Almere is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, founded in 1984. Over the past 40 years, Almere has built its city around the bus, with a network of dedicated busways that go to every corner of the city. Almere has built such an impressive network for a city of its size because the city was built around high-quality buses. This approach is the complete opposite of what we typically do in Ontario, where we build new suburban developments without transit in mind.

Almere’s network radiates from the central station and downtown and travels to all corners of the city on dedicated busways that hardly interact with vehicles. Almere typically operates buses from 6 am to midnight every 15 minutes on all major routes. Frequencies can be as high as every 5 minutes on some routes during peak periods. These busways also have connections to the five other regional rail stations within the municipality.

In this article we’ll examine the M6 route. M6 is a route that travels from the north of the city to downtown Almere. M6 has seven stops and is roughly 4.6 kilometres long.

M6 operates on a busway which only interacts with vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians at very small local intersections. Small intersections have short traffic signal phases that can change quickly, and local streets have little traffic crossing the busway. This allows 100% transit signal priority when buses cross these intersections. M6 has one overpass and one underpass to cross arterial roads. Signal priority at small intersections, as well as grade separations at arterial roads, means that M6 hardly ever has to stop at red lights.

The little interaction with vehicles is made possible by a smart traffic management plan. Vehicles travel to the outside of the neighbourhood on local streets to access arterial roads, while the busway goes straight through the middle of the neighbourhood. This eliminates interaction with busy arterial roads for M6 and reduces the number of grade separations that are needed.

Bus stops along the M6 are strategically placed to be in the heart of each neighbourhood. This allows M6 to serve residents in an efficient manner without unnecessarily close stop spacing, which would increase travel times. This image shows that most of the built-up area along M6 is within 400 metres of a stop, despite stop spacing being roughly around every 600 metres. Stops are also located on the far side of intersections for signal priority purposes. If stops were located on the near side of intersections, the traffic signal would not know when a bus finished boarding at a stop to give a green light, potentially causing unnecessary delays.

Due to the planning and infrastructure stated above. M6 is incredibly fast and reliable. All trips are scheduled to take 9-10 minutes throughout the week, and these buses stay on schedule as they don’t need to get stuck in traffic or at red lights. M6 has an average speed of around 30km/h, which is comparable to the average speeds of Toronto Subway Lines 1 and 2.

Despite offering a completely blank slate to build whatever infrastructure we please. Much of Ontario continues to build suburban sprawl that makes good transit difficult. However, this doesn’t have to be the case.

Since Almere’s busways are just regular two-lane-wide roads with a few grade separations, the upfront capital costs for municipalities to build this infrastructure wouldn’t be much different than typical road infrastructure seen in suburban sprawl. Additionally, this infrastructure likely would be cheaper to operate in the long run than excessively wide roads that are seen in typical suburban sprawl with poor transit. This is all without mentioning that transit-oriented communities that a good bus network supports are much cheaper to operate than car-oriented suburban infrastructure. It just makes sense to build new greenfield communities like this.

Almere shows us that with smart infrastructure and planning, we can have incredibly high-quality transit in new developments.

Written by Haadhi Faizal

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on December 3, 2024.

However, the line might not stay this way for long. Metrolinx started work to move forward with extending the Sheppard Line in 2024 by developing a number of options to be evaluated in a business case which is set to be released later this year. Most excitingly, two options (2A and 2B) included an eastern extension to McCowan Road/Scarborough Town Centre as well as a western extension to Sheppard West station. These two proposals aim to extend the Sheppard Line as the project it was always envisioned to be. Metrolinx also included two other options with one being just the eastern extension of the line, and the other being and extended eastern option all the way to Morningside Avenue.

MTSO strongly supports Option 2 to extend the line both east and west. However, there is a huge opportunity that is being overlooked for this option, and that is the opportunity to extend the Sheppard Line through the former Downsview airport lands before development goes in. This development is set to be one of the largest in North America, and we have the ability to take advantage of the situation to extend Line 4 cost effectively, and provide high quality transit to tens of thousands before they move into their new neighbourhoods.

Downsview Airport Development Overview

The site of the old Downsview Airport and surrounding lands is set to be the largest brownfield development in Toronto, and one of the largest developments in North America. In total, the site which includes the YZD Downsview Airport Lands (developed by Northcrest Developments) as well as the lands around (primarily developed by the Canada Lands company) are set to house well over 100,000 people and host a large number of commercial, office, and institutional spaces.

Some portions of this site are generally pretty well served by transit. There are three subway stations on Line 1 which are in the vicinity of the development site. Two of these stations include Downsview Park, where you can connect to the Barrie GO Line, and another being Sheppard West station, which would be the connection between Line 1 and Line 4 for Option 2 of the Sheppard Subway Extension. However, even with three subway stations there are big gaps of rapid transit access for large portions of this site. Our focus will primarily be on the YZD Northcrest development, which is the portion of this development directly on the former airport site, and is the furthest away from existing rapid transit.

As seen in the map above, most of the development area of the airport lands are not within 800 metres or a 10 minute walk of the existing subway stations. Luckily, there is a simple solution to ensure that this development and the tens of thousands of people who will live, work and visit will have good transit access to and from the rest of the region, and that is to extend the scope of the Sheppard Subway Extension a few kilometres west into this development.

“In the heart of Toronto, the largest urban redevelopment in North America is underway. Called YZD, the call-sign of the former Downsview Airport, its 370 acres will become several vibrant neighbourhoods, featuring homes, parks, shops, schools and workplaces. YZD will redefine what it means to live in a city that prioritizes quality of life.”

Why Building Transit First is Better

Building transit before development goes in comes with a number of benefits that reduce cost, construction timelines, and disruptions. The current Downsview Airport site is as empty as a site within a city can possibly get. It consists of grass and a decommissioned runway, and serving this dense development with the Sheppard Subway is the logical next step for an extension from Sheppard West station. This is a project that will end up happening someday, and we have the choice of either building it now or in the future.

If you build the Sheppard Subway now as opposed to later, a cut and cover or elevated alignment can easily be built, which significantly reduces costs compared to a deep bored tunnel alignment and allows stations to be closer to the surface for easier station access. If you wait until after the site is developed, there might not be adequate room to easily construct a cut and cover or elevated alignment, utilities will need to be relocated, and buildings could be in the way of potential station locations and would need to be demolished.

In addition to physical constraints, elevated, cut and cover, and general subway construction can be disruptive. The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is infamous for the disruption it caused in central Toronto, and that was a project that used tunnel boring machines. In Vancouver, cut and cover construction allowed the Canada Line to be built quickly and cost effectively, but it was incredibly disruptive. This disruption is one of the reasons we prefer deep tunnel boring in our region, driving up costs and creating deeper and harder to access stations.

Building transit first as opposed to waiting later also comes with the benefit that those who move into the development will have high quality transit from day 1. In this development, people living in the areas furthest from the subway and GO stations might feel more inclined to purchase a car and/or drive more due to worse transit. Furthermore, transit access to and from the rest of the region will be subpar and many people living in the development, or people who want to visit friends, shop, or work in the area will have less convenient transit trips and may forego making them altogether.

There are two places in Toronto where we can compare major developments taking place before and after rapid transit is developed. Our example of transit being planned in advance is the Woodbine Racetrack development, and our example of transit not being in place for development is the Humber Bay Shores neighbourhood.

Humber Bay Shores is a density node located at Lakeshore Boulevard and Park Lawn road. Over the past two decades, it has seen a substantial amount of towers go up, however adequate transit to serve this area was never built in the form of a GO station on the Lakeshore West Line. This means that people who moved into these towers had a choice between taking Toronto’s infamously slow streetcars one hour for commutes downtown, or buying a car and driving in Gardiner Expressway traffic for 15-30 minutes. This isn’t accounting for the fact that accessing the rest of the region from Humber Bay Shores currently is significantly easier via car than transit.

Park Lawn GO station would decrease travel times to Downtown Toronto to around 10 minutes and open up large portions of the region with fast transit access. Unfortunately, the GO station was recently postponed due to high costs and Metrolinx’s developer partnership model for funding new stations. Residents of Humber Bay Shores will have to wait many more years for a true rapid transit connection.

Compare Humber Bay Shores to what is currently planned at Woodbine Racetrack. Woodbine Entertainment Group, the owner of the land, is planning a massive development on under-utilized land next to the Kitchener Line rail corridor and Highway 27 which will feature over 20,000 housing units and 10,000 jobs. Unlike Humber Bay Shores, the transit is being built first. Woodbine GO station, which is a partnership between the city, province, and Woodbine Entertainment Group is currently under construction while the transit oriented development is currently in the planning phase. This means that new residents who move into this development will have fast and frequent access to the regional rapid transit network and destinations such as Pearson Airport, Downtown Brampton, and Downtown Toronto from day one. Likewise, the rest of the region will have easier access to the area. In addition, construction is easier and there is no disruption to residents which would not be the case if this station was built after the development was went in.

Woodbine GO station and the development are not perfect, as we have pointed out in a previous article. The development and under construction GO station seem to be overlooking a future extension of the Finch West LRT. You can read more about this issue in our article linked below:

More Transit Southern Ontario

Woodbine GO Development Plans and the Finch West LRT

Nearly 6 years after plans for a GO station at Woodbine Racetrack were first announced, construction of the station finally started in June of last year. This station will be very important for the regional transit network once it’s complete…

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5 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · More Transit Southern Ontario

What Could a Sheppard Extension Look Like?

Our hypothetical proposal is to extend the scope of Option 2 of the Sheppard Subway extension through the Downsview Airport development with two additional stations built with 2.5 km of cheap elevated rail or shallow cut and cover tunnels.

These two additional stations will allow Line 4 to serve a majority of the development not currently within the 800 metre walkshed of the existing subway stations. Runway station would be located at the runway linear park, this part of the development is set to be one of the denser nodes and feature a major park. This station will bring the dense development to the south towards Wilson station access to the subway network within walking distance, as well as access for the midrise developments planned west of the runway.

Hangar station would serve the Hangar district of the Downsview development, it would also provide access to the local neighbourhood, connect to the Wilson bus (one of the busiest routes in the City), as well as the Barrie GO train. The connection between Line 4 and the Barrie Line will allow for so many more potential trips to and from Scarborough, North York, Vaughan, Barrie, Midtown Toronto, Bloor-Dundas West transit hub, Cityplace, and Downtown Toronto.

Some will argue that there shouldn’t be another stop on the Barrie Line in the area, since the Barrie Line is not currently planned to have express trains as part of GO expansion. This means new stations will slow down trips from Barrie, Newmarket, and Vaughan. But we argue that a station to connect with the Sheppard Line makes sense. It’s crucial to connect two high capacity rail lines when they meet, and the stop spacing between Downsview Park GO and Caledonia GO is 7 km, which is a long distance for regional trains within City of Toronto limits. A station near Wilson road will be nearly 3 km away from Downsview Park GO and more than 4 km away from Caledonia GO. Which is a more reasonable distance, especially with electric trains or electrical multiple units.

This proposal would turn the western portion of the Option 2 subway extension from a 4 km, 2 stop extension to a 6 km, 4 station extension. This will bring the western portion of the extension to a similar scope of the eastern extension, which is roughly 7-8 km with 6 stations. Future extensions from Hangar station west along Wilson to Humber River Hospital, Rexdale, or Pearson airport can be planned as part of future phases of the Sheppard Subway project.

Conclusion

Our proposal isn’t a definitive proposal to serve this development, as there are many possible ways to extend the Sheppard Line west of Sheppard West station. What is important to us is that an extension of the Sheppard Line west of Sheppard West station is a project that will end up happening someday, and we have the choice of either building it now or in the future.

if we choose to not take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, we would provide subway access to tens of thousands of people and jobs years after they move in, extend Line 4 in deep, expensive tunnels to avoid utilities and all the buildings that have been built, cause disruption to the community while the Line is being built,

Or we can choose to provide subway access to tens of thousands of people and jobs before they move in, extend Line 4 for cheap before utilities and buildings go in, with stations that are easy to access with only a staircase or two from street level. We need to be more forward thinking and efficient with transit in our region, and this project is a perfect place to start.

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This article was written by Haadhi Faizal

Transit Oriented Development

One of the main selling points of this station is the potential for transit oriented development. The City of Toronto, the province as well as Woodbine Entertainment Group (the landowner), are all working together to develop the land surrounding the station into a mixed used community. On Monday March 9th, the City of Toronto will be hosting a virtual open house for the Secondary Plan for the southeast corner of the site.

Documents submitted by Woodbine Entertainment Group to the City of Toronto last November give a look into what the development could look like. Nearly 20,000 housing units, 10,000 jobs and loads of parkland and greenspace are proposed on the site. This is an excellent site for transit oriented development given the proximity to the airport and the abundance of train service once GO expansion moves further along. Since most trains will be stopping here (including express trains), this gives anyone using this station fast access to downtown Toronto and all the destinations on the Kitchener Line whether they will only be served by local trains or be stations with a mixed service pattern. Some previous proposed GO expansion service patterns showed the station getting up to 16 trains per hour of two way all day service, with express travel times to Union being around 15 minutes.

One problem with the proposed plan is that the density directly around the station is planned to be very little compared to the rest of the development. This simply doesn’t make sense. It’s best practice to have the highest density as well as the most trip generators (commercial and employment space) directly next to the train station to ensure the most amount of people have the shortest travel time to and from the station.

As part of the Secondary Plan, the city and the landowner should emphasize the importance of the GO station and plan for high density and trip generators to be located next to the station. More attention should also be given to the area outside of the station, which looks like it’ll consist of mostly car infrastructure. For example, TOD plans for the Guildwood GO parking lot in Scarborough include a plaza outside the station building, with car parking and pick up and drop off spaces located underneath the plaza and the adjacent buildings.

Finch West LRT

One crucial detail of Woodbine GO station is that it is not located directly next to Highway 27 and is instead roughly 300 metres to the west. This is important because in order for the Finch West LRT to have a good transfer to and from GO trains once it is extended, it will need to be planned and protected to travel within the transit oriented development boundaries. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be planned for at the moment. Images from the Secondary Plan documents show the Finch West LRT travelling along Highway 27. This doesn’t mean these plans are set in stone as this is not a document from Metrolinx or directly from the city, but it shows that currently isn’t a plan to run the Finch West LRT through the development to provide better access to both the Secondary Plan area as well as Woodbine GO. With consultations currently ongoing, now is the time to throw this idea into the development plans.

Finch West is one of the busiest transit corridors in the city, and it being connected directly to fast and frequent GO trains as well as the future development is a must. With this connection, people taking the Finch West LRT will be able to reach so many more destinations much more quickly and reliably. This is exactly why Metrolinx has always planned for the Finch West LRT to connect here, and potentially extend even further to the airport. Plans for an airport transit hub have been stuck for years, and it is unclear how exactly the Finch West LRT will interface with the airport and other transit lines (GO/UP, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, buses). In the meantime, with construction of Woodbine GO underway we should be looking at extending the Finch West LRT to Woodbine GO in the immediate future. In order to make this possible we also need to decide how the line will cross the rail corridor to extend to the airport at a later date to make sure we are able to extend the line in the future if we choose to do so.

The opening of the Finch West LRT was a disaster, with the line taking longer than the buses it replaced and having severe reliability issues. With this in mind, it’s crucial to plan the extension to Woodbine GO to ensure service is fast and reliable, and passengers have a quick and easy transfer between the different rapid transit services.

One proposal would be to have dedicated transit lanes down the middle of the proposed Woodbine boulevard, this road would be fitted with multi stage crossings and other infrastructure to ensure high quality transit signal priority. The LRT would then travel along the proposed transit mall (currently proposed to be a bus only street to access the station) where it would then dive into a tunnel to cross the rail corridor and connect to Woodbine GO station.

This is just a suggestion and other options could be considered, such as elevated or more cut and cover segments through the transit oriented development site if costs were able to be kept under control. This alignment for the Finch West LRT would better serve the proposed development as well as provide a seamless transfer to Woodbine GO station and protecting for a future airport extension as compared to the option to follow Highway 27.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like we planned for the possibility of the Finch West LRT interfacing at Woodbine GO (despite the plans for a Finch West LRT extension having existed for years), which means that a tunnel or some other option to cross the rail corridor and connect to Woodbine GO will require a disruptive and expensive retrofit to the station sometime in the future. This may lead to an option to keep the Finch West LRT along Highway 27 to reduce costs and disruption while crossing the rail corridor (which would create an unacceptable transfer), or a decision to scrap the airport extension to have a cheaper transfer between GO trains and the LRT since there wouldn’t be a need to cross the rail corridor. This option might be alright depending on what ends up happening with the airport transit hub and what the plans for GO service to the airport is in the future.

It’s time we start seriously planning for the Finch West LRT extension to Woodbine, not only because it’s a much needed and obvious connection but also to make sure we aren’t locking ourselves into a worse and more expensive alignment.

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