Yonge St. corridor can’t handle more development

Transit in the Yonge St. corridor is at a crisis point. The Yonge subway line, opened in 1954 to serve a city of just over 1 million people, cannot handle today’s population of more than 2.8 million in Toronto and a further four million in the suburbs.

Just how badly the Yonge subway line’s capacity is exceeded today is clear in morning rush-hours, when trains are so packed riders often must let several trains go by before being able to squeeze in. The Eglinton LRT, when finally completed, will pile yet more riders onto this under-built, inadequate subway.

Meanwhile, development along the Yonge St. corridor, most strikingly at Eglinton Ave. and at Sheppard Ave., continues unchecked. Approved directly by council, or (if turned down by council) permitted by an Ontario Municipal Board that ignores congestion, development far exceeds what the transit infrastructure (and other infrastructure) can handle.

At the Yonge-Eglinton “node” alone, over the past 15 years, 10,000 residents were added, currently accelerated to a rate of 3,000 more each year. Development for an additional 24,000 commuters is in the application stream and if build-as-usual continues, another 20,000 are expected on so-called “soft” sites that are touted ripe for development.

These numbers are grossly in excess of even the province’s population targets. They are also some 40 per cent over the city’s infrastructure capabilities, whether for sewage, park space, or community amenities. Unaffordable single-family home ownership means children increasingly live in high rises, but where are their schools and green spaces?

Toronto is increasingly skating on thin infrastructure ice. To quote the chair of council’s Planning and Growth Management Committee, “Development in the Yonge and Eglinton area is out of control. . . . We have to get it back under control.”

So what is the city planning to do to relieve transit congestion? Or get development under control?

The answer is, almost nothing. The city’s Transit Network Plan puts relief of the Yonge subway last. Instead, it prioritizes investment in suburban locations, of which surely the most egregiously inappropriate is the current plan supported by Mayor John Tory to spend $3.2 billion on a one-stop subway extension to the former Scarborough Civic Centre, which would serve fewer riders than the much cheaper seven-stop LRT proposed earlier.

Yes, the plan does include a Downtown Relief Line (proposed by progressive transit planners many times over the past 30 years), but it has funding only for planning, environmental assessment, and initial design studies. According to the plan, it would open in 2031and only run as far north as the Danforth. Not until 2041(25 years from today) would Phase 2 of this Relief Line reach Eglinton and Sheppard and so bring tangible relief to the congested Yonge line north of Bloor. A 25-year wait is not acceptable. Especially when road congestion inexorably will cause yet more demand for transit. Smart transit engineering would relieve the worst pressure, which is in the Yonge St. corridor. Putting money into other lines first, bringing yet more people to the Yonge subway line, is the reverse of smart.

It is time or Toronto to face up to reality. It is irresponsible to approve development without providing the infrastructure to support it. The Downtown Relief Line must be accelerated. In the meantime, we must be realistic about how much development can be approved in the Yonge St. corridor. Until construction starts on Phase 2 of the Relief Line, bringing transit relief north of Bloor, the city should impose a moratorium on all Official Plan Amendments and rezonings that would result in significant density increases in the Yonge St. corridor. For the city and province to approve and encourage more development, without providing the infrastructure required to support it, is irresponsible.

We recognize that the city population must, and will, grow. But the city and province must invest in the necessary transit and other infrastructure population growth requires. Until it does, the city and its provincial overseers must control and steer development away from the woefully overcapacity Yonge St. corridor.