Newmarket bus lane project driving supporters away

A transit vision for the future is a hard sell in a car-friendly town where the buses pass by empty.


Thestar.com
March 29, 2015
By Noor Javed


When Chris Benson steps out of The Cove on Davis Drive in Newmarket, and looks west towards Yonge St., all the restaurant owner can see is a wall of construction that has wreaked havoc on his business for three years.

Beyond the pylons and signs is one of the biggest investments in transit the municipality has seen - construction of a 2.6-kilometre Viva bus rapidway that will eventually connect the town to southern York Region.

Benson believes the transformation could be a great opportunity for his business and the community. That’s if his family-style eatery, which has been around for 30 years, survives.

“I was really a cheerleader for this project,” said Benson, who has had to lay off nine people since the construction started. “But now, I’m barely holding on with my fingernails,” he said.

With drivers avoiding the construction zone, business has fallen more than 50 per cent, he says. There is a bus stop nearby, but Benson can’t remember the last time a customer arrived that way.

The creation of a bus route along Davis Drive is part of an extensive plan to build a bus rapid transit network across York Region. In 2009, the province, through Metrolinx, invested $1.8-billion to create 37 kilometres of an exclusive bus lane by 2021. The other half of the planned road network is still unfunded. Davis Drive will be the northern hub for the network with “infrastructure that will serve the town for the next 30 years,” says town mayor Tony Van Bynen.

But a transit vision for the future is a hard sell in a car-friendly town where the buses pass by empty. It’s even harder to explain to local businesses along the route, which have been forced to shut down or are scraping to get by. Or to explain to residents why they should endure another year of chaos on the roads, for a bus route they could walk in 30 minutes. Officials say the short-term pain is what it takes to build a transit network. And as BRT projects roll out across York Region, many are asking: is there a better way?

In 2006, the province chose Newmarket as a growth hub as part of Places to Grow. In its official plan, the town said it would require an investment in infrastructure to meet the projected population requirements, said Van Bynen. “And that’s what’s underway,” he said.

Dale Albers, the spokesman for the York Region Rapid Transit Corporation, admits the Davis Drive project has been “very complex.”

“People sometimes think why can’t you just quickly widen roads, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” said Albers, with the YRRTC, a capital corporation owned by York Region, that is managing the Davis Drive project.

Since 2009, the 2.6 km route on Davis Drive has involved consultations with 133 property owners for expropriations. Of those, most were for slivers of land, 22 properties were bought outright, and 34 have yet to be settled. The Union Hotel, a heritage building, that was “in the way”, had to be moved. And crews had to rebuild the Keith Bridge and a trail that went underneath.

“We replaced the bridge while it was still in use. It was quite complex,” said Albers.

Then there was the work below ground, as crews had to move utilities, put in new water mains, hydro lines and gas lines, he said.

Complex in project speak is code for delays and cost overruns, but Albers says that hasn’t happened here.

“Davis Drive remains on schedule and on budget,” said Albers. The bus lane is expected to be open December 2015, while some finishing touches could continue into 2016, he said.
But a 2011 Metrolinx news release announcing the project, pinned the expected completion of Davis Drive to 2014.

“When we first communicated the project going forward, our best guess was it would be completed 2014,” said Albers. “But this was prior to the utilities relocation starting and roadwork starting, and once that started, we did update the schedule.”

The release also announces $250-million for two BRT projects: the Davis Drive route, and a 7-km rapidway along Highway 7 from Yonge St. to Warden Ave., which is nearly complete.

Albers says the Davis Drive project alone has come in at $261-million, which includes both the price of construction and expropriations. The $250-million price tag from the release is “just for the construction itself,” he said.

Chand Asghar, the owner of Tech Buy, a computer and cell phone store on Davis Drive, says he just wants the truth. He was given the 2014 completion date when he called the town before signing a lease with his landlord. “My rent went up at the end of 2013 because we were told the project would be finished by then,” he said. “For them, it’s just a delay. But for us it is about making a living.”

Albers says Viva has done its share to help local businesses stuck in the middle of construction, including a Shop Davis campaign on radio and print, creating a business support program to offer seminars and discounts to storeowners, and also appointing two community liaisons to deal with complaints.

Last year, Benson said he spent many hours brainstorming with the town and officials about strategies to increase business on the strip. They showed enthusiasm initially, but he hasn’t heard from them since the 2014 municipal election.

Now he has little trust in the officials and even less faith in the rapidway project.

“This is a bus lane that only the Viva bus will be able to use, and not the YRT (York Regional Transit). There is a lot of skepticism that it will actually increase ridership at all,” he said. According to Viva, the rapidway on Highway 7 saw a ridership increase in 2014, up 10 per cent from 2013.

But the mayor of Newmarket says ridership isn’t the only goal of the project. It’s about changing attitudes first.

“The reality is that there is no municipality that will ever be able to make enough roads to accommodate growth, so we need to have a very significant shift to transit,” he said. “People want options, and without options, they will stay in their car.”

Sidebar:

In 2009, Metrolinx approved a 1.8-billion investment in building 37 kilometres of bus rapidway in York Region. The other half of the network is unfunded, and the YRRTC is seeking funding partners.

The projects currently in the works or almost complete include:

Davis Drive in Newmarket - 2.6 km of rapidway along Davis Drive from Yonge St. to Roxborough Rd. Status: 70 per cent complete. Deadline: 2015-2016

Hwy 7 East in Markham - 7 km of rapidway along Highway 7 from Yonge St. to Warden Ave. Status: 95 per cent complete

Hwy 7 West in Vaughan - 15 km of rapidway from Pine Valley Dr. to Yonge St. Status: 30 per cent of phase 1. Deadline: 2016/2020

Richmond Hill/Newmarket - 2.4 km on Yonge St. from Davis Drive to just south of Mulock Drive in Newmarket. In Richmond Hill, 6.5 km from Hwy 7 to 19th Ave. Status: just started. Deadline: December 2018