Tag: rapid transit

Categories
Community Events Fun & Games

Have a ball learning what’s en route with vivaNext at this weekend’s Winterfests!

winterfest

You don’t have to be into winter sports to get out and have fun with family and friends in the middle of winter. This coming weekend, February 6 and 7, Winterfests are taking place throughout York Region featuring all kinds of fun-filled activities including pancake breakfasts, dog sled rides, horse drawn wagon rides, snow bowling, live entertainers, and of course, amusing games like our vivaNext ball toss.

We don’t want to reveal too much, but you could receive an exciting prize after you have a ball learning what’s en route with vivaNext – from the rapidways and subway extensions to great shopping and comfort zones.

For your chance to play and learn more about vivaNext, simply look for our vivaNext team and booth outdoors on Saturday at the Newmarket Winterfest and outdoors at the Vaughan Winterfest on Sunday. We look forward to seeing you there!

Winterfests Schedule

Newmarket Winterfest 2010
Saturday, February 6

Indoor at the Newmarket Community Centre
200 Doug Duncan Drive, Newmarket
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Outdoor at Fairy Lake Park
Water Street, Newmarket
10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sunday, February 7

Indoor at Ray Twinney Complex
100 Eagle Street West, Newmarket
Noon to 4 p.m.

Vaughan Winterfest 2010
Sunday, February 7

Vellore Village Community Centre
1 Villa Royale Avenue, Woodbridge
10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Categories
General vivaNext.com

VivaNext staffers support relief efforts for Haiti.

Aid workers provide medical attention in Haiti. Photo courtesy of IFRC/Eric Quintero.
Aid workers provide medical attention in Haiti. Photo courtesy of IFRC/Eric Quintero.

Here at vivaNext, we often talk about how our rapid transit projects will help to ensure that York Region residents continue to enjoy the quality of life that attracted them here in the first place. As we watch the devastating news about the recent earthquake in Haiti, we are reminded of just how fortunate we are to call York Region home.

Like so many other Canadians, those of us who work in the vivaNext offices have set a donation goal to help charities aiding relief efforts in Haiti. We were especially encouraged to learn that the federal government of Canada has pledged to match all Canadians’ donations up to $50 million. Although the past year has been a financially challenging one for many, we encourage all York Region residents to do whatever they can to help as well, if in a position to do so.

Did you know that Canada’s current Governor General, Michaelle Jean, is originally from Haiti?

If you are a Canadian with family in Haiti, the following contact information may be helpful to you:

Foreign Affairs Emergency Operations Centre
Ottawa, ON
1-800-387-3124 or 613-943-1055
sos@international.gc.ca

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.

Categories
General Going Green Rapidways

VivaNext will help you keep your New Year’s resolutions!

Getting in shape is a popular New Year's Resolution. Photo courtesy of Jennoit.
Getting in shape is a popular New Year's resolution. Photo courtesy of Jennoit.

Each January, certain New Year’s resolutions consistently make the Top Ten most popular lists. They include:

1. Spending more time with family & friends
2. Getting fit
3. Losing weight
4. Enjoying life more
5. Saving money
6. Helping the environment
7. Reducing stress
8. Helping others
9. Being more punctual
10. Reading more

In future, vivaNext rapid transit projects will make it easy for you to keep all of these New Year’s resolutions. How so? Rapid transit is faster, easier, less expensive and more environmentally friendly than driving. As a result, it can reduce your stress levels, allow you to arrive at your destination on time, and give you more time to work out, do the things you enjoy, be with the people you love, and of course, help you save money and the environment.

We think that’s a lot of added value for the cost of a YRT\Viva fare. Speaking of which, did you know that YRT\Viva fares will remain unchanged throughout 2010?!

Tell us about your New Year’s resolutions. Did they include any of the above Top Ten?

Categories
Community Events

Bring on the warmth!

Look for people walking near this bus to donate mittens, gloves and hats for those in need.
Look for YRT\Viva staff walking near this bus at York Region holiday parades to donate mittens, hats and gloves for those in need.

Planning to attend one of York Region’s many holiday parades over the next few weeks? If so, you can help our operating partner, YRT\Viva, spread winter warmth to those in need by bringing new mittens, hats and gloves to be donated to charitable organizations in York Region.

YRT and Viva, York Region’s two great transit services, work together as one amazing system to provide seamless connections across all nine municipalities, and easy access to other transit systems operating in neighbouring regions including Toronto, Durham and Peel.

VivaNext, York Region’s plan for the next generation of Viva rapid transit service, will truly put the rapid into rapid transit and make it even faster and easier for you to travel to, from and within York Region.

Whichever holiday parade you go to, just look for YRT\Viva staff accepting donations from the crowds while proudly walking and waving alongside the beautifully decorated blue Viva vehicle – at 40-feet long, it’s hard to miss!

Categories
Announcements Rapidways Subways vivaNext.com

Get all the latest news about vivaNext in our fall e-newsletter!

Wondering when and where we’ll start to break ground on the vivaNext rapidways? Or how they are already affecting urban transformation in such key destinations as downtown Markham?

In our fall e-newsletter, which has just been posted on our website at vivanext.com, you can find quick and easy answers to these vivaNext-related questions, and many more.

For example, you can learn what people just like you have to say about commuting to and from work in York Region, and whether or not they think our rapid transit projects will make things better or worse.

Perhaps you’re especially looking forward to the proposed Yonge subway extension? If so, then you’ll enjoy our look back to where it all began more than fifty years ago.

We even reveal the lucky Grand Prize winner in our ‘Next Best Thing To Summer’ contest. It’s all there, along with a handy sign-up form so you can conveniently receive future issues of our e-newsletter in your Inbox, along with customized email updates about vivaNext projects of particular interest to you.

Once you’ve had a chance to read our latest e-newsletter, we encourage you to submit topic suggestions for future issues right here on our blog.

Enjoy!

Categories
Community Events

The holiday season kicks off this Sunday in York Region with the first of five Santa Claus parades to take place during the month of November.

To help the big guy in the red and white suit greet all of the thousands of people who will line the various parade routes to see him, vivaNext helpers have been invited to join him. They’ll be walking in front of our beautiful blue Viva vehicle specially decorated for the parades and impossible to miss.

Each helper will be wearing a 4-sided cube costume measuring 24” wide by 30” high that showcases the vivaNext changes coming to York Region. As they walk along and wave to the crowds, their cubes will rotate in formation to reveal four unique and colourful streetscapes in Newmarket, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham – each one representing the urban transformation that vivaNext rapid transit projects will help to create.

We  hope they will be as much fun for you to watch, as they will be for our parade marshal to coordinate. We look forward to seeing you en route!

Parade Schedule:

November 8 – Vaughan – starts at 2:00pm
click here for a parade route map
November 15 – Richmond Hill – starts at 1:30pm
click here for a parade route map
November 21 – Newmarket – starts at 11:00am
click here for a parade route map
November 28 – Markham – starts at 11:00am
click here for a parade route map
November 28 – Aurora – starts at 6:00pm
click here for a route map

Categories
Ways to win

Everyone wins with vivaNext!

A member of team vivaNext talks to people at a booth at the Markham Home Show in front of our contest banner.
A member of team vivaNext talks to people at our Markham Home Show booth in front of our contest banner.

The last day to enter our exciting vivaNext ‘text to win’ contest was this past Friday, October 30, 2009. Over the course of the contest period, which began on October 9,  2009, we received 1,434 text entries – an incredible response.

In all, 22 daily prizes were randomly awarded including Tim Hortons and mall gift certificates, movie passes, and YRT\Viva monthly passes.

After the contest ended, our Grand Prize winner of the new iPod nano®* was randomly selected from all daily contest entries. We look forward to announcing their name just as soon as they have received their prize.

Meanwhile, we’d like to thank all participants who entered our ‘text to win’ contest and remind everyone that with great things like faster transit, better connections and attractive boulevards en route, everyone wins with vivaNext.

Disclaimer:* “iPod nano” is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, Inc. is not a participant in or sponsor of this promotion.
Categories
Rapidways Subways vivaNext.com

Add your business’s name to our wall of support

Across York Region, all kinds of large and small businesses are taking the time to show that they are 100% behind vivaNext projects by sending letters of support.

They recognize that traffic congestion and the lack of convenient transit alternatives have directly impacted their business through lost employee productivity and absenteeism, and that revitalization is needed along some key corridors.

Over the next 20 years, York Region’s population is expected to increase by 50% and the number of jobs by 100%. To help manage this growth and businesses succeed in the future, a faster and more convenient rapid transit system is essential – vivaNext.

To see a list of those businesses that have already sent letters of support and had their names added to our wall of support, visit vivaNext.com/wall_of_support.

If your business would like to write a letter of support for vivaNext projects and be added to our wall of support, please send a message to contactus@vivanext.com.

Categories
Community Events Ways to win

The vivaNext ‘segway’ team will continue to drive awareness at the Markham Home Show this weekend

Team vivaNext member, Donald Chang, speaks with a woman interested in the rapidways coming to York Region Friday at the Home Show.
Team vivaNext member, Donald Chang, speaks with a woman interested in the rapidways coming to York Region Friday at the Home Show.

They’re back! Our vivaNext ‘segway’ team was such a big hit at Markville Mall last weekend, they’ll be making an appearance again this weekend at the Markham Home Show.

In addition to driving awareness of vivaNext projects, they’ll be getting the word out about our new contest where you could WIN the new iPod nano®* simply by texting the word Viva to the number 101010.**

Our vivaNext team will also have a booth inside the Show, where they’ll be showcasing time-lapse animations of vivaNext projects. It’s a great opportunity to see what York Region could look like in the future.

Show hours:
Friday, October 16      1 – 9pm
Saturday, October 17   10am – 7pm
Sunday, October 18     10am – 5pm

For more information, please click here.
If you would like to see a map and get directions, please click here.

VivaNext team members will also have a booth inside at Upper Canada Mall this weekend, where they’ll be talking to people about vivaNext projects and showing them how they could WIN the new iPod nano®* when they text the word Viva to the number 101010.**.

Mall hours:
Friday, October 16      9:30am – 9pm
Sunday, October 18     11am – 5pm

We hope to see you in one or both of these places this weekend!

* “iPod nano” is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, Inc. is not a participant in or sponsor of this promotion.
** Wireless service provider charges may apply.