Category: Subways

Categories
Subways

subways? yes, our network will include subways

subways? yes, our network will include subways

Rapid transit plans in York Region have always included subways, along with aboveground bus and rail. Each of these has different passenger capacities, construction costs, and impacts on surrounding communities, so plans include a combination of transit types, with a focus on having a seamless network.

As far as subway is concerned, we’ve been planning for the Yonge North Subway Extension [YNSE] from Finch Station to the Richmond Hill/Langstaff Urban Growth Centre at Highway 7. The YNSE is the missing link in terms of transit for the GTHA, because Yonge Street is the central transportation artery, and has been for generations.

Because it’s the missing link, we’ve been doing critical planning and engineering studies to ensure that we’re shovel-ready. The Environmental Project Report and Conceptual Design Study are complete, and in partnership with Metrolinx, TTC and City of Toronto, we completed a Yonge Relief Network Study [YRNS] to determine Yonge Subway capacity.

The YRNS concluded that the number of already committed/funded initiatives underway will increase the capacity of Yonge subway and divert existing and future riders to other corridors. These increases in capacity will accommodate growth until 2031, and offset the immediate need for the Downtown Relief Line until after 2031.

Metrolinx has recently recommended that we move ahead with completing 15% preliminary design for the Yonge Subway extension, so we’re working very hard on that. To advance the project even more, we’re advocating to the new federal government about their recent commitment to double infrastructure investments and transform transit and transportation systems ($60 billion in additional investments over 10 years).  With our shovel-ready projects in hand, we’re looking forward to the next wave of projects.

Combined with the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, Regional Express Rail, new GO Train stations at Gormley and Bloomington and other transit projects, the YNSE will vastly improve the overall network for those who live, work and travel in York Region.

 

Categories
General Rapidways Stations Subways Uncategorized Urban Planning

Exploring Vaughan with vivaNext

With the early stages of rapid transit developments underway along Highway 7 West in Vaughan, now is the perfect time to reflect on everything this great city has to offer. Already an attractive destination for residents, businesses and visitors, Vaughan is a perfect location to integrate Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) rapidways and cultivate a thriving transit system.

Vaughan is comprised of six communities including Maple, Woodbridge, Kleinburg, Concord, Thornhill and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre [VMC]. With a growth rate of 80.2%, it was the fastest growing municipality in Canada from 1996-2006, and this diverse city shows no signs of slowing down.  The nation’s largest amusement park, Canada’s Wonderland, averages approximately 3.5 million visitors per season and the Kortright Centre for Conservation hosts around 135,000 visitors annually.

Vaughan is also home to many social, historical and cultural hotspots that maintain its reputation as a vibrant place to live, work, shop and eat. Residents and visitors can browse over 200 retail stores at Vaughan Mills, the 15th largest mall in Canada, or view an extensive collection of paintings by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven and their contemporaries at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. Before hopping on a viva bus home, stop by Reptilia Zoo and visit “The King” – the largest venomous Cobra snake at any zoo in Canada, or tour the Thoreau MacDonald House – home of the Group of Seven painter J.E.H MacDonald from 1914 to 1974. Other various parks, theatres, recreation centres and educational institutions leave no shortage of things to do and explore.

The future rapidway vivastation at VMC will make travelling to and from your favourite places in Vaughan easier and more efficient. In the VMC, mixed-use transit-oriented development is proposed along a tree-lined main street, including businesses, residences, entertainment and cultural facilities, as well as pedestrian shopping areas. With connections to both the new TTC subway station and an inter-regional bus terminal, VMC will be one of the most ambitious development projects in the area’s history. It will be a convenient transportation hub unique to the city, and yet another main attraction that Vaughan can call its own.

Check out some more fast facts about Vaughan below:

  • Non-official languages include:
    Italian – 15.2% | Russian – 6.7% | Spanish – 2.7% | Tagalog (Filipino) – 1.9% | Punjabi – 1.8%
  • Twin city: Lanciano, Italy (2002)
  • Folklore associates the name “Maple” with the numerous Maple trees once found along Keele St.
  • The name “Woodbridge” derived from a wooden bridge that crossed the Humber River as an entry point into the town
  • A direct German translation of “Kleinburg” is small town

Follow the progress of the Highway 7 West rapidway in Vaughan by signing up for construction updates.

Think you know Vaughan? Test your knowledge with our interactive quiz! Play now.

Categories
General Rapidways Subways

York Region is ready to Presto

PRESTO card and fare machine

In London, it’s an Oyster. In Hong Kong, they call it an Octopus. Boston has its Charlie Card, and Atlanta loves its Breeze. And now York Region – along with other GTHA and Ottawa municipalities – is moving into the ranks of cities with smartcard technology for their transit system.

I’m talking of course about the launch of PRESTO this week in York Region on YRT\Viva services. PRESTO was developed through a partnership with the Province of Ontario, GO Transit and nine municipal transit partners in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and in Ottawa, and will allow customers to ride on any participating transit system without pre-purchasing printed tickets or tokens.

Having access to PRESTO is great news for transit riders in York Region. Because PRESTO uses “stored-value” fare payments, customers can reload their card on the PRESTO website or at designated locations, and never have to worry about having a printed ticket or the right change. All you have to do is tap your card either on the PRESTO card reader at a vivastation before you board Viva, or on the on-board PRESTO machine on a YRT bus, and the system will automatically deduct the fare from your card’s balance (GO Transit riders also tap off at the end of their trip).

Smartcards are the way of the future for all great transit systems, and with good reason. These cards speed up the process of buying transit fares, they eliminate the paper waste associated with tickets, and they mean you’ll never need to rummage through your pockets for bus fare again.

One of the most important, long-term benefits is that, because smartcards often involve multiple transit services, they make it easier for passengers to travel across municipal boundaries. Instead of needing to purchase individual tickets for separate transit services, PRESTO is the only ticket riders will need to use on any participating system, including YRT\Viva, GO Transit (selected rail stations), Brampton Transit (ZÜM), Burlington Transit, Hamilton Street Railway, Mississauga Transit (MiWay), Oakville Transit, OC Transpo (Ottawa) and at select  TTC subway stations. And more stations and transit agencies are joining PRESTO throughout 2011 and 2012.

The PRESTO website and call centre (1-8-PRESTO-123) have all the information you’ll need to learn more about how PRESTO works in general, and where it can take you.

To introduce riders to PRESTO, YRT\Viva has representatives showing riders how to use PRESTO, helping them register online, and distributing up to 5,000 specially-priced cards. To get your new PRESTO card, check out the YRT\Viva website for distribution locations and hours.

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
Subways

Spadina Subway: it’s about connections

Map of the extension to the Spadina Subway extension. Inset: future design of Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

Is it possible to live or work in northwest Toronto, western York Region or east side of Peel, and not know about the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension? Although you might know that a subway extension is planned, you might not know the details about this huge subway development project.

The extension to the University-Spadina TTC subway line from the current Downsview Station north to Highway 7 in Vaughan will be big news to anyone living or working along its route. A connection from Downsview Station to the Wilson Yard TTC storage and maintenance facility has already been built, and four Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) have been manufactured in Canada for this project. Each TBM took several months to build, and three weeks – 21 truckloads of parts – to deliver to its launch location. This spring the parts of the four TBMs will be lowered into their launch shafts at Sheppard West Station and Steeles West Station, and assembled in launch position. In the first of several tunnel drives, the TBMs at Sheppard West will bore northward to Finch West Station, and the TBMs at Steeles West will bore southward to York University Station. Each machine will bore at a rate of about 15 metres per day, and they’re multi-talented machines, excavating in front and placing tunnel reinforcements behind them. When they reach their destinations they’ll be removed from the ground and relocated to new launch locations for the next tunnel drive. The tunnelling is expected to take about two years, with the entire project, including stations, scheduled to be complete and in service by late 2015.

Highway 407 Station and the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre will be the first subway stations in York Region. Vaughan Metropolitan Centre will be built at Millway Avenue along the Highway 7 West rapidways, and will feature retail space, a domed roof with skylights positioned to reflect light to platform level, and pedestrian and transit-oriented development.

We talk about rapidways all the time, but really we’re developing a rapid transit network – a system to move people within our region and connect us to neighbouring transit networks. Subway extensions create a vital connection in the GTHA transit network, and will bring new life to communities near subway stations, as people gather in these areas to live, work, shop and play.

If you’re interested in more details about subway extensions, be sure to visit some of these links:

Categories
Announcements Rapidways Stations Subways

Dale’s summer update

Dale's Summer Update

Whew! What a busy few months we’ve had here at the vivaNext headquarters!  No doubt a lot of people have been enjoying this great summer weather and taking a bit of a break… but for those of us here, it’s been full steam ahead.  Since we announced the news this past May that Metrolinx approved a revised capital funding schedule for the vivaNext rapidways, our office has been a hive of activity! Okay, I took a week off as well to enjoy this summer weather.

But here’s an exclusive peek behind the scenes of what’s happening with vivaNext projects.

Although it’s not a typical rapidway station, our new stop currently under construction at Enterprise and Warden in Markham will be the first place you’ll be able to try out our new, comfortably designed vivastation.  The concrete foundations are currently being put in for the station, and sometime in early fall we expect to receive the glass canopy from the fabricators.  After all the work that went into designing it, we can’t wait to see the vivastation in person!  We’ll keep you updated on the delivery dates and let you know more about how you can see it too!

Our crews are out and about along Davis Drive in Newmarket, with most work presently focused on pre-construction activities in preparation for the road widening.  We’ve been taking down some existing buildings, and working closely with Habitat for Humanity York Region and other organizations to ensure that every last piece of building material that can be reused or recycled is diverted from landfill.  At least 85% of materials will be diverted – we are really proud of that. Even shrubs, plants and trees have been transplanted to new locations within Newmarket, including some churches and a public school.

Our engineers, architects and other experts are working hard on the preliminary engineering for the rapidways up Yonge Street and along Highway 7. Preliminary engineering is the early design stage of an infrastructure project, and it involves numerous hours of discussion and planning for options on things you may never think about when you drive down a street; things like median width, lightpole design and surface treatments.  Every step of their work is carried out in conjunction with a number of other partners, including The Regional Municipality of York and each of the municipalities, as well as other local groups. The amount of painstaking, detailed work that goes into designing a rapidway is just incredible – in a separate blog, I’ll tell you more about the processes, the challenges and introduce you to some of our experts.

We are also spending a lot of time working with our colleagues at the TTC on plans to connect the Spadina Subway extension to the vivaNext transit hub at Highway 7 in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.  Construction of a six-lane bridge, access roads, traffic signals, utility relocation and the realignment of a portion of Black Creek is now underway so that construction can start on the Highway 407 Station. This work is anticipated to be complete by spring 2011. Public open houses in July showcased the station design finishes and public artwork for the Sheppard West and Highway 407 Stations. More open houses will soon be held, so that the public can view the four remaining station designs. I hope to tell you more exciting details about the design ideas we’re working on in the near future.

Another key task that represents a huge amount of our efforts is the ongoing Environmental Assessment process – and rightly so: ensuring that our projects don’t negatively affect the environment, either natural or human, is a critical priority for this project.  Each rapidway segment has its own process and requirements – in fact, there’s so much to describe, I’m going to save it for another time!

During the summer we also participated in some fundraising events for United Way, attended several community events and participated in some local industry workshops.

So that was a brief summary of what we’ve been up to! We hope you’re enjoying the summer sunshine, and all of the great things there are to do in York Region!

Categories
Announcements Stations Subways

View the final designs for two Spadina Subway stations!

spadina-stations-final-designs_2010_07_06

On Thursday, July 8, and Tuesday, July 13, 2010, you are invited to view the final designs of two stations along the Spadina Subway extension: Sheppard West Station and Highway 407 Station.

The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension project will extend 8.6 kilometres north from Toronto’s Downsview Station to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre at Highway 7. The project will better connect people to their destinations of choice, and will help Vaughan fulfill its vision for future growth and development.

We encourage you to attend these two public open houses and share the excitement as rapid transit plans move forward in York Region.

Sheppard West Station Public Open House

Date: Thursday, July 8, 2010
Time: 4 – 7:30pm
Location: TTC Downsview Station – Bus Terminal Platform
At the intersection of Allen Road and Sheppard Avenue West
Access to Bus Terminal Platform through “Passenger Pick up and Drop off”

Highway 407 Station Public Open House

Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Time: 6:30 – 8:30pm
Location: The Hilton Garden Inn – Toscana Centre
3201 Highway 7, Vaughan
Take Transit: From Downsview Station take Viva Orange 077/077A or Viva Orange 107 to arrive at the doorstep of the Hilton Garden Inn, at the intersection of Highway 7 and Edgeley/Interchange Way.

Categories
Announcements Stations Subways

Come see three Spadina Subway station designs at once!

A map of the Spadina subway extension.

Extending from Downsview Station in Toronto to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre at Highway 7 in Vaughan, the Spadina subway extension will cover a total of 8.6 kilometres and include six new stations.

To date, three separate public open houses have been held to share the preliminary station design concepts with the community: Sheppard West Station on November 17, 2009, York University Station on December 3, 2009, and the Steeles West Station on February 3, 2010.

If you happened to miss the February public open house, you now have another opportunity to check out the preliminary design concept for the Steeles West Station, and be among the first to review the preliminary design concepts for the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre and the Highway 407 Stations. All three will be on display together at a public open house on Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

The preliminary design concept for the remaining new station – Finch West Station – will be presented to the public later this spring. Also, more open houses will be held later this year to share more detailed architectural concepts for all six stations so stay tuned.

Public Open House for Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, Highway 407 and Steeles West Subway Stations

Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location: The Hilton Garden Inn, Toscana Centre
3201 Highway 7, Vaughan, ON
Categories
Announcements Stations Subways

Station designs for Spadina Subway extension continue to take shape!

An aerial view of the Steeles West Station design
An aerial view of the Steeles West Station design

In the fall of 2009, preliminary station designs were unveiled at public open houses for two of the six stations that will be located along vivaNext’s 8.6 kilometre Spadina subway extension, which will extend from Downsview Station in Toronto to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station in Vaughan.

Next week, on Wednesday, February 3, 2010, the preliminary design for a third station – Steeles West – will also be unveiled at a public open house and you are invited to attend.

As previously mentioned on this blog, all of the six stations that will be built along the Spadina subway extension will have a unique design. The most striking features of the Steeles West station preliminary design are its very distinctive and futuristic profile, and its central light cone, which allows daylight to reach all the way down to the platform levels. It’s truly something you have to see for yourself to appreciate.

Following this public open house, a second one featuring more detailed architectural concepts will take place for the Steeles West station in the spring of 2010. Preliminary designs for the remaining Spadina subway extension stations – Finch West, Highway 407 and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre – will also be unveiled in the coming months.

Steeles West Subway Station Public Open House
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Location: Black Creek Pioneer Village,  Garfield Weston Room
1000 Murray Ross Parkway, Toronto, ON

Categories
General Going Green LRT Rapidways Subways Urban Planning

Key international publication identifies GTA’s transportation challenges

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is one of the world’s largest and most reliable sources of comparable statistical, economic and social data. In a publication launched in November 2009 entitled “OECD Territorial Reviews: Toronto, Canada”, several of the GTA’s transportation challenges are collectively identified as a key policy issue. They include traffic congestion problems (70% of commuters use cars), poorly integrated regional transit services, and relatively underdeveloped public transport infrastructure.

To address this key policy issue, one of the publication’s key recommendations is to “tackle transportation challenges by creating incentives for reducing car use, access to additional revenue sources, [and] longer term funding commitments by federal government for investment”.

Here in York Region, we are doing our part to tackle these transportation challenges with such vivaNext initiatives as the rapidways, subways and proposed LRTs. In addition to making it faster and easier to get in and out of the GTA, they will make it up to 40% faster to travel along our Region’s busiest corridors. We believe that such incentives will significantly reduce car use, lead to economic revitalization, help the environment, and maintain the quality of life our residents have come to enjoy.