Developer: Metrolinx
  
Address: Hurontario Street, Mississauga
Category: Transit
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Mississauga Hurontario-Main Line 10 LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

There better be branch lines, otherwise this is a failure of getting people out of their cars, getting to/from where they want to go, but most of all, longer travel time. Mississauga is taking the route that the city revolves around MCC just like other cities in NA, when in fact that is where they are forced to go to get to where they want to go in the first place. Can I say Toronto is a good example of this?? Interline will work with the correct headway of all lines to the point MCC stops are seeing service every 4 minutes. There is no such service of 7.5 minutes on the road other than the planners schedules. It is either 7 or 8 minutes on good days.

The average travel time today to bypass MCC is 22 minutes using route 2 and 17 on a good day compared to the 103 that takes 1 minute.

The loop is not on the map, but the original plan was to west of Square One Station to Duke of York and then south to Burnhamthorpe to east to Hurontario. Current plan will see the line go west of Square One to Confederation, south to Burnhamthorpe and east to Hurontario to service M City and Parkside Village and other developments plan for that area. Currently there are 4 traffic light on Burnhamthorpe with another 1-2 more to be added, 3 on Confederation with one more to come along with 4 on Rathburn. As far as I know unit detail designs come out for the loop, the line going west of Square One Station remains on the north side of Rathburn to Duke of York and then move to the centre of the of all the roads for the rest of the loop.

There are 3 large projects plan for Hurontario and Eglinton with 2 more to come and if those new residents want to get to Cooksville GO station once AD2W service arrives, they will chose to drive to/from the GO station than waste 22 minutes or so looping MCC unless they have no car in the first place. This wasting value life time that is irreplaceable for those riders just like it is today using the bus.

As I have stated for years, Quality of Service as well Reliable Service along with faster travel time will get people to use transit than drive. Sadly, not the case for most systems. My major rode average 19km in 50km zone that only has a few major ridership points with a fair number of stops under the city standard of 400m between stops that see the odd rider or two at various times. Even a lot of express buses are in the 22 to 32km for 50 and 60km zones. Should note, traffic not an issues for those averages, the bus drivers are. Some have lead foot while others are Sunday drivers the mess up the runtime badly that some routes have too much padding or not enough.
If the go train has a branch to MCC does that help your loop concerns?
 
I assume that the current travel time also averages in the time spent waiting for the connection - it's only 600 m from Square One to Hurontario, there is no possible world in which a diversion of 1.2 km adds 22 minutes unless you broke the route apart at Square One like the current bus lines are.
 
Talk to any real good transit planner and they will say branch lines feeding into trunk line will offer better service to residents along the trunk line that the headways will have different spacing and cannot be help.
I feel like its a lot easier to plan branch lines to not have headways issues than with reverse branching. You can always adjust dwell times at terminal stations to maintain headways in the central section, you can't really do that to the same extent with a reverse branch.
 
From what I understand, the underground station design still has to be done. In the documented I provided earlier, it showed the station design below downtown Brampton GO with one LRV on each side, so it has be thinking it'd be something similar to the subway lines you see in Toronto.

The station in the downtown at the moment is shown as being directly under Main St N, not the Brampton GO Station parking lot.
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The station in the downtown at the moment is shown as being directly under Main St N, not the Brampton GO Station parking lot.
View attachment 628622
I'm surprised. I thought it would be easier to recover the TBMs and dig the station box north of the tracks. And with only some 1-story late 20th century retail on the north side, lots of opportunity to acquire the land and build a future TOD at a profit.
 
If the go train has a branch to MCC does that help your loop concerns?
If its a Tram-Train, it will help the loop, but doesn't deal with the main issue.

Since the guideway is current under construction, there is no provision for the Tram-Train to connect to the guideway from the Milton Line at this .

To put in the connection between the 2 lines, northbound Hurontario lanes will have to be shut down along with the LRT for 4 months to build that connection. This will force all northbound traffic and replacement buses to Confederation with great backup not only on it, but the left turn at Central Parkway to go north. This also includes everything trying to get to Confederation.

You will need lights to have the Tram-Train to enter/leave the guideway as well crossing the northbound lanes.

I'm surprised. I thought it would be easier to recover the TBMs and dig the station box north of the tracks. And with only some 1-story late 20th century retail on the north side, lots of opportunity to acquire the land and build a future TOD at a profit.
This is what you get for having dictating where the station is to be as well what I have posted on the removal of the TBM. If you tunnel under the bridge to an area to the west side as part of future extension as well the removal, it will work. The station will have to be mine. There are to be trail tracks north of the station with crossovers if no crossover is on the south end as noted on that plan.
 
The problem is that the difference in capital cost is so high. According to the Queen Street BRT IBC, the most expensive option for the BRT, that being Bus lanes with no reduction in car lanes (so with road widening and what not), as well as Bike lanes is planned to cost 500m dollars in capital costs, or about $21m per km, over its 24km length.

The Hurontario LRT is $4.6b in capital costs, or about $255m per km, over 18 kilometers, or 12x more expensive upfront (granted the Hurontario LRT has an underground station and an elevated viaduct, but the difference in price is still astronomical).

As for operating costs, the Hurontario LRT was given a billion dollars to operate the line over 30 years. This is approximately 33.3m per year. For Queen Street it was rated for $45m per year in 2019 and I'll include the addiitonal maintenance costs. If we assume that costs don't scale per km (which they absolutely should, and would make this comparison even more favourable to Queen Street), It would take 14 years for LRT to catch up to BRT. Realistically though the costs do scale with distance quite a bit, unfortunately I can't say by much, and I'm not going to pretend that it scales linearly, otherwise it will apparently take 900 years for the operating costs to catch up to the capital cost price difference. What is most likely true is that if at some point the BRT costs do catch up, it won't be until 30-40 years and at that point you'll likely have the ridership where you can safely upgrade to a light metro or something higher order than an LRT.
"In her letter, Parrish said that running the Hurontario LRT — which has been named the Hazel McCallion Line — would cost Mississauga roughly $65 million per year. The mayor said that amounted to a 3.6 per cent property tax increase when the line opens."

Cut and cover for the tunnel entrance, partial for Nanwood, and TBM the rest of the way. Two if they somehow explain how they're going to get another one on the opposite side.



From what I understand, the underground station design still has to be done. In the documented I provided earlier, it showed the station design below downtown Brampton GO with one LRV on each side, so it has be thinking it'd be something similar to the subway lines you see in Toronto.



Cut and cover isn't for the entirety of the route, just for the tunnel entrance with partial on Nanwood. Any option provided for the Brampton extension at this point would be a waste of money because only Mississauga received funding for their portion. The Mississauga Loop was in the initial design, then removed, then added again as part of phase two. One could argue that the loop was re-added to buy votes and seats as well. Whether or not you agree with it, Mississauga has to contend with the same issues that Brampton does when it comes to getting things done by the current government. But that's neither here nor there for discussion.


Median on Main or diversion to Kennedy were already discussed nearly over a decade ago. When the initial conversation about having a LRT in Brampton was announced, there were NIMBY's who lived right along the Main Street corridor who opposed the idea of it strongly. So strongly that you had factions in Brampton City Hall who were vetoing ever building it along Main Street in support of those NIMBY's, and instead suggesting Kennedy Road. McLaughlin, diversions along other inner streets, and other routes that I don't even remember anymore. Not to mention, diverting along those routes does nothing to solve the influx of people coming off the GO train, Go Bus, or arriving by bus to downtown Brampton.

They suggested these routes because they didn't want to lose their long driveway ROW, and were more concerned about their property values than they were about ever using it as a service. They thought that the sight of an above ground LRT was absolutely heinous, and would cause traffic disruptions and so on. This stalled the development in Brampton, and it only recently started back up once the vetoing faction was voted out. None of their suggestions had anything to do with ever running the LRT into downtown Brampton.

Whether or not you agree with the line being done the way it is, comparing Brampton's downtown to Mississauga's City Centre without focusing on the stops in between, or additional variables means you're focusing on only one section of the entirety of the HMLRT. The 502 that travels on Main starts from Hurontario / Sandalwood, makes a few stops before hitting Downtown Brampton, makes a few stops before hitting Gateway Terminal, and then a few stops in Mississauga before hitting Square One. By one point, the bus is already full, and some stops have been skipped because of how full the bus is, and how many people are not getting off because they're all trying to go to Square One. Combine this with the fact that it's rush hour, Main/Theatre, Main/Queen, Main/Welington are completely backed up. People are waiting for a bus to come because the other buses are full. The bus takes longer than the scheduled time because of gridlock.

The tunnel for the LRT will reallocate resources from Brampton Transit's 502 to the incoming 504, and eventually the currently being planned 515, while also ensuring that everyone is able to get on, and be moved around the city to where they need to get to.

Also... I'd like to know what historical significance a shopping mall has when we're talking about moving a significant number of people via different transit solutions between one city to another city. Heritage is one thing, but to suggest that a city must have heritage in order to benefit from something is a little.... Strange to me I suppose.
Staff have told me that it will be SEM not TBM, and when the idea of excavating from both ends was raised, they ridiculed the idea. the other proposed excavation location would be where the Heritage Theatre block is, since the City plans to raze the whole block anyway.

The LRT from MCC to Gateway Terminal will free up 7 whole articulated buses.
If they are going to do a single bore tunnel like that, and only in a single direction, wouldn't a mined tunnel using road headers like the way Ottawa's was built a better choice instead of using a very large TBM they would need to disassemble at the end?
it will be mined
The biggest cost of a TBM is inserting and removing it, the incremental per km cost is more reasonable. Even if we can't afford an extra station, I would just bore an extra km to the north to where an extraction shaft is more practical. Consider the unused tunnel just futureproofing until we can afford to extend.

I really wonder why we aren't learning from other projects. Cut and cover is probably cheaper and less intrusive given that the tunnel runs directly under a main business alley that needs the shortest possible disruption. Why are we so eager to replicate the misery of the Eglinton experience ?

- Paul
The City doesn't want cut and cover because that would be inconvenient, and the City doesn't plan to pay a dime for the LRT.
 
The City doesn't want cut and cover because that would be inconvenient, and the City doesn't plan to pay a dime for the LRT.
They might be surprised then. Ottawa found out building the SEM tunnel was far more disruptive then they expected. There was some naïveté that life on the surface would go on as normal but that was far from the truth

Stage 2 has 3km of new tunnels, and they chose cut and cover as it would be faster, reducing the the total time things would be disrupted, though to be fair most of the tunnel is beside the road instead of under it
 
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They might be surprised then. Ottawa found out building the SEM tunnel was far more disruptive then they expected. There was some naïveté that life on the surface would go on as normal but that was far from the truth

Stage 2 has 3km of new tunnels, and they chose cut and cover as it would be faster, reducing the the total time things would be disrupted, though to be fair most of the tunnel is beside the road instead of under it
Deep tunnel is no fun. The escalators at Rideau centre is like descending into hell.
 
Deep tunnel is no fun. The escalators at Rideau centre is like descending into hell.

Well, no matter what, the alignment required part of the tunnel to be deep. But council really thought that having a deep tunnel would minimize impacts to the core during construction. The tunnel itself didn't cause much disruptions (if you ignore a major intersection sinking into the ground), but all the excavations for the deep stations did. You need more than just station entrances, you need equipment access shafts, large ventilation shafts, etc. You saw a similar thing on Eglinton getting down to those deep stations.

If Brampton is dictating a bored or mined tunnel not for alignment reasons, but just because they think it's not going to impact downtown as much they are in for a rude awakening
 
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The City doesn't want cut and cover because that would be inconvenient, and the City doesn't plan to pay a dime for the LRT.

I guess folks in Brampton didn’t spend any time on Eglinton over the past decade. Clearly, cut and cover creates a year or so of disruption…. But boring the tunnels on Eglinton took far more.
The cost impact of deep bores may be lost on a City that doesn’t intend to pay…. But it ought to matter to the Province, who will pay.

- Paul
 
I guess folks in Brampton didn’t spend any time on Eglinton over the past decade. Clearly, cut and cover creates a year or so of disruption…. But boring the tunnels on Eglinton took far more.
The cost impact of deep bores may be lost on a City that doesn’t intend to pay…. But it ought to matter to the Province, who will pay.

- Paul
If only we had a fiscally conservative government in Queens Park.
 
Mississauga could have turned the old towns or villages like Cooksville in their downtown, but instead they tore down most of the old street facing stores into parking lots. Streetsville still has street facing stores, but the outskirts have parking lots. Both had and now have railway stations.

Cooksville never had much of a downtown. Old photos show it was basically just a larger hamlet.
 

INsauga News has a poll on their website asking if you will ride the LRT when it opens, with 60.4% saying No and not surprise.

 

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