King-Victoria Transit Hub

[tomh009]

Artificial scarcity (zoning and NIMBYs) plays a part, for sure. But non-artificial scarcity (next to Victoria Park and a short walk to many employers, restaurants and bars) is another factor why this particular property is so valuable.

In this particular case, if the region is looking at building an affordable-focused/affordable-only building (similar to what Kitchener Housing provides) there are certainly less expensive properties available that don't require car ownership. The east end has plenty of (less expensive) land ready for redevelopment, next to the LRT, not far from the IHT and a 15-20 minute walk from DTK.

I think being close to a large park, and restaurants and bars and employers is an artificial scarcity.

I agree that there could be other locations, near the LRT that could be better but the whole line is gentrifying right now. And outside of uptown, downtown, maybe midtown most of the neighborhoods aren’t particularly walkable even with the LRT. That’s not to say that they couldn’t be, but only if the artificial scarcity that makes DTK desirable disappears, which won’t until we stop sprawling. Sprawl ensures that sprawl/car oriented plazas will continue to dominate anywhere that there isn’t a density that can only be supported by high values.

Not as walkable as the old bus station, no, but walkable for some people for sure (I walk frequently 20 minutes to Sobeys). And the LRT ensures that a car is not a requirement to live there. Intensification is already happening in the east end and it will continue. Alas, higher intensity also increases the value of the land. It doesn't however, mean that every location on the LRT route will be equally expensive.

[plam]

So why is housing here so valuable, is it...perhaps...artificial scarcity, both of housing downtown (we have huge swaths of legislated single family housing), not to mention the legislated scarcity of walkable, transit friendly neighbourhoods in the rest of the city.

Yes, maybe we could make more affordable housing by buying suburban sprawl housing, but that's not necessarily a good (because the last thing recipients of affordable housing need to be forced to buy is a car), or equitable policy (why should only the wealthy get to enjoy a car free lifestyle).

I've been thinking about this. Housing has been getting expensive basically in almost all English-speaking countries. Less so in Japan and Germany. But definitely so in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and certain parts of the US. I'm sure it's partly supply. Is it just supply? I don't know.

[danbrotherston]

They cancelled the bypass.  I don’t believe for a second they will succeed in convincing CN to give up their freight business on the corridor, and I don’t believe that the corridor can support reliable AD2W Go and freight, but Metrolinx is welcome to prove me wrong.

Thanks, this gave me more to read, and I think I understand the situation better now. However, blaming it on the PCs seems incorrect unless I have the timeline wrong here. It seems like Metrolinx initially pursued the freight bypass, which the Liberals approved. Further planning for it showed the costs were higher than initially thought, so they began to consider alternatives. And from what I could tell, it seemed like Metrolinx was the ones to recommend sharing the Halton subdivision as a better option, not the PCs overruling them.

Although the dates I'm seeing on these articles and documents are all over the place, so I'm a bit confused since I wasn't following this in real-time.

Lets just say, I strongly doubt Metrolinx's claim to being a politically independent and business case driven organization.

They have a long track record of building politically motivated projects, rather than business case driven ones, even up to right now, where things like the scarborough subway whose business case is not justified, even though they went with an obviously misleading business case assessment [1].

So at the end of the day, I don't trust them one bit when they say stuff like this, I fully feel they are just a puppet for whatever the governing party wants to do.

While I do think the freight bypass would have been expensive (frankly, unjustifiably so, in my mind, but I also don't see why a small single line transit station should cost 140 million dollars either), but I do think that the demand for transit in this corridor is so high, that it's probably justified.

Of course, it would be more justified if we hadn't just invested many many billions in locking in a future of more lanes and more congestion on the 401.

[1] https://stevemunro.ca/2020/02/29/a-preli...extension/

[dtkvictim]

Thanks, this gave me more to read, and I think I understand the situation better now. However, blaming it on the PCs seems incorrect unless I have the timeline wrong here. It seems like Metrolinx initially pursued the freight bypass, which the Liberals approved. Further planning for it showed the costs were higher than initially thought, so they began to consider alternatives. And from what I could tell, it seemed like Metrolinx was the ones to recommend sharing the Halton subdivision as a better option, not the PCs overruling them.

Although the dates I'm seeing on these articles and documents are all over the place, so I'm a bit confused since I wasn't following this in real-time.

Lets just say, I strongly doubt Metrolinx's claim to being a politically independent and business case driven organization.

They have a long track record of building politically motivated projects, rather than business case driven ones, even up to right now, where things like the scarborough subway whose business case is not justified, even though they went with an obviously misleading business case assessment [1].

So at the end of the day, I don't trust them one bit when they say stuff like this, I fully feel they are just a puppet for whatever the governing party wants to do.

While I do think the freight bypass would have been expensive (frankly, unjustifiably so, in my mind, but I also don't see why a small single line transit station should cost 140 million dollars either), but I do think that the demand for transit in this corridor is so high, that it's probably justified.

Of course, it would be more justified if we hadn't just invested many many billions in locking in a future of more lanes and more congestion on the 401.

[1] https://stevemunro.ca/2020/02/29/a-preli...extension/

Unfortunately I don't know or care enough about Toronto's transit the understand the history and specifics your link is discussing. But skimming through it, is there actually evidence of malice over gross incompetence?

Phil Verster (I believe it was an interview on The Agenda) said in his view, as a government agency of a democracy, the decision making should ultimately be left with elected officials. Democracies aren't about doing what is best, it's about doing what the people want (and the elected officials are supposed to be a representation of that). While I don't necessarily agree with that, I understand the reasoning. It's just strange to me for him to take the position that the government can ultimately do as they please regardless of what's recommended, but then also cook the books in favor of what the government wants.

I do want to be clear though, I'm not in any way ruling out that possibility that their business cases aren't as impartial as they should be, I just want proof of that before I believe they are more than just incompetent.

This is off topic now though, maybe it can be moved to the GO thread.

[danbrotherston]

Lets just say, I strongly doubt Metrolinx's claim to being a politically independent and business case driven organization.

They have a long track record of building politically motivated projects, rather than business case driven ones, even up to right now, where things like the scarborough subway whose business case is not justified, even though they went with an obviously misleading business case assessment [1].

So at the end of the day, I don't trust them one bit when they say stuff like this, I fully feel they are just a puppet for whatever the governing party wants to do.

While I do think the freight bypass would have been expensive (frankly, unjustifiably so, in my mind, but I also don't see why a small single line transit station should cost 140 million dollars either), but I do think that the demand for transit in this corridor is so high, that it's probably justified.

Of course, it would be more justified if we hadn't just invested many many billions in locking in a future of more lanes and more congestion on the 401.

[1] https://stevemunro.ca/2020/02/29/a-preli...extension/

Unfortunately I don't know or care enough about Toronto's transit the understand the history and specifics your link is discussing. But skimming through it, is there actually evidence of malice over gross incompetence?

Phil Verster (I believe it was an interview on The Agenda) said in his view, as a government agency of a democracy, the decision making should ultimately be left with elected officials. Democracies aren't about doing what is best, it's about doing what the people want (and the elected officials are supposed to be a representation of that). While I don't necessarily agree with that, I understand the reasoning. It's just strange to me for him to take the position that the government can ultimately do as they please regardless of what's recommended, but then also cook the books in favor of what the government wants.

I do want to be clear though, I'm not in any way ruling out that possibility that their business cases aren't as impartial as they should be, I just want proof of that before I believe they are more than just incompetent.

This is off topic now though, maybe it can be moved to the GO thread.

I am not suggesting malice or gross incompetence.  In fact, I'm suggesting substantial competence, just at the skill of playing politics (which actually has a lot to do with running a big business), as opposed to running a business analysis.

As for proof, I mean, I linked you the one article, you can google and find other sources for the scarborough subway, there are plenty, you can also find other examples of the same thing happening, also from the liberals when they were in power. Lots of cases where business cases were 'adjusted' to make a politically advantageous project look better in terms of business case.

People, in general, support data driven policy making (although, trust in this has been eroded for this exact reason), especially when it comes to thinks like transit (roads, forget it, just build them), but transit, must be justified by a business case. This makes it hard for politicians to advance their political interests if the data doesn't support them. Now I wish they'd just adjust their positions, but it doesn't always work that way, maybe one riding is weak, and the liberals feel they need to be seen building a new transit station there to shore up support, but the business case doesn't support it, but if they just built it anyway they get accused of playing politics and wastefulness and all the stuff you said at the beginning (which again, it isn't, it's just politics), so instead the 'cook the books' (which is actually much closer to corruption), but presumably they feel they can do so without undue scrutiny. So I don't see it as strange at all.

For proof, like I said, there are cases of it happening, it's not like it's secret. But every time it does, the business people who are savvy at politics have excuses or justifications, and you can judge for yourself how much you trust those excuses. But weigh those next to the political motivations in favour of the particular projects which end up advantaged.

Let me be clear, I'm not saying this is all bad. Our LRT I'm sure, there were those who felt it was political beneficial to build it, and I'm sure there were even those who did benefit personally (which is closer to corruption than politics), but at the end of the day, it was a good project. Being politically motivated does not mean a project is bad, but it doesn't mean it is good, just as being unpopular politically does not make some good. it's entirely orthogonal. Now maybe Verster is doing his best to swing things in favour of good projects, or maybe he doesn't care and is only playing politics, I don't know, but what I do know is that AD2W Go is extremely important to this corridor (if for nothing else than to stem the waste of continuing to widen the 401), and I don't believe it can be effectively deployed without bypassing freight.

[jamincan]

So why is housing here so valuable, is it...perhaps...artificial scarcity, both of housing downtown (we have huge swaths of legislated single family housing), not to mention the legislated scarcity of walkable, transit friendly neighbourhoods in the rest of the city.

Yes, maybe we could make more affordable housing by buying suburban sprawl housing, but that's not necessarily a good (because the last thing recipients of affordable housing need to be forced to buy is a car), or equitable policy (why should only the wealthy get to enjoy a car free lifestyle).

I've been thinking about this. Housing has been getting expensive basically in almost all English-speaking countries. Less so in Japan and Germany. But definitely so in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and certain parts of the US. I'm sure it's partly supply. Is it just supply? I don't know.

Off topic to the thread, but this is something I've been thinking about for awhile. Part of the problem has got to be that home ownership and retirement are linked as a matter of policy. That means that policy-makers basically have no choice but to be supportive of policies that lead to continued inflation in real estate prices and there are therefore no significant downward corrections.

[tomh009]

So why is housing here so valuable, is it...perhaps...artificial scarcity, both of housing downtown (we have huge swaths of legislated single family housing), not to mention the legislated scarcity of walkable, transit friendly neighbourhoods in the rest of the city.

Yes, maybe we could make more affordable housing by buying suburban sprawl housing, but that's not necessarily a good (because the last thing recipients of affordable housing need to be forced to buy is a car), or equitable policy (why should only the wealthy get to enjoy a car free lifestyle).

I've been thinking about this. Housing has been getting expensive basically in almost all English-speaking countries. Less so in Japan and Germany. But definitely so in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and certain parts of the US. I'm sure it's partly supply. Is it just supply? I don't know.

Availability of land, due to restrictive zoning policies, is generally recognized as the single biggest factor.

We can't do without zoning altogether but what we have now really constrains the construction of new housing, and thus drives up the prices.

[ijmorlan]

Availability of land, due to restrictive zoning policies, is generally recognized as the single biggest factor.

We can't do without zoning altogether but what we have now really constrains the construction of new housing, and thus drives up the prices.

The tricky bit is that the aspect of zoning which says one can’t arbitrarily turn a farm into a suburb is not the problem; the problem is that one can’t take a suburban area and build something urban in it, or an urban area and build something a bit more urban in it.

[tomh009]

Availability of land, due to restrictive zoning policies, is generally recognized as the single biggest factor.

We can't do without zoning altogether but what we have now really constrains the construction of new housing, and thus drives up the prices.

The tricky bit is that the aspect of zoning which says one can’t arbitrarily turn a farm into a suburb is not the problem; the problem is that one can’t take a suburban area and build something urban in it, or an urban area and build something a bit more urban in it.

That's right: the density restrictions are the biggest challenge. We could do ...

• Reduce or eliminate of SFH zoning requirements
  
• Increase maximum heights, even if not unlimited
  
• Allow construction of granny flats
  
• Allow multiplexing of existing properties everywhere
  
• Enable easier subdivision of existing properties (two SFHs is still better than one)
  
• Eliminate parking minima
  

Some of those could be contingent on including some affordable units, too.

[danbrotherston]

Availability of land, due to restrictive zoning policies, is generally recognized as the single biggest factor.

We can't do without zoning altogether but what we have now really constrains the construction of new housing, and thus drives up the prices.

The tricky bit is that the aspect of zoning which says one can’t arbitrarily turn a farm into a suburb is not the problem; the problem is that one can’t take a suburban area and build something urban in it, or an urban area and build something a bit more urban in it.

To be honest, zoning is only one part of it. There zoning which says you cannot turn a farm into a suburb, and that poses nearly zero obstacle to doing so (our countryside line might provide slightly more of an obstacle, but I'll believe it when I see it).

But zoning which prevents anything from changing where people live, now that is sacrosanct.  As usual the real experience of 'law' is some combination of what is written, and what people in all different roles actually do.

[tomh009]

The tricky bit is that the aspect of zoning which says one can’t arbitrarily turn a farm into a suburb is not the problem; the problem is that one can’t take a suburban area and build something urban in it, or an urban area and build something a bit more urban in it.

To be honest, zoning is only one part of it. There zoning which says you cannot turn a farm into a suburb, and that poses nearly zero obstacle to doing so (our countryside line might provide slightly more of an obstacle, but I'll believe it when I see it).

But zoning which prevents anything from changing where people live, now that is sacrosanct.  As usual the real experience of 'law' is some combination of what is written, and what people in all different roles actually do.

In my mind, that is zoning. Particularly, that is restrictive zoning for SFH (see my post above) that prevents intensification of existing SFH-zoned areas.

[KevinT]

Do you have a link for what the Conservatives have scrapped? Are you referring to track upgrades? My understanding was the the incremental changes required for AD2W GO were under way (track upgrades in the Guelph subdivision, electrification studies). All I see from googling is that they voted against passing a motion to commit to a timeline. But from the Metrolinx board meeting and town hall that I watched it seemed liked they had already approved the business case, and were completing it by doing more incremental changes to slowly increase service.

They've been working on the incremental track upgrades but scrapped The Missing Link / 407 Freight Bypass that would have taken CN freight off the track between Georgetown and Brampton, and if done right, CP freight off the track between Milton and Scarborough. That CN freight is the biggest bottleneck to two way all day at anything above hourly frequency (and probably not even that). A future government could circle back to it, but it's only going to be more expensive to do than it would have been right now. A fly-over/under near Georgetown remains a possibility and would help a lot while costing less, but isn't nearly the same value for money in the long term as the bypass.

[MacBerry]

A rail station says a lot about a city, it's the first impression commuters get when arriving - it needs to be inviting. 

I too would love a grand building, with sheds like in Europe, and a huge commercial population, but I know we will not get that.

As for your comment above, do these really speak to their respective cities?



Coke

* I was going to say, one does... but I won't throw dirt at the Shwa! *

Metrolinx and GO Transit have posted  a 24 foot  * 12 foot billboard publicizing the "new Oakville station" remake. 

Nothing has transpired due to pandemic issues. Hopefully they will get this project up and physically running with construction back.

[kps]

Hat tip to urbanyimby on UT, dated June 23:

RQQ-2019-NAFD-403 : Engineering Services for the King-Victoria Transit Hub

Metrolinx is issuing this Request to Qualify and Quote (RQQ) to retain the services of Vendor to provide the goods and/or services described herein. Metrolinx intends to notify a Proponent of acceptance of its Submission and enter into a Contract through an open, fair and competitive process.

Metrolinx is accepting Submissions for the Engineering Services for the King-Victoria Transit Hub (KVTH) Project, as more particularly described in this Request Document as required by Metrolinx.

The 2009 Georgetown to Kitchener Rail Expansion Environmental Study Report (ESR) (referred to herein as the 2009 ESR) Environmental Assessment - Georgetown to Kitchener - identified a potential to incorporate the exiting Kitchener GO station leased from VIA (now owned by Metrolinx) into the planned Regional Transit Hub plan which included a connection to the LRT facility on King Street.

The existing Kitchener GO Station, constructed in 2012 is currently located between Margaret Avenue and Weber Street on the Guelph Subdivision (mile 62.7). It is currently the terminus station and will be closed once the new KVTH opens.

The existing station provides service to 97,000 riders per year with anticipated growth of 17% per year. VIA also operates from this location. The station consists of a single side platform, accessible platform, a heritage station building, approximately 100 parking spaces and a small bus stop. The future purpose of the existing heritage station building will need to be determined outside the scope of this assignment.

The new KVTH will be located between Duke and King Street in Kitchener (mile 63). The new GO station will be incorporated with the LRT station which will allow for the integration of multiple modes of transportation at one location.

Since October 19, 2017, when the MTO approved funding for the Region’s project, Metrolinx and the Region have been working together to deliver this project. The Region initially developed an AFP approach of delivery, however, late in 2018 the AFP was cancelled.

In July 2018, a consultant was engaged to complete a Reference Concept Design (RCD) for incorporation into the Region’s AFP tender. That assignment was later modified to include the conceptual design and site investigations necessary to complete a detailed design and tender package.

The overall KVTH station will be designed in two parts by the Region of Waterloo and Metrolinx. Generally, the Region’s off-corridor scope will be undertaken by the Region and its contractors. The on-corridor scope will be undertaken by Metrolinx and its contractors.

For purposes of construction of the off and on-corridor parts of the KVTH project, the dividing line between the two parts will generally be the future retaining wall along the south side of the rail corridor.
The Region of Waterloo’s off-corridor scope will include a station building with service spaces, washrooms, a shared passenger pick-up and drop-off (PPUDO), a shared bus loop, 100 parking spaces dedicated to Metrolinx, and provisions for future development.

[jordan2423]

Anything new with this?