How a misplaced transit line can teach us about prioritizing infrastructure projects
Where we build is often just as important as what we build
As a computer scientist, one of the things you spend a lot of time thinking about is allocating resources and determining the best way to execute tasks or tackle problems to maximize efficiency, which is obviously also a big issue in transit, urban planning, and the deployment of infrastructure.
Allocation of transit infrastructure, at least in my experience in North America, is often done based on which communities persistently ask / make the most noise, or where votes are needed. Sometimes one region in need of funding or can put it to good use does not get it, as it would be unfair (or at least perceived as such) to invest all of the money in one location.
Of course, deciding what transit issues to spend on is the crux of so many problems. What capital programs do you undertake? Do you spend operational money on lower fares or more service? Should you build a few big transit projects or many small ones? All of these are important questions and I plan to tackle all of them in future articles.
I want to briefly divert from our main topic today to mention that this Substack really isn’t just about Toronto, and the stuff I’ll talk about today and in future articles applies really broadly — I am often going to refer to examples from here which illustrate something well from here just because I am familiar. Bearing that in mind, there will also be posts about and situated in different cities: one I am thinking about is talking about the use of gadgetbahns in Japan.
Diving into the problem of best resource allocation, we need to talk about VIVA once again. VIVA is York Region’s (a large region of over 1 million people just north of the city of Toronto) BRT scheme, which all too often is featured in presentations about good BRT and infrastructure. Now, I have complained about the VIVA system a lot in the past, largely because despite the admittedly very impressive infrastructure (the system has such as dedicated transitways and large opulent stops), the service run to serve and use this infrastructure is generally anemic. I often get comments when I critique transit projects that I need to more seriously consider non-transport objectives of said projects, namely development. I think this is a case of incorrectly assuming that only certain transport projects can spur development, and that there aren’t potentially better allocations of project funds. In such situations, counterfactuals can be a great way of assessing whether there are reasonable alternate projects (in this case) that might have similar, or even potentially better outcomes.
I think the perfect thing to look at regarding to VIVA and misallocation of funds is the Highway 7 Rapidway. I should also make it clear that when I refer to a misallocation of funds, I’m not necessarily blaming York Region or VIVA: they have successfully gone out and lobbied for very nice infrastructure, though they do need to run way more service. I think the blame needs to be pointed at the balkanized regional transit system and governance structure we have created that incentivizes tossing projects to each jurisdiction over building infrastructure that will be well used or has a good business case.
To summarize, the Highway 7 Rapidway is a dedicated BRT route which largely runs along York Region’s Highway 7 (which is really just a wide road that was widened even more to accommodate BRT infrastructure), with a few diversions from that corridor to better service intensification focus areas such as Downtown Markham. The entire route is roughly 35 kilometers long, spanning the south of the region east to west, and a large portion of it features fully dedicated BRT lanes with large stops. The issues are many though: For one, there is not actually a single route that serves the entire cross region corridor; and for two, the corridor is just not very intensely used. For large portions of the day, wait times at stops are greater than every 15 minutes, and there is no night service. There is a small portion on the western end of the Rapidway that is served by buses from Brampton’s ZUM BRT-lite (a real transit success story), and Brampton actually more intensively uses the infrastructure than York itself, which really should raise red flags.
What’s more is that Highway 7 is, in my humble opinion, far from the only reasonable location a rapidway could have been built: The more obvious location is along the southern border of York Region with the City of Toronto, which runs directly north of Steeles Avenue, at most 4 km south of Highway 7 but in some places quite a bit less than that. To be fair, there are two main compromises I see with a rapidway on Steeles Avenue, both are mostly going to affect York, but there are also a lot of benefits.
The main issues from a York Region perspective with a rapidway on Steeles are two fold. For one, only half of Steeles Avenue facing properties are in York, so clearly development potential directly on street is limited. For two, Steeles being right on the border with Toronto would mean all the new development would naturally bring York’s center of gravity south, which isn’t actually necessarily bad, but probably wouldn’t be popular within York itself who likely wants to make a name for itself, rather than accepting its role as just orbiting Toronto.
But short of those downsides, there are a lot of upsides to a rapidway on Steeles. For one, the Steeles bus routes (there is one route east of Yonge and one to the west, a problem shared with York for now) move an immense number of people. These routes are among the most used in North America, and combined carry more than half as many people as the entire York Region transit system. The buses achieve this by running very frequently — which I should know having spent many years living near and using them. Service runs 24 hours a day, and for most of the day a local bus is available every 7 or so minutes with additional express services as well. There are more bus trips made on the Steeles buses alone than on the entire VIVA BRT network. Of course, the Steeles bus routes are not perfect: They suffer a lot from congestion which slows them down, and they rarely run to schedule with significant bunching across the route — all of which could be seriously helped with dedicated bus lanes. Now, I know I framed the “half in York half in Toronto” thing as a problem, but it’s also good that as a Steeles rapidway would be half in Toronto, you’d have another stakeholder who is very good at running bus services and designing bus infrastructure at the table. You’d also have a stakeholder who already runs a lot of buses on this corridor, and would continue to do so 24 hours a day. Of course, at the same time, while the Highway 7 rapidway is surrounded by a lot of prime developable land, as well as offices, the same is true of Steeles — though probably to a slightly lesser extent.
Connectivity is and should be another major consideration for any rapid transit infrastructure, and this is especially the case with the VIVA Rapidways, as the projects are largely funded by Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto Region’s regional transportation agency.
Fortunately, a rapidway on Steeles is in my opinion much better than one on Highway 7 for connectivity, especially in the near term. For one, Steeles Avenue runs directly north of York University which would be a truly massive destination to have on the corridor that would quite possibly offset the lower number of offices along the street. At the same time, while the route on Highway 7 connects to the new TYSSE extension of Toronto’s Line 1 Subway’s western leg, there is still a station on Steeles, so connectivity would be fine on that front — a station is also planned at Steeles & Yonge on the planned Yonge extension of Line 1, allowing for connections with the rapidway there rather than at Richmond Hill Centre. A Steeles Avenue route would remove a connection to the Richmond Hill GO line, but this isn’t too big of a deal given the presence of the Yonge Subway as well as the limited service on that line. At the same time, the connection to the Stouffville GO line to the east would be enhanced when compared to Highway 7, which splits into two legs each with halved frequency to divert off of the Highway 7 corridor to serve Unionville GO station. On Steeles, the Stouffville Line station Milliken GO is located directly on Steeles, and the recent upgrades and grade separation have even added pedestrian bridges across the road which would be perfect for connections to very frequent buses. Perhaps best of all, Steeles Avenue is still connected to a trunk route on Brampton’s ZUM network, and runs past Bramalea GO station, which will not only be the terminus station of frequent electric service on the Kitchener GO corridor, but is also likely to be a major hub for redevelopment. A connection here would turn the rapidway into a very powerful east west cross city link for Toronto, which sorely needs one, while also acting as a useful circumferential service connecting GO and subway lines.
Of course, a rapidway on Steeles would also mean that Highway 7 wouldn’t have needed its major widening, which would probably have been healthy for York, and there’s no reason frequent service could not be run on the corridor with more minimal infrastructure. At the same time, this doesn’t preclude a future rapidway further north in southern York region, but flips the order in which it would be constructed (a Steeles BRT corridor is tentatively planned). This would be especially valuable as Highway 7 quite closely parallels the actual expressway Highway 407, which features significant GO regional bus service and has its own planned transitway — surely some of the better and more sensible elements of both projects could have been combined, along with rationalized land development plans.
Looking at things here from 10,000 ft, we have to be clear that there are many factors at play — different municipalities and transit agencies for example. That said, I think if an impartial body was making this decision on the regional scale and its primary goal was really about creating a valuable, well used east-west link (which could still serve York Region but also Toronto), a Steeles Avenue rapidway would have easily won out, though that’s obviously not what happened. We often complain about the results of our poor governance decisions instead of acknowledging that they are simply the result of poor governance structures working as intended. You know: “don’t hate the player, hate the game”.
Looking at issues like this from a macro perspective, it can be really hard to divest from the interests of individual jurisdictions and even in writing this, I actually questioned, “am I stealing away good potential for TOD and good urban design in York Region?” This is exactly the type of question people often ask (for the right reasons) but fail to catch themselves asking. York having TOD and a few nice buses is great, but nice buses don’t need a fancy multibillion dollar busway (which came with a widened road for cars!), and nor does better more sustainable development. At the same time, the same infrastructure built on the border with Toronto could easily generate just as much transit-oriented development, if not more by providing more service and more intensively used infrastructure. The battle here isn’t between Highway 7 with a busway and Highway 7 without, it’s Highway 7 vs Steeles, and Steeles wins every time.
I would love to see you dive in future "episodes" (video or written) an understanding as to how these development plans go from discussion to development to implementation. That's probably a broad and lengthy discussion with a million permutations, but I feel like in order to actually change, for instance, a BRT from being built on Hwy 7 to Steeles, it would be helpful to know the typical players and the plans (and where we can get involved) to have a voice and maybe an impact. Maybe this is too nebulous of an ask, but sometimes I have serious doubts about the people making the decisions and just how thoughtful they have been in actually serving the community.
So, let me get this straight. Steeles has a lot of buses, running all day long, often very frequently, with a huge number of riders. Highway 7 had a few buses, mostly running peak hours, and a nearby expressway running express buses. So, after much consideration ... they decided to add BRT to highway 7.
Aach! I wish I could say this is rare, but it isn't. I can't help but think that cost per distance had something to with it. This happens all of the time with both BRT and rail (in the U. S. anyway). It is very common to build train stations by the freeway (that studies have shown always perform poorly). It is just cheaper to do it that way. Not cheaper per rider, or cheaper per rider-time saved; just cheaper per mile. It looks more impressive.
From an aerial view, this is definitely the case with Viva. It is pretty exciting to see the big station area, and the center running buses. But it is also clear (admittedly, with a cursory view of things) that often the stations have very little around them. Worse yet, it will always struggle with development. Much of the potential space is used by the highway itself, now wider than ever. Throw in a lack of midday frequency (for a freakin' bus line) and it is hard to see it as a great project. Ever.
Maybe that isn't fair, and eventually it will become quite good. But I see no reason to ignore existing ridership levels on these streets, especially given the congestion. If highway 7 had a lot more congestion, then I could see it leapfrogging Steeles, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Steeles is just the more productive project.
But Highway 7 is just easier -- from a political and physical standpoint.