Tag: Viva

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General

Celebrating Canadian transit

Examples of Canadian transit systems

With Canada Day just behind us, this is a great time to talk about the emerging enthusiasm across Canada for the importance of great transit.  If you’ve ever travelled outside of Canada to the world’s largest cities, there’s no doubt you will have seen how some large urban areas have really incredible transit systems – established networks that mean you truly never need to drive anywhere, and where transit is the easiest, fastest way to get around.  

But let’s talk about what makes good transit systems a priority, and how Canadian cities are increasingly investing in transit solutions.  The first factor that comes into play in transit design, is population density.  There’s no doubt that the more people who live or work in a defined area, the more transit can be effective.  Because Canadian cities don’t yet have the population of the really big international cities, they traditionally haven’t built the extensive networks that exist in places such as London or New York City. 

The problem is that this is a chicken and egg situation. Many people only want to live in an area where there’s convenient transit but transit planners – at least in the past – have often waited for an area’s population to increase before they invested in transit.   

Fortunately, many Canadian cities are realizing that they need to invest in transit before the population increases happen.  At the same time, they are increasingly encouraging the kinds of development that will support higher densities and that result in compact, pedestrian-friendly communities where people are more likely to leave their car at home and take transit.

Cities across Canada are building and expanding their transit networks, and using all sorts of different methods to encourage people to hop on board transit – from LRT and BRT, to ferries, subways and commuter trains, and even bike rentals. 

In Montreal, the transit provider STM has launched a new partnership called the Transportation Cocktail, which recognizes that there are all sorts of ways for people to get around apart from private autos. The Cocktail offers great deals combining tickets for transit and Bixi, the bike rental program.

Calgary’s C-Train is an enormous success, with the LRT in 2009 having counted one billion passengers since service was launched in 1981. It has the highest ridership of any LRT in North America. One of the success factors – apart from Calgary’s quickly growing population – is that rides in the downtown area are free!  Another great fact about the C-Train is that it gets all its electricity from wind power.  Now that’s a really small carbon footprint.

In Vancouver, the SkyTrain, which is a system of fully automated trains running mostly on elevated tracks, connects to a wonderfully diverse transit system that gives people lots of choices.  The entire system includes buses, trolley buses, a commuter rail system and the Sea Bus, a passenger-only ferry. 

The SkyTrain has been credited with helping to spur a significant amount of transit-oriented development to Vancouver – BC Transit says that more than $5 billion of private money has been invested within a 10–15 minute walking distance of the SkyTrain and SeaBus. 

Both Ottawa and Edmonton are currently extending their LRT lines, with the project in Ottawa involving tunneling through the busy downtown.

And what about the technology choice we’re using with Viva – BRT? 

Although it’s relatively new to Canada, cities all across the country are discovering the benefits of choosing BRT.  Some form of BRT has already been added to the transit services in many Canadian cities, with more extensive BRT services being planned or built across the country, from Victoria to Quebec City.

So in the future you’ll be able to visit cities across the country without having to get in a car, enjoying the sights by using our increasingly comprehensive transit services.  

If you’re interested in reading more about BRT in Canada, be sure to read this article from the Canadian Urban Transit Association.

Categories
Community Events Fun & Games

Help us wish Canada a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Canada!

VivaNext teams will be out in the community tomorrow to proudly celebrate Canada Day at two different locations.

One of our teams will be chatting up festival goers at Newmarket’s at Fairy Lake for the Kanata Day festivities.  You can start the day with a pancake breakfast from 8am until noon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church near the foot of Main Street in Newmarket. Then be sure to walk to Fairy Lake (Wesley Brooks Conservation Area), where there will also be all sorts of family fun including inflatable bouncers, an extreme bike demonstration, and live entertainment. At George Richardson Park on Bayview Parkway North, fireworks will begin at dusk.

Our second vivaNext team will celebrate the patriotism of the day at Richmond Hill’s Canada Day Celebrations. Be sure to drop by our booth in the Home Show area, 11am-5pm, and have fun with all the live performances, children’s games & inflatables, airbrush tattooing, teen zone, skating demonstrations, beer garden, and fireworks at dusk. It’s all happening at the Richmond Green Park and Sports Complex at 1300 Elgin Mills Road East.

There can’t be a better way to spend Canada Day than with the patriotic people of York Region. See you there!

Categories
General Press Rapidways

Transit ridership is way up: great news for everyone

Viva passengers getting on and off the bus at Warden Station in Markham

If you’re reading this blog, you have likely already seen the news release on our vivaNext.com website, describing the steady increase in transit ridership in York Region. But just to restate, on June 14 we announced that Viva ridership has increased 26% since this service was launched in September 2005. Overall ridership for both York Region Transit (YRT) and Viva Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has increased by 10.5% from January to April 2011, compared to the same period in 2010.

This increase is great news for a number of reasons, whether or not you’re a transit rider.

First, the more people take transit, the more successful our services will be – more riders means more revenue, which in turn can be put back into our route planning and frequency, making services even better for riders.

Second, more people leaving their car keys at home and boarding YRT\Viva means less air pollution for everyone. We all know how important air quality is to our health – especially during hot summer months.

Third, every loaded bus is equal to 70 cars. So even if you’re personally not a transit rider, every time you drive alongside a bus loaded with passengers, that’s 70 cars that aren’t in front of you. The result is less congestion and easier driving for people who need to get around by car.

The fourth, and in some ways the most important reason, is that increased ridership suggests a culture shift – a really important one for the future of this region, and how we manage growth.

There’s no doubt that the culture in York Region, in the past, was quite car-based. That’s not at all unusual in an area that expanded quickly as part of the GTA suburban growth; where new subdivisions were designed for people who travelled by car, and where it was convenient to drive to most places.

But that kind of urban design can only happen when there’s lots of room – room for big wide roads, room for huge parking lots, and room for all the homes and driveways. Not to mention room for all of the cars. With the growth coming to York Region, that design just isn’t sustainable – we don’t have enough room to accommodate everyone without making some adjustments. So going forward, our new growth will be managed with urban, higher density developments, clustered along major roads. These new developments are being planned to make it very convenient for people to live, work and play without needing to get in a car. Our vision is that people will be able to travel between their job, shopping and recreation while using transit.

The fact that our transit ridership is going up shows that our long-term plan is working, and that people are finding it easy to get around by hopping on board YRT\Viva.

With our rapidways and the Spadina Subway extension already under construction, and efforts being made to get funding for the Yonge Subway extension, transit is only going to get better and better, which is great news for all of us.

Categories
General Rapidways

New fences make good neighbours

Example of paddock-style fencing

As we widen Davis Drive, one of our many priorities is to remember that for many people, Davis Drive isn’t just a busy street; it’s their home or workplace. Keeping that in mind, we’re doing whatever we can to be good neighbours while we build the Davis Drive rapidway.

That’s why last week we started installing paddock-style fencing around 19 properties on Davis Drive. We previously removed the buildings from these properties to make room for road widening, so they’re now vacant lots. Over the winter, they were surrounded by temporary construction fencing, but our intention was always that once demolition was done and warmer weather arrived, more attractive, permanent fencing would be installed.

Besides being attractive, the fencing is functional, keeping the properties secure and tidy. The new fences are set a bit back from the road to leave room for utility relocations and construction activity. As the project continues, we’ll use some properties to store construction materials, to stage crews and occasionally to park construction vehicles.

What will be done with the properties after the rapidway is complete? Well, that depends – each property is its own special case, with many factors for York Region and Metrolinx to consider and ensure the best possible use for the community.

In the meantime, your Community Liaison, Andrea Witty, is often out and about on Davis Drive, so if there’s something about the project that you’d like to talk about, please contact her.

Categories
General Rapidways

Our partners: building on strength

Blog photo: Our partners - building on strength

Last week, I described how our partnership with the private sector is helping us to build our rapid transit system on schedule, and on budget. This week, here’s a primer on who our partners are, in particular our construction lead.

York Consortium 2002, our partner for the design components of the project, includes some of the worlds’ most experienced engineering, design and construction firms. Members of this joint venture include:

  • > AECOM Enterprises – based in the United States, one of the largest transportation firms in the world;
  • > IBI Group – Toronto-based, with offices around the world;
  • > Delcan Corporation – a Toronto-based international company that has developed rail transit in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv;
  • > Peter Kiewit Infrastructure Co. – a leading heavy civil contractor with offices across Canada; and,
  • > EllisDon Corporation – a Canadian-based international construction company that has worked on numerous major transit and transportation projects.

Under the terms of our agreement with York Consortium, they were offered the first right to bid on the construction project to build the Highway 7 East rapidway, with their bid competing in a bid process where we’ve gathered a cost estimate from an independent source.

Following this process, last year a partnership between Kiewit and Ellis-Don (Kiewit-EllisDon or KED) led the successful bid to become the construction contractor for the Highway 7 East rapidway.

Having KED is a tremendous benefit for this project, as our rapidways require a broad range of expertise in building roads, bridges, rapidways and transit stations. Kiewit has built some of the most challenging road and highway projects all across North America, including the Sea to Sky Highway in British Columbia. And EllisDon is one of the best known construction firms in Canada, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in our region.

It’s worth repeating that this is a huge project, with many challenges and months of work ahead. But we’re confident that our construction project on Highway 7 is in experienced and capable hands, and so far we’re off to a great start.

Categories
General Rapidways

Highway rapidways: shifting into the next phase

Illustration of shifted lanes: Traffic is shifted from one side to another along the roadway, to keep traffic lanes open

If you’ve been along Highway 7 East during the last few weeks, you’ll know that our work crews have been busily removing the raised concrete median that runs down the centre of the road. With that first phase of work almost complete and on schedule, here’s a primer on what we’ll be doing next, and how it will affect you.

As I described in last week’s note about construction staging, the reason we did that first phase of work was to free up some extra room so we could build the rapidway with a minimum impact on travel lanes. But that was just the warm-up act. Now that the median is gone, we’re about to shift into the heavy construction of the rapidway. To keep lanes open during peak hours we’ll be shifting traffic right and then eventually shifting traffic left – a little like a giant square dance without the fiddle music and funny clothes.

Swinging traffic right
May 11 and 12, starting at 7pm, we’re going to temporarily close all the centre lanes in both directions between Chalmers Road and Highway 404 (we’ll keep one lane open in each direction). Working over the two nights between 7pm and 7am, we’ll repaint the lanes as shown on the diagram above (we’ll reopen all lanes during the day). By Saturday, six travel lanes will be shifted to their temporary new positions. Then starting next week, our crews will begin working in the original curb lanes to widen the roadway and build the new boulevards. We expect this phase of work will take us until later this summer.

The diagram shows which lanes will be open for traffic, and where our crews will be working, starting at the west and east ends of this section of rapidway and working toward the middle at Pond Drive.

Swinging traffic left
Once the crews meet at Pond Drive, we’ll temporarily close the middle lanes again. This time we’ll repaint the lines to shift the lanes to the opposite side of the road. Then our crews will repeat the same steps, all along the second side.

We’re doing whatever we can to minimize the disruption for drivers and pedestrians. But you’ll definitely notice some changes while the lanes are in their temporary positions:

  • > There will still be left turn lanes and advance greens, but the lanes will be narrower and shorter.
  • > There will be no separate right turn lanes where construction is curbside.
  • > We’ll maintain access for businesses and intersections, although if temporary detours are needed we’ll be sure to point this out with clear signs.
  • > YRT\Viva stops will remain open, although some of them may be repositioned temporarily to allow for construction.
  • > If sidewalks have to be closed off, we’ll provide temporary sidewalks.

Although the temporary lanes will be clearly marked, they’ll be curved and slightly narrower than usual.

So please, drive carefully, watch for signs alerting you to construction zones and lane shifts, and be excited that our rapid transit future here in York Region is well and truly underway!

Categories
Rapidways Uncategorized

Staging rapidway construction to minimize the inconvenience

Staging construction in phases helps keep traffic lanes open

Today’s blog is about building our rapidways. But to kick things off, here’s a question for those of you who’ve ever had to paint a room, or lay down a new floor. What’s easier: working in your kitchen that has to be used every day and is filled with stuff, or in an empty room in the basement that no one goes into? That may seem like a pretty silly question, with a really obvious answer. But I’m asking it to give you a sense of the biggest challenge our rapidway construction contractors are up against as construction gets going: how to work in a confined, busy space that’s open for business 24/7 – meaning our roadways.

Modern roadway building is a well understood process, following clearly defined steps, and using modern technology, equipment and materials. And in York Region, where we are fortunate to have access to some of the best, most experienced construction contractors anywhere, people really know what they’re doing. So building a rapidway is – in some ways – a very straightforward project. Straightforward, that is, until you realize that the rapidways are being built down the middle of some of the most congested stretches of road in the GTA. And that it’s critical to minimize wherever possible the impact on people using the roadway, including keeping travel lanes open during construction. And that there’s no extra room down the outside of the road to widen the working space. That’s when things get more challenging. This is where the concept of “construction staging” comes in, meaning doing the work in specific phases or steps to manage within the available space.

The first step in rebuilding a road in an existing roadway (as we’re doing when we build a rapidway) is to create some extra room to put our construction crews. For the safety of both the public and our construction crews, construction needs to happen in its own separate space; excavators need to swing their buckets, we need a place to bring in concrete, and trucks need room to back up. So finding that room is the first challenge. Our approach is to take out the median, narrow each of the lanes and shift them over by repainting the lines. We will then work in the extra space that’s been freed up, constructing all along one stretch before we move to the next.

Once one side of the road is done, we’ll then repaint the lanes to shift the lanes back, then begin work on the other side, working in stages along the entire segment. Think of our kitchen example; it’s like putting down a new floor in your kitchen – you do one side, then move your fridge and stove over to the completed side so you can do the other half.

There’s no doubt that road building would be a lot easier and a lot faster if we could just block it off and do the full width all at once. Working around traffic means work progresses more slowly; we have to use smaller equipment, construction trucks get caught in traffic, and every stage takes longer. For example, paving requires only a few hours, but new pavement can’t have traffic on it right away, so we need to time the paving work carefully so it isn’t done during the most congested times of the day.

And sometimes you may get the feeling that 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 additional steps which have to be done in a certain order. As much as possible, we like to get all the work done in one segment before we move on to the next. This is all part of staging, where work is done in small, careful steps.

And just as you wouldn’t be able to live without your kitchen while you renovate, we will keep our roads open during the project, relying on staging to minimize the impact of our work while we get it done as quickly as possible.

Categories
General

Highway 7 East Rapidway Week One Update

A backhoe scoops up pieces of the Highway 7 median near Leslie Street
A backhoe scoops up pieces of the Highway 7 median near Leslie Street

After all the planning and prepping, rapidway construction is well underway for our Highway 7 East rapidway. And so far so good – work is going according to schedule, the weather’s cooperating, and we hope to have this first stage of work done by late May.

Here’s an update on what’s happening, and what to expect over the next while.

Before we can get going on the heavy construction, we need to create some room to work. The way we do that is to remove and pave over the centre median all the way from Chalmers in the west end, to Highway 404 in the east. Using those extra feet of roadway, we will then repaint the lanes, shifting them away from the current edge of the road to give our crews room to work safely, while keeping all travel lanes open.

At that point, heavy construction will start to actually widen the future roadway. Starting at both the west and east ends (Chalmers and the 404) and working toward the middle at Pond Drive, work crews will get going on widening the road on one side, and putting in wide new boulevards. Once they have that first side done, they’ll switch sides.

Most of the widening and boulevard work west of 404 should be done by the end of this year. Once the work on the sides is finished, we’ll have to stop construction for the winter. In the spring of 2012 we’ll get going again, this time working down the middle to build the rapidway and stations.

Similar staging will be used for the eastern section, from the 404 to Town Centre then south to Enterprise, with most of the work to be done there in 2012 and 2013. The whole segment along Highway 7 East will be up and running in 2014.

The median removals require temporary lane closures during off-peak hours, and we know that is creating a bit of congestion. Fortunately, once this first short stage of work is over, our construction contractor, Kiewit-EllisDon (one of the largest construction companies in North America) will be able to minimize disruption as much as possible. They’ve planned the construction so that most of the time, all lanes will be kept open. If lanes are required to be closed, it generally won’t be during rush hour. Even though it’s a huge project, we’re counting on them to get it completed on schedule, and cause as little disruption as possible.

One of our priorities is to make sure it’s easy for drivers to drive through the construction zone, and ensure constant access to businesses and addresses along Highway 7. We’ll be installing construction signs, including electronic message signs, which will warn drivers if the road is congested up ahead, so you’ll know if you need to take an alternate route.

We will be keeping you updated on all the developments as they unfold, but there’s no doubt this is a major infrastructure project, and it’s going to take about three years to complete from one end to the other. So please, drive carefully, watch for signs showing where work is happening, and check your inbox for e-updates on what’s happening out there. If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s the time to register at vivaNext.com.

Categories
Community Events

Join us this weekend at the Aurora Home Show!

image of a paint can

This weekend vivaNext we will be at the Aurora Home Show, and we hope you’ll join us at one of the most popular home shows in the GTA.

Making changes to your home takes time and energy, but can enhance your comfort in the long-term. Like renovating a home, the construction projects vivaNext has underway in Newmarket, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham will bring long-term benefits. Our construction projects are bringing change to York Region in the form of rapidways – dedicated lanes for Viva vehicles. Rapidways will make it faster and easier to travel in York Region, and will set the stage for great destinations to live, work, shop and play.

This is the 25th anniversary of the Aurora Home Show, and this year the show will feature a variety of vendors, a marketplace area, daily musical entertainment, the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dogs, and the ever-popular Beer Garden. As you enjoy the show we hope you’ll drop by the vivaNext booth to find out about exciting changes happening on some of York Region’s key corridors.

Aurora Home Show 2011

When:
Friday, April 15, 2pm – 9pm
Saturday, April 16, 9am – 6pm
Sunday, April 17, 10am – 5pm

Where:
Aurora Community Centre, 1 Community Centre Lane (off Aurora Heights Drive), Aurora

Admission:
$2 – children under 6 years are free

www.aurorahomeshow.ca

Categories
General

Construction season is here

Construction season is here – vivaNext newsletter and construction bulletin, tweets and Facebook page

For months now we’ve been talking about the construction you’ll be seeing on Davis Drive in Newmarket, and on Highway 7 East in Markham and Richmond Hill. Now that spring is here, several construction projects are happening on York Region’s roads, including vivaNext rapidway construction.

Construction can include temporary lane closures, occasional bus stop closures or relocations and sidewalk detours. We know how frustrating these disruptions can be for drivers, transit users and pedestrians. That’s why we’re preparing you with information about why construction is happening, and where and when.

Why is construction happening? The practical reason is to build a rapid transit system that’s not delayed by congested traffic. Provincial and Regional planning policies outline the big-picture reasons, including two of our goals: to connect Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area communities, and to set the stage for pedestrian friendly and transit-oriented urban corridors.

We also want you to know where and when construction is happening and this can be a challenge, because as with any construction project, not everything goes according to plan. We receive updates directly from construction site managers, and our team works quickly to pass this information to you. We let you know about new information by putting up electronic signs on-site, sending tweets to those who follow us on Twitter and advising radio traffic reporters. When we know about work more than a day in advance we email construction bulletins to everyone who signed up for updates, and we post bulletins on our website and Facebook page. We also give general updates on our projects in our newsletters, weekly blogs and website content.

If you have a suggestion or a question, you don’t have to wait for our updates to find out the answer. We welcome the questions and suggestions we receive when we host public meetings and attend community events, and our Community Liaisons, Andrea and Nimisha, talk to people every day about our projects. We also respond to comments through this blog, via Twitter or Facebook, and our online contact forms. We want to hear from you!

We can’t prevent the lane closures that are required to complete construction, but we hope that knowing the long-term benefits and being prepared for where and when work is scheduled will be a big step in helping you get around.