Tag: Markham

Categories
Studies

Study shows you should expect to spend longer commuting

Traffic slowly moving along Highway 7.
Traffic slowly moving along Highway 7 in York Region.

If you think that your commute is taking longer, you’d be right and the bad news is that you’re not alone.

A recent survey conducted jointly by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, the City of Toronto and the Regions of York, Durham and Peel confirms that average speeds on highways and roads all around the GTA are decreasing. On average, a trip now takes 11% to 21% longer than the exact same trip in 2002.

While this figure applies to the entire GTA, one of the worst long sections of highway is travelled by many York Region residents every day. The section travelling southbound along Hwy. 404 from 16th Ave. to Hwy. 401 during the morning rush hour is the slowest long stretch of highway in the GTA. Motorists see an average speed of 31km/h along this stretch during the morning peak period. Driving along Hwy. 404 during peak hours takes 3.5 times longer than during times when you are able to drive at the posted speed limit.

But York Region roads are not just congested by drivers heading in to and out of Toronto. The study looked at Highway 7 all the way from Durham to Peel Region, an 88 km stretch, and found that three of the five slowest sections were in York Region.

Average speeds on Hwy. 7 through York Region are often almost half of the posted speed limit and not just during rush hours. The study found that driving on Hwy. 7 in the middle of the day is almost as slow as driving it during the morning rush.

The simple solution as we see it is to get more people out of those cars that are causing the increase in congestion and get them on fast, convenient transit.

Do you agree that traffic is getting worse? What are some solutions?

Categories
Announcements Surveys

York Region residents cite congestion as reason to improve transit

Traffic congestion

We all know that traffic congestion is getting worse. The major arteries, including Yonge St., Davis Dr. and Highway 7, are packed during peak hours of the day and congestion is only expected to get worse. That is a key reason why York Region is taking steps to improve rapid transit and build livable cities.

We wanted to know what you had to say about congestion, so we recently conducted a survey.* When asking York Region residents how they rate traffic congestion on a 10-point scale, over 75% of them said it was between a six and a 10, where 10 was high traffic congestion. In fact, four times more people rate traffic congestion as “high” than rate it as “low”. And almost 25% of the people surveyed rated congestion as an eight on the scale.

When asked about solutions, the largest percentage of respondents said that more and better rapid transit was the answer. People also cited bicycle lanes and more roads as other solutions.

It sounds like we are on the right track to providing those who work and/or live in York Region the solutions they need to avoid congestion.

What do you think about traffic congestion around York Region and what else should be done? Tell us what you think.

*Survey deemed accurate to within 5 percentage points

Categories
Going Green Live-work-play Urban Planning

Save time and relieve stress by getting rid of the commute

An artist rendering of what the live-work-play community at Markham Centre will look like when complete. Rendering courtesy of the Remington Group.
An artist rendering of what the live-work-play community at Markham Centre will look like when complete. Rendering courtesy of the Remington Group.
Construction at Enterprise, which will be within walking distance of the above rendering of Markham Centre.
Construction at Enterprise, which will be within walking distance of the above rendering of Markham Centre.

Are you tired of sitting in congested traffic trying to get to work or to visit with friends and family?

I don’t like to think that we are simply designing and building a rapid transit system. We are helping to create live-work-play communities. That’s the basic term for living in a place where everything is nearby. The goal is to create more time in your life and reduce reliance on a vehicle to get around.

Other names for this concept are a mixed-use development or new urbanism. The idea is the same: it is about making communities that let you live within walking distance of work, shopping, restaurants, cinemas, parks and other activities. And when you do have to travel, there are transit options nearby such as subways, rapidways and GO trains.

Unlike many parts of Europe where it’s the norm, it will no doubt require a mind-shift from many Ontarians. But I can tell you that it’s already starting with the youth. They get it from a logical, environmental and social standpoint. I get the sense that they place greater importance on quality of life and that excludes sitting in a vehicle for hours every day.

This shift has also started in our local communities – Markham, Mississauga and Richmond Hill for example.

What examples have you seen? What are your kids saying about it?

Categories
Going Green Rapidways Stations

Gimme Shelter

Rendering of a vivastation showing the middle section, which will be enclosed and heated.
Rendering of a vivastation showing the middle section, which will be enclosed and heated.

As you might have already heard, we are currently working on a video where the lead architect of the new vivastations talks about the design of the shelters for the rapidways we will be building over the next few years.

Since that video is not yet completed and there’s growing interest in how the vivastations will keep people protected from the weather, I wanted to take some time to talk about a few features of the new stations. In a way, here’s a trailer of the video…

There will be three different sections (modules) in each station. The middle section will be completely enclosed and heated, blocking the wind, rain, snow and cold temperatures.

Extensive consultation with the public told us that comfort and keeping warm are very important to riders, which is reflected in the design for the new service.

The stations will be large enough to provide adequate personal space and there’ll be an overhang reaching above the vehicles to protect people boarding and alighting on rainy days.

The stations are also more environmentally friendly. Energy efficient LED lights will brighten the station at night. The enclosed section will have automatic accessible doors at each end of the enclosure. They will still have sensors to open automatically, but as you can see in the picture, the hinged doors are on the side of the enclosed section. This will keep heat from escaping when someone triggers the sensor by walking along the platform. Accessibility has also been top of mind during the design process, ensuring that the platform and station design are accessible for individuals with disabilities.

Each platform will be 55 metres long with a 27-metre glass and steel canopy structure in the middle. This will make the stations easy to find and the curved canopy will blend well into the natural streetscape.

Last week, we had a full day of production, shooting interviews and b-roll for the video. Watch for the finished product on our website in the coming weeks.

Categories
Live-work-play Rapidways Subways Urban Planning

Transit helps make Centres & Corridors a successful concept

York Region and Toronto planners discuss how to best manage growth over the next few decades.
York Region and Toronto planners discuss how to best manage growth over the next few decades.

We recently had the opportunity to co-sponsor the Regional Forum on Centres and Corridors. The consistent message from speakers and the audience was that investment in public transit should be the first priority in making centres and corridors thrive. They also said designing and building town centres linked by fast, convenient public transit helps to shift people out of their cars.

Speakers from York Region and the City of Toronto along with renowned urban planners and architects spoke about managing growth in York Region over the next 20 years. They examined lessons learned from the past to help improve growth management strategies in the future.

To help manage growth, the Region has a plan to focus development around four “downtowns” away from valuable farmland and environmentally important greenbelts. These centres (in Markham, Newmarket, Vaughan, and Richmond Hill) include residential, business and recreational development connected by transit.

The new centres are being developed as live-work-play communities. We will be posting a blog in the near future that talks more about this idea.

To learn more about the Centres, Corridors + Subways program, please visit their website

Read the Official Regional Plan

Read the Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines

Categories
Rapidways

What’s a rapidway and how will it help?

An artist rendering of a viva vehicle riding on the rapidway
An artist rendering of a viva vehicle riding on the rapidway

Recently, we received $1.4 billion in funding to build rapidways. But what are rapidways? It is the term for centre of the road, rapid transit-only lanes that we will build for Viva vehicles to travel in.

It’s rapid because, without being stuck in traffic, Viva will be able to zip through congested areas making it the better way to get around York Region.

Rapidways will put the rapid into rapid transit. Right now, our vehicles compete with all the other cars and trucks on the road. During times of high volume, the rapid transit vehicles will be able to glide past gridlock and actually make for a faster commute than in a car. It’ll be like driving in the carpool lane, but without even other drivers. Similar to how the carpool lane will save you time, we project that the rapidways will make Viva trips 40% faster.

The system is designed to allow for higher capacity light rail trains to replace buses on the rapidways when ridership warrants it. I will follow-up with a more extensive post about this soon.

Categories
General Going Green Rapidways

vivaNext educates students for Earth Day

“Cool”, “sweet” and “we love Viva “ – those were the responses to our vivaNext plan for bus rapidways and subway extensions. 

earthday1
Students from Cardinal Carter Catholic High School show us their "V" for viva.

Today’s guest bloggers are Andrea Witty, Community Liaison Specialist, and Kathryn Webber, Project & Public Relations Coordinator, who spent Earth Day at Cardinal Carter High School in Aurora talking to the students about the new rapidways that are coming to York Region.

We shared time-lapse animations that showed what Vaughan, Newmarket and Markham will look like in 5-20 years when the rapidways and subway extension projects are built. Being able to actually show the end result of our plan makes talking about it way easier.  They loved the images and the peak into the future.

Students were excited about the long range plans to increase connections and make it easier to travel across the region for shopping and work, getting to university and to get to Toronto.

While the vivaNext plan will save people time and prevent stress from being in gridlock, the plan is a part of a long-term sustainable solution to save something much more important than time – our planet.

 

What did you do for earth day?

 

Categories
General

Time-lapse animations a big hit with the Region

I really had no idea what they would say. We’ve recently been working really hard on creating images of what parts of York Region will look like when the rapidway/subway projects are completed and mixed-use development is built. And on April 16, I showed examples to York Region’s Rapid Transit Committee.
The final frame of the time-lapse animation in Markham
The final frame of the time-lapse animation in Markham


I’ll save you the suspense and just say that their eyes lit up and all the Mayors wanted to know when they would get a copy of the final images and time-lapse videos. In fact, one of the reporters there requested electronic copies of the three images shown. Guess we’ll see that in print this weekend.


For us, they have been developing time-lapse animations of how Markham, Vaughan and Newmarket will change over the next 5-10 years as communities are built around transit.

In only a few seconds, the time-lapse animation shows how these different areas will change as subways and rapidways come to York Region. They are still works in progress and will look even better when completed in a few weeks. So be sure to check back on our website to see the videos, and I’ll let you know here when they’re done.

I like going to meetings like this because it gives us a chance to talk with elected officials, members of the public and the media about how our progress is going and to hear their thoughts.