A young girl fishes at our Markville Mall pond last Friday hoping to win one of our cool summer prizes.
This past Thursday through Sunday, vivaNext teams were out in full force at various York Region malls including Markville, Upper Canada and Vaughan Mills. Thousands of visitors stopped by our booths to putt golf balls and fish in our ponds for instant prizes like beach balls, flying discs and magnetic puzzles.
Of course, there was also plenty of great chitchat about vivaNext. People were really excited to learn that we’ll soon be breaking ground on the rapidways, which will make it up to 40% faster to get around York Region’s busiest corridors when completed.
If you missed us at the malls, not to worry because you could still win with vivaNext. If you haven’t entered our Next Best Thing To Summer Contest, you have until this Friday, July 31, 2009, to do so.
You could win cool summer gear in one of our daily prize draws plus our Grand Prize of a handy iPod touch® so you can get up-to-date vivaNext construction and project information wirelessly. Good luck to all our entrants!
One possible location for the bike racks is on the platforms, as you can see in this 3D model.
As part of the vivaNext plan, beautiful new vivastations will be built in the centre of the roadway along the rapidways on Davis Drive, Yonge Street and Highway 7, as well as the proposed LRT lines on Don Mills Road/Leslie Street and Jane Street in York Region. From the top down, these vivastations have been designed around you. Among their many features and benefits, they will include bicycle racks for quick and easy transit connections.
Right now, we’re examining where to place these bicycle racks and would like to hear your thoughts. There are basically three options to consider.
Option 1 – Place them right on the platforms. This would allow you to conveniently lock your bicycle up right at your point of departure and simply board the next Viva vehicle. On your return Viva trip, you’ll arrive at the same station, but on a different platform. To get your bicycle, all you’d have to do is go back to the original departure platform.
Option 2 – Place the bicycle racks on the sidewalks at the intersections adjacent to the vivastations. This option would make it more convenient for you to shop, run errands and meet up with friends after your return Viva trip before picking-up your bicycle.
Option 3 – Distribute the bicycle racks evenly on both the platforms and the sidewalks.
So which option do you prefer? Please take a moment to let us know because here at vivaNext, we value your opinion – even when it comes to bicycle racks!
Putt through the hole at one of three York Region malls this weekend and win cool summer gear.
Our vivaNext teams are headed out to some malls this Thursday through Sunday. Stop by for some fun and games and you could instantly WIN cool summer gear. Of course, we’ll also be handing out some important information about vivaNext projects and answering any questions you may have. To find us at any of the malls listed below, simply look for all the activity around our big, bright Next Best Thing To Summer display booth. We look forward to seeing you.
Mall Schedule:
Thursday, July 23
• Markville (10am to 9pm)
• Upper Canada (9:30am to 9pm)
• Vaughan Mills (10am to 9 pm)
Friday, July 24
• Markville (10am to 9pm)
• Upper Canada (9:30am to 9pm)
• Vaughan Mills (10am to 9pm)
Saturday, July 25
• Markville (9:30am to 6pm)
• Vaughan Mills (10am to 9pm)
Sunday, July 26
• Markville (11am to 6pm)
• Upper Canada (11am to 5pm)
• Vaughan Mills (11am to 7pm)
A mother putts with her son at our golf game challenge at Upper Canada Mall last weekend. He won a flying disc and she learned about the rapidways coming to Newmarket.
If you would like to see the renderings presented at the meeting for yourself click here or visit vivaNext.com, where you’ll also find a link to the Metrolinx website in case you are also interested in viewing the meeting agenda.
In a recent blog posting, we told you about a survey jointly conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, the City of Toronto and the Regions of York, Durham, and Peel. It found that average speeds on highways and roadways in and around the GTA, especially along Highway 7, are decreasing due to traffic congestion and that the average vehicular trip now takes 11% to 21% longer than the exact same trip in 2002.
So what do you think? Do you agree with these findings?
Take a moment to cast your vote in our latest online poll. It can be found on any page of this blog near the top of the right side column or on the right side column on various pages of our website.
Speaking of our online poll, do you have a transit-oriented question you’d like to see asked in one of our upcoming polls? If so, please be sure to let us know. As with this blog and our Twitter and Facebook pages, we value the feedback we receive from you through our online polls!
We’re sure you’ll agree that summer’s the best. But we think vivaNext is the next best thing. How come? Because vivaNext will make it easier and faster for you to get to your favourite summer activities. Makes sense, huh?
To spread this great news, we’re running a contest called – you’ve guessed it – the Next Best Thing To Summer Contest. It starts today and runs through until July 31, 2009.
Each day, we’ll be giving away cool summer gear like water bottles, Canada’s Wonderland® passes, movie tickets, laptop bags and YRT\Viva two-zone passes. Then, at the very end, to top it all off, one lucky person will win the handy iPod touch® Grand prize, which will make it easy for him or her to get up-to-date vivaNext construction and project information wirelessly.
To enter, all you have to do is go to our website and use our interactive story to show us what your picture perfect summer looks like. It’s fun and it’s easy. You simply fill in the blanks of our story by choosing from a menu of drag-and-drop pictures. Each time you do, you’re guaranteed to giggle as each picture moves and makes a funny noise. For instance, if you choose theme parks as one of your favourite things to do in summer, when the picture is in the right spot, the roller coaster rides through a loop and the people in it scream.
But be sure to hurry because our Next Best Thing To Summer Contest ends July 31, 2009.
What a day we had on July 1st thanks to you! Our vivaNext teams attended both the Kanata Day festivities at Fairy Lake in Newmarket, and the Canada Day Home Show in Richmond Hill. Our teams spent the entire day talking to hundreds of enthusiastic residents – perhaps even you – who expressed great excitement about vivaNext projects and the urban transformation they will bring to York Region. Everybody had such great questions for us, which we were only too happy to answer.
We also had a lot of fun handing out thousands of informative pamphlets and bookmarks, handy magnetic whiteboards, and of course, delicious treats. After all, what’s a birthday party without treats. Our vivaNext mime was at Fairy Lake in Newmarket as well to entertain the kids while moms and dads spoke to our vivaNext team members.
In case you missed us on Canada Day, here are a few photos we thought you’d enjoy seeing!
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?
Part of the total transit system in Portland, Ore.
While we enjoy talking about our projects, it’s also important to highlight some of the other positive transit initiatives that are going on around the world. Before we first launched Viva, we looked to other cities to see what lessons we could learn. One city that provided inspiration was Portland, Oregon.
Fred Hansen, Portland transportation manager, was recently featured on The Agenda with Steve Paikin talking about the “total transit system”. He said it’s not only about reducing travel time, but it’s about being able to properly plan your trip by knowing exactly when a transit vehicle will arrive. Portland uses light rail, commuter trains, streetcars and buses to move people.
They also have something called “frequent service”, meaning no matter what day or time, a vehicle will be there within 15 minutes on a frequent service route. Hansen said that when people can count on a vehicle arriving, they have seen triple-digit increases in ridership. Portland uses GPS so riders can go online or call to find out exactly what time a vehicle will arrive.
But Hansen said what they really want to do is create neighbourhoods – that it’s all about livability. A residential community is not just a place where people sleep or have a meal, but it should also be a place where people can get a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. The downtown core shouldn’t just be a place where people work. It should also have services and places for people to live. Transit has to reflect the community and be a part of the streetscape.
While the program focused on how Toronto can learn lessons from Portland, I would like to highlight the initiative of Portland and say that we hope to bring all these ideas to York Region and more. In fact, many of the ideas were initiated with phase one of Viva including using GPS so riders can know the exact arrival time. VivaNext will continue to build on leading industry standards that ultimately improves quality of life.
The ideas Hansen talks about are the same ideas we talk about around the office every day. We are using transit to lay the ground work for communities where people don’t just live, but also work and play. That is the end goal, transit is the medium.
What do you think of what Portland is doing? What other good ideas do you think we can copy from other places in the world?
I encourage you to watch the full conversation between Fred and Steve. It is followed by a panel discussion about how to share the road.
The Ministry of the Environment recently approved the Environmental Project Report for the Yonge subway extension. We recently conducted a survey* to see how many people in York Region support a subway extension to Langstaff/Richmond Hill Centre at Highway 7 and Yonge. Eighty-nine per cent of residents said that they support the extension.
This is very similar to our online poll that shows over 90% of the hundreds of people who have responded thus far support the subway extension. These survey results reaffirm that we are improving rapid transit routes where people need them.
Are you one of these people who support the Yonge subway extension? Or do you think a subway line would be better built elsewhere? Tell us what you think.
*Survey deemed accurate to within 5 percentage points
