Why the Hate for Mississauga?

[The Mississauga Muse]

Not that it's worse, so much as it was first: Toronto's first true megaburb. Thus, the name "Mississauga" became iconic and generic...

Agreed. But far far worse than the generic "Mississauga" is "MYTHissauga" --which is the Myth that was masterfully spun around Hazel McCallion and the mythical "Trust, Quality, Excellence" of the "Best City in Canada".

Really. I've been researching through Freedom of Information for almost two years now --peeking behind the public faces.

I just marvel at it all. How MYTHissauga duped us all.

 

[syn]

What's actually pedestrian unfriendly about the exact point in the photo, though? Can you point to anything other than the width of the road? And, no, "oh my god, it's suburban!" doesn't count. It's not like there's thousand of pedestrians being blocked by highway ramps or fences or broken roads or tall grass or smokestacks or barking dogs behind barbed wire or whatever else. Pedestrians going from one empty field to another via the shortest distance possible by stepping into traffic might have a rough time, but the same can be said about crossing Queen or Yonge at similarly random points.

Are you kidding me? There's absolutely nothing pedestrian friendly about that photo at all. The fact that it has a sidewalk and a bus route doesn't make it pedestrian friendly.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Are you kidding me? There's absolutely nothing pedestrian friendly about that photo at all. The fact that it has a sidewalk and a bus route doesn't make it pedestrian friendly.

Amazingly insightful comment! Not quite as profound as 'Eww, suburbs!' though. Try harder next time, please.

 

[syn]

Amazingly insightful comment! Not quite as profound as 'Eww, suburbs!' though. Try harder next time, please.

Do you understand what "pedestrian friendly" means? I'd love to see your definition. What is it that makes the pictured stretch of Hurontario "pedestrian friendly"?

And let's not make this a suburb vs city thing. I could care less where it is. There are certainly pedestrian friendly areas in Mississauga, but this definitely isn't one of them.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Do you understand what "pedestrian friendly" means? I'd love to see your definition. What is it that makes the pictured stretch of Hurontario "pedestrian friendly"?

And let's not make this a suburb vs city thing. I could care less where it is. There are certainly pedestrian friendly areas in Mississauga, but this definitely isn't one of them.

Try reading the rest of the thread, including the title. Show me where I said pedestrian friendly is a yes or no concept and that that photo was a 'yes.' You won't be able to. You probably won't be able to move beyond "eww, suburbs," either.

edit - or, just copy and paste all of kettal's posts. Then copy and paste mine, because I'm not going to bother.

 

[syn]

Try reading the rest of the thread, including the title. Show me where I said pedestrian friendly is a yes or no concept and that that photo was a 'yes.' You won't be able to. You probably won't be able to move beyond "eww, suburbs," either.

Enough of this Strawman BS. Can you actually address what is written or just keep making these ridiculous anti-suburb accusations?

I have read the thread, and you've repeatedly defended the stretch of Hurontario pictured as pedestrian friendly. That includes the comment I quoted and other gems such as:

Like the typical suburban arterial, Hurontario is simply not uncomfortable to walk down unless you get a nosebleed north of Bloor and are personally offended by pavement and grass. Fortunately, real people aren't that spleeny. If you are, I suggest you see a doctor, or a therapist. You're basing everything on photos of one block next to the highway, a block that is fronted by a parking lot and an empty field. Why not condemn Yonge for the stretch near the 401? Warden and Hwy 7 are both so horrible that Markham is building two main streets in an effort to forget about them. Hwy 7 and anywhere is worse than Hurontario, and it's not like Mississauga tried to create some great urban wonderland on Hurontario and failed like Harbourfront or Oak in Regent Park, so why condemn Mississauga with the usual uninformed and insensitive 'eww, suburbs' posts? That's the point of this thread. Be glad there is a sidewalk...York Region probably wouldn't have built one.

As I've said, Hurontario isn't all that bad, but it generally isn't very pedestrian friendly at all. You don't even have to go that far past Dundas before it starts becoming a poor walk.

Let me guess your response - "eww, suburbs"

 

[doady]

Regardless of how much you praise Hurontario's success as a bus route, that doesn't change the fact that very few people are using it to get on or off in the empty fields north of Cooksville station.

Commerce and pedestrian streets are a lot better suited for a road which is not used by thousands of trucks and commuters as a bypass between multiple freeways. That's what Hurontario's main function is in this stretch, and it's due to the fact that it is the one connection to so many limited-access freeways in the area.

Obviously you have never used the 19 if you think not many people get on/off north of Cooksville station.

The 19 is very busy route with people getting on/off at each and every stop between Bristol and the QEW. Most people travelling this route travel short distances. That's why the express buses (102 and 202) have so few riders.

Obviously, most of the demand in this corridor is for short distance travel, so your claims about Hurontario being akin to a highway bypass are simply untrue.

If Hurontario was like a highway bypass, if the demand for long distance travel was so high, as you claim, then it would have been reflected in poor local transit ridership. And Hurontario corridor does not have poor local transit ridership.

The fact is, probably the vast majority of people in the GTA have never even seen the Hurontario corridor. It is simply not a corridor with a lot of regional importance. It is not the main connection between the 401 and the QEW - the 403, 407, 427 already do that. And you will find a lot more trucks along Mavis or Dixie than Hurontario.

Mississauga overall is not a suburb with a high dependence on Toronto. It has a huge and distinct employment base of its own, which was why MT was hit so hard by the recession, and TTC has not suffered at all. People in Mississauga simply don't commute long distances.

To transform Hurontario in this section, and basically any point from Cooksville station, north to the 403 interchange, and the nearby 401 interchange and 407 interchange would be a very very difficult task.

Hurontario is far more redevelopable than most, if not all, of the corridors in Transit City.

Even putting an LRT down the middle alone will make a huge difference in terms of pedestrian friendliness. Add parallel parking bays and it will make redevelopment even easier. As an added bonus, the LRT and parking together should calm traffic a lot, improve traffic a lot, as well as shield pedestrians.

 

[syn]

^A lot of people who live in Mississauga and work in Toronto take the GO Train. You can completely bypass the TTC.

 

[doady]

Then don't ... it's not exactly a very serious thread!

By definition any city street is a highway. In Toronto, Bay Street is a highway; York Street is a highway. One can both walk along and across these highways.

Even in rural towns, there are sidewalks along, and pedestrian crossing across numbered provincial highways. So I don't see what you mean, even in the more traditional sense.

Obviously, I was talking about the 400-series highways, which Kettal directly compared Hurontario to.

Am I seriously the only person who sees some substantial differences between the 401 and Hurontario? Sad.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Obviously, I was talking about the 400-series highways, which Kettal directly compared Hurontario to.

Am I seriously the only person who sees some substantial differences between the 401 and Hurontario? Sad.

No, you're not. How dare people carve out some degree of pedestrian friendliness between Highway 401 and Queen Street! It has to be one or the other!

Enough of this Strawman BS. Can you actually address what is spoken or just keep making these ridiculous anti-suburb accusations?

I have read the thread, and you've repeatedly defended the stretch of Hurontario pictured as pedestrian friendly. That includes the comment I quoted and other gems such as:

As I've said, Hurontario isn't all that bad, but it generally isn't very pedestrian friendly at all. You don't even have to go that far past Dundas before it starts becoming a poor walk.

Let me guess your response - "eww, suburbs"

Your posts are boring. You have no insight and are completely incapable of divorcing "pedestrian friendly" from "urban" or seeing anything in shades of grey. I'd suggest rereading the thread and figuring out the context surrounding the quotes you've cherry-picked, but you'll just misinterpret everything that was posted.

I'll help you out: kettal said Mississauga was worse than York Region because downtown Mississauga is near the Hurontario/403 interchange, which he took to be Mississauga's main street. It isn't...not where the photo was taken, at least. I said Hurontario here is not uncomfortable to walk down: if you honestly think that "not uncomfortable" is a glowing endorsement of the Hurontario/403 interchange as a place that scores highly on a wide variety of nebulously-defined urban and walkability metrics, or that this automatically slots the empty fields by the Hurontario/403 interchange next to Queen Street and not next to Highway 401 on the scale of pedestrian friendliness (where every place is more pedestrian friendly than somewhere else), than you really shouldn't be allowed near the internet. It certainly disqualifies you from mattering in this thread.

 

[kettal]

Obviously you have never used the 19 if you think not many people get on/off north of Cooksville station.

Really? In those empty fields? I have no doubt a lot of people get on and off in the Eglinton area, and at the Terminal inside Square One, but really, you're telling me the empty field in the photo is a heavily used bus stop??

The 19 is very busy route with people getting on/off at each and every stop between Bristol and the QEW. Most people travelling this route travel short distances. That's why the express buses (102 and 202) have so few riders.

Obviously, most of the demand in this corridor is for short distance travel, so your claims about Hurontario being akin to a highway bypass are simply untrue.

If Hurontario was like a highway bypass, if the demand for long distance travel was so high, as you claim, then it would have been reflected in poor local transit ridership. And Hurontario corridor does not have poor local transit ridership.

I was talking about the overall usage of Hurontario by all modes, not just bus. The bus rider makes up only a small fraction of the users of this road.

 

[kettal]

Obviously, I was talking about the 400-series highways, which Kettal directly compared Hurontario to.

Am I seriously the only person who sees some substantial differences between the 401 and Hurontario? Sad.

I never said that Hurontario is equivalent to Hwy 401. It's not.

 

[nfitz]

... the Myth that was masterfully spun around Hazel McCallion and the mythical "Trust, Quality, Excellence" of the "Best City in Canada".

Good grief ... I think you need to get out of Mississauga once in a while ... it's pretty low on the radar for most people, and I don't think most people have ever had those beliefs!

 

[nfitz]

Obviously, I was talking about the 400-series highways, which Kettal directly compared Hurontario to.

If it was obvious I wouldn't have commented.

 

[syn]

No, you're not. How dare people carve out some degree of pedestrian friendliness between Highway 401 and Queen Street! It has to be one or the other!



Your posts are boring. You have no insight and are completely incapable of divorcing "pedestrian friendly" from "urban" or seeing anything in shades of grey. I'd suggest rereading the thread and figuring out the context surrounding the quotes you've cherry-picked, but you'll just misinterpret everything that was posted.

lol

You've basically described yourself. You're so obsessed with labeling people as either pro or anti-suburbs, nothing else matters.

I suggest you re-read the thread because kettal isn't the one who brought up Hurontario, and more than one person, including yourself, has taken issue with the idea that it isn't pedestrian friendly for the most part.

It's great the forum has an "ignore" feature.