TTC wants to use hydro corridor
The pressure to boost GTA transit service is acute, and York University is a great example.
Long lineups of riders now wait to board TTC express route 196 buses that link the Keele Street campus with two stations on the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line.
Last week, Luiz Marcio Cysneiros wrote me, “Yesterday (as happens almost every day) at 5:30 p.m., I got to the 196A stop to find a line almost 200 metres long! If that’s not enough, the first bus showed up 10 minutes later. Then, eight minutes later (as usual), we get two buses coming,” just seconds apart.
He writes when multiple buses arrive and open their doors at the same time, not only does this “create confusion in the line but it results in the first bus departing less than half-full.”
Senior TTC superintendent John Chamberlain tells In Transit that personnel were sent to the campus in April to monitor the buses and help with loading, and will do so again this week. Plans to increase the number of vehicles on the route have been put on hold, due to budget shortfalls at the TTC.
While many hope an extension of the Spadina subway line will eventually speed up travel to York University, trains aren’t scheduled to start running before 2016.
Interim plans for an exclusive busway to campus — an economical and quickly built alternative — have hit delay after delay.
The latest holdup threatens to postpone the opening date past September 2008, years later than first expected.
The TTC wants to use a hydro corridor north of Finch Avenue for its buses, but the agencies responsible for the provincially controlled land are seeking “market rent” of $3.9 million over 10 years.
Commission chair Adam Giambrone admits the amount may not be considered “huge,” but would be an expensive precedent for cities in Ontario.
“If we’re talking about using the hydro corridors for higher order transit or for bike paths,” he says, “and we’re going to have to pay substantial amounts of money to access (the Finch route), then there’s a real issue there.”
A report before the TTC tomorrow states if the issue isn’t resolved by the end of the month, the busway to York could be delayed until 2009. Changes to land pricing would apparently require new provincial legislation.
Wilson Lee, spokesperson for Public Infrastructure Renewal Minister David Caplan, says during the Ontario election, “substantive policy decisions can’t be made — it just wouldn’t be appropriate.”
However, he added, “I think it would be fair to say that the request is being positively considered.”
