restaurants, professional offices, and boutique shops available within your local community. No matter what the stage of transformation– in the heart of construction on Davis Drive, just starting construction on Highway 7 West, getting ready for construction on Yonge Street and completing the transformation of Highway 7 East, there is no change to how any of these businesses serve you.

As you drive or walk along Davis Drive and Highway 7 East you’ll notice the Shop Davis and Shop 7 billboards. These road signs are just one component of a broader advertising campaign in support of your local businesses. During construction along Highway 7 West and Yonge Street you’ll also see Shop billboards along these corridors, to help remind you to support your local retailers.

Perhaps you’ve even seen vivaNext staff out and about in your neighbourhood promoting your local businesses. As part of the shop local campaigns, you may have received a reusable shopping bag to use when you visit stores in your community. If you see a vivaNext staff member, come by, say hello and pick up your reusable shopping bags [while quantities last]. Your local businesses and vivaNext have you covered the next time you are out shopping in the neighbourhood.

To get to your favourite stores on Highway 7, why not take a ride on the new rapidway. The dedicated centre lanes for viva vehicles are now open on Highway 7, from Bayview to Highway 404 and will provide riders with faster, more consistent travel times, getting you to your destination faster so you can shop till you drop!  The new urban landscape and lovely boulevards are a great incentive to visit these revitalized areas in Markham and Richmond Hill. Stop by for some shopping or just stroll around, because these are great places to visit.

Whether you’re shopping for back to school, meeting friends for dinner, or buying a gift for that special someone, your local retailers and restaurants are open for regular business throughout vivaNext construction. To see a sample of the business offerings provided by your local retailers check out the business profiles section of the vivaNext website at vivanext.com

 

Categories
Construction General Rapidways

turning on the Lights

Street lights are one of those infrastructure elements that the public may not give a lot of thought to, but in truth their design contributes significantly to the overall streetscape.  And because our project is being used to transform Highway 7 East from a highway to an urban corridor, all the vivaNext design components including the street lights have been given a lot of thought.  But before design considerations can be focused on, safety is the first priority to be achieved by street lighting. Here’s an overview of the role lighting plays in the vivaNext vision, and the street lighting elements you will see installed on all the rapidway corridors.

Designing street lighting, like all the major elements in the vivaNext project, is used to achieve a combination of practical and design objectives.  Lighting is first and foremost a public safety consideration. There are strict national and local standards against which street lighting is designed including how much lighting is required for different conditions (for example, different measures are used to determine the lighting levels for roadways compared to intersections and sidewalks).  Once the levels are known, lighting designers will develop a design, which includes variables such as pole height, spacing and “lux”, which is the amount of light to be provided by the fixture.

Once the lighting design is done, streetscape design objectives can come into play in order to marry the technical requirements with the architectural priorities needed to achieve the desired streetscape “look”.  In the case of vivaNext, the streetscape objectives are for a modern, stylish and uncluttered look that will contribute to the feeling of the corridors as being urban destinations, and make them distinctive from other Regional roadways.

To achieve all these safety requirements and design objectives, we have selected a special street light pole and luminaire (the light head or fixture), and arm that holds the luminaire, to be used along all the rapidway segments.  The poles will be a little higher than the ones they’ve replaced (9.9 m high versus 8.0 m), and they’re made of metal with a dark grey powder-coat finish for long-wearing good looks (and less maintenance).  Unlike most poles which are octagonal shaped and tapered to the top, these are round and cylindrical for a sleeker, more modern look.  And the lighting head or luminaire on top was chosen to complement the sleek modern look of our canopies.

Under its good looks, the street lights have a photo sensor to automatically turn on and off when it’s dark.  And the bulbs – which are little larger than the light bulbs you have in your home – only need to be replaced every 4 years.

So next time you’re sitting at a stop light or at a bus stop and you’re looking at the beautiful new streetscape, you’ll know more about all the decisions that were needed to turn on the lights!

Enjoy!!

 

Categories
Construction General Live-work-play Rapidways Stations Urban Planning

what’s a rapidway?

The word rapidway is new to most people, but pretty soon it’s going to be a very familiar concept for people in York Region.  We’ve had lots of interest from people wondering how exactly the rapidway on Highway 7 is going to work once it’s in service this year, and whether it will result in any changes for drivers, transit users and pedestrians.  So to get you started, here’s a primer on some rapidway basics.  Then for more detailed information, check out this blog over the upcoming days and weeks, for lots more information about what’s being built and how it’s going to benefit all of us.

  1. Who can actually drive in the rapidway?

    2. The rapidway will only be used by vivavehicles.  YRT buses will continue to run in mixed traffic as they do now, and will continue to use their existing curbside stops.  The exception is emergency vehicles; fire, ambulance, police, who may use the rapidways to help them through traffic.

    Under no circumstances will cars or other vehicles ever use the rapidway.  We’ll have signs at the beginning of the rapidway in each direction, making it very clear that non-viva vehicles must not enter.

  2. How will I know how to stay off the rapidway?

    3. We’ve made it easy to see where the rapidway begins, by paving the whole rapidway with distinctive bright red asphalt (see my blog in the next couple of weeks on red asphalt). It will be very obvious where the edges of the rapidway begin and end. To make it even more obvious, a rumble strip has been installed along the edges of the rapidway. Driving over the rumble strip will produce a loud noise if a driver begins to edge into the rapidway by mistake.

  3. How will I make a turn across the rapidway

    4. We’ve designed several features that will make it very clear where and when drivers can turn across the rapidway. (look for my blog in the next couple of weeks for more description of the new intersections and traffic signals). Left turns will only be allowed at intersections, which will have well-marked turning lines painted on them. The rapidways will have their own dedicated transit signals for viva drivers, which will be clearly marked and separate from the left turn signals for all other drivers. Lastly, there will be a protected left turn phase, meaning that drivers turning left (or making u-turns) will get a separate green arrow on its own phase, before through-traffic is allowed to move.

  4. How will pedestrians get to the vivastations?

    5. Every station is located adjacent to a signalized intersection, with a clearly marked crosswalk to make it easy to cross to the station in the median. Because Highway 7 with the rapidway lanes in the middle is now wider than it used to be, some pedestrians may want to cross the road in two stages, going to the median on the first stage, and then crossing to the other side on the second stage.

So that’s the most basic primer on how the rapidway will work, but I know people have many more questions. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to post an ongoing series of blogs on all the features of the new Highway 7 rapidway. But in the meantime, we want to know what you’d like more information on. Help us out by filling in your priority topics in this simple survey:

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Categories
Announcements Community Events General Rapidways Uncategorized

follow along this summer as we introduce you to some fun with the blue boots!

Anticipation is building as construction nears completion on the first section of the Highway 7 rapidway, as we get closer to seeing our designated bus lanes for viva fully operational this summer. You may have seen finishing touches applied to the canopies or even caught a glimpse of red asphalt being paved. It’s an exciting time for vivaNext and we want to share that excitement with you. With this in mind, we are pleased to introduce the Blue Boots – vivaNext’s mystery mascot if you will!

For the next six weeks, get onboard the fun bus and follow the Blue Boots Series, a six video summer project brought to you by our communications summer students. Every Wednesday, check our YouTube channel to discover where the boots are going, who they’ll meet and where they’re headed next! Each video will explore unique aspects of the vivaNext project that we hope will get you excited about riding viva.

So be ready to be moved with the Blue Boots today! Watch the first video by clicking this link.

 

Categories
General Live-work-play Rapidways Stations Urban Planning

bringing a long-term plan for the future to life, one step at a time

With crews working on the finishing touches on the western half of the Highway 7 rapidway, we’re getting closer to the day rapid transit finally becomes a reality for York Region.  As much as we’re looking forward to celebrating this milestone, it’s only one (very exciting) step in a long path that started years ago, and is going to take time to complete.

There’s a lot of media coverage these days on the general need for better transit all across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).  We’re proud that York Region has been actively working to bring rapid transit to our region.  In 2002 the Region produced the York Region Transportation Master Plan and the follow-up Rapid Transit Plan, committing the Region to a blueprint of multiple transportation initiatives to be built over the next 30 years.

With approval to the Rapid Transit Plan, we got to work quickly.  In 2005 the viva team – our formal name is York Region Rapid Transit Corporation – first launched “QuickStart”, the first phase of viva service.  Viva offered enhanced features that made transit more comfortable and convenient, and put the customer first in a way that was new for a transit service in the GTHA. With ridership levels that have increased steadily, viva changed the way people in York Region viewed transit.

But while our new viva service was a major success and an important first step in encouraging people to try transit, designing the vivaNext rapid transit system was our longer-term priority. Since 2005, Provincial government policy has required that Ontario municipalities plan for sustainable, more intensive land use, and rapid transit is a key component to achieve that goal.  Anticipating this, the 2002 Transportation Master Plan directed that future growth in York Region would be concentrated in new downtowns in Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Vaughan. By building more intensively in these areas, there would be less pressure for growth in existing neighbourhoods and a reduction in traffic congestion.

These urban centres would be connected by transportation “corridors”, making it easier for people to get around the region. The vivaNext rapidways will be built along the corridors, providing connections across York Region and into the rest of the GTHA.

Much of the new development built around vivastations will be compact and mixed-use, providing housing, employment, retail, dining, services and recreation, all within walking distance of transit. Developments will also include more welcoming public spaces, attractive landscaping, and other amenities that will contribute to the centres becoming more dynamic destinations.

Our plan is well and truly underway, and rapidways are being built on Highway 7 in both the east and west, as well as in Newmarket. The Toronto-York Spadina subway extension is under construction, and the design for rapidways on Yonge Street are being finalized.  Great new developments are popping up all over the new urban centres across the Region.

So when the first rapidway on Highway 7 starts service this year, we’re going to be celebrating the implementation of the first phase of our transportation and growth management blueprint.

We have many more phases to deliver, but with such a clear plan to follow, people in York Region can be assured it’s going to come true.  Check out our construction progress so far.

 

Categories
Construction General Rapidways Urban Planning

let’s talk construction

There’s an old joke that there are two seasons in Canada – winter and construction. Like the weather, road construction in York Region can’t be avoided; it must be endured.  But we all know that once the projects are done, we can enjoy our refreshed streets and the opening of the improved viva service in its own rapidway.

There’s no doubt that road construction would be completed a lot faster if we could just block off the necessary sections and do the full width and length all at once. Understanding people still need to get around; we do our best to work around traffic.  This means work progresses more slowly; in addition to needing Mother Nature on our side, we have to use smaller equipment and work in smaller sections. This may result in every stage taking longer. For example, paving requires only a few hours, but new pavement can’t be travelled on right away.  We schedule our paving work carefully to try to avoid paving during the most congested times of the day.

And sometimes you may wonder why 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 work which has to be done in a certain order or in layers. Everything has a sequence and a process to finish the job.

To minimize overall duration and immediate impacts to motorists, residents and businesses, crews sometimes work 24/7 – weather permitting. This enables work to be completed in an area or on a piece of the construction that has a higher impact so that crews can then move on to the next section.

The good news to remember is once the final paving is finished, the biggest disruption of construction will soon be coming to an end. Once construction of the vivaNext rapidway project is complete in that area, we can all enjoy our new streets and boulevards and the anticipated opening of the new viva rapidway service.

We appreciate your patience throughout construction. We’ll make sure you know exactly where and when any lane closures are going to take place, to help you minimize any inconvenience. Look for our emails giving you the latest updates on where we’ll be working, and how long our work will take. Click here to sign up for construction notices, and to get the latest on the paving on Highway 7.

Sometimes, making it through traffic is only a matter of being prepared for the congestion.  Here are some wise words and a few recommended tips to help keep your cool and pass the time.  And as always, we thank you for your patience.

 

Categories
Community Events General Uncategorized

Happy Birthday Canada!

 

On July 1st vivaNext will be celebrating Canada’s birthday in Newmarket at the Kanata Summer Festival at Fairy Lake Park.  Canada Day provides an opportunity to get together with friends, family and neighbours, to celebrate the culture, achievements and communities of our great nation.

Our team will start off the morning with a pancake breakfast at the Newmarket Community Centre & Lions Hall (200 Doug Duncan Drive – map) from 8am until noon. Afterwards, join us at Fairy Lake, where there will be all sorts of family fun including inflatable bouncers, an extreme bike demonstration, and live entertainment. On Bayview Parkway at George Richardson Park (map) listen to the sounds of the Newmarket Citizens Band and fireworks at dusk.

Great events on one very special day – Happy Canada Day from the vivaNext team!

Categories
Construction General Live-work-play Rapidways Uncategorized

School’s out for summer

For us at vivaNext, summer is an exciting time. With warmer temperatures, construction of our rapidway projects is in high gear to get them completed as quickly as possible.  The official start of summer also means the end of the school year. After anxiously waiting for the school year to end and a chance to get out and play, kids are trading in their school bags and notebooks for swim suits, bikes and camping gear. Warmer weather and no school means kids and families are spending more time outside and on our streets. With that in mind, we would like to remind motorists to drive more carefully and with extra caution. It is up to us as drivers to make sure our kids stay safe and remember that kids often run out into the street without looking.

VivaNext wants you to stay safe this summer

We’ve all seen it [maybe we’ve even done it] – whether it’s rushing through red light or a stop sign to save few extra minutes, forgetting to use traffic signals, overlooking construction detours and speed signs  or not using a hands-free cell phone device. With the warmer weather and the hustle and bustle of our busy schedules, it’s often easy for drivers to forget or ignore the rules of the road.

During summer when school’s out, it’s even more important to re-think our habits behind the wheel. So remember to be a conscience driver and look out for little ones, or leave the driving to our wonderful bus drivers and hop on viva for a more relaxed travel experience.

From our vivaNext family to yours, we wish you a safe and happy summer!

 

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Categories
Construction General Live-work-play Rapidways Urban Planning

Getting the GTHA Moving

Everyone is hearing a lot these days about the need for more transit in the GTHA, and how increasing traffic congestion is hurting our economy.  The Toronto Board of Trade puts a $6 billion a year price tag on the cost of congestion. But beyond the headlines, many people don’t really understand exactly how traffic congestion and the lack of transit hurts the economy, and why this issue matters to every one of us in this region – and even to the rest of the province and country.

To help connect the dots, I recommend a recent panel discussion held on TVO’s The Agenda, which covered the issue clearly and logically.  This discussion provides an excellent overview of the issue, in a non-partisan, objective way.  Click here to view the episode.

What I found most interesting about this discussion was how it was explained that the lack of transit hurts everyone, whether or not they’re transit users now, or even want to be transit users.  Even people living in small communities that aren’t experiencing traffic congestion  in fact are economically affected by it. The negative impacts of congestion  in the GTHA, given how important this region is to the economy of the entire country, truly do affect the entire country.  One large business that chooses to open up in the USA rather than in the GTHA due to concerns about congestion hurts all taxpayers in the pocketbook eventually.

Enjoy watching the show and let me know what you think.