No argument on that point. ML is badly bungling its capital program by following the path of least resistance, adding dribs and drabs where it’s easy but not tackling the long lead time and capacity-choking items first. The Mother-of-all-DBFOM strategy seems to double down on this.... now ML is leaving destiny design decisions to the eventual vendor. The one gutsy choke-removing initiative they attempted - Davenport - blew up in their face, and the blowback plus the move to P3 has pushed that effort out by years. Don’t let me get started on GTS. Lately, I am really getting interested in Scarboro Jct as an iceberg waiting for its fast ship. On the positive side, USRC is (mostly) falling into order, but that’s just treading water as service is added. How long until we need four tracks on LSW to Port Credit and beyond? None of these lines has a clear, must-do-x-by-when growth statement or investment plan.
We are discussing this without any data, other than the undisputable ridership at peak. That speaks to the line’s service area as a huge bedroom community for downtown Toronto workers. My view of Mississauga’s regional needs looks to other initiatives and not RER alone. When you look at investment in the busway and Hurontario LRT, we can’t say Mississauga isn’t getting its share.
I put some faith in The Big Move document as a well-reasoned, fact based strategy. There must be a reason (and supporting data) why Milton has never played in that planning. Certainly, ML does not have an anti-Peel/Halton bias. GTS and LSW are pretty high priority. Those Regions have had the opportunity to lobby for higher priority for 2WAD for Milton, and while they have done so they have not asked for other things (eg Hurontario LRT or the Busway) to be deferred in favour of Milton GO. And thankfully, they haven’t cried “you love us less than our siblings” the way Scarborough pols have to try to get everything done at once.
I suspect the Big Move relied on some underlying metric along the lines of “percent of GTA residents within x km of a heavy transit line”. If you put priority on Milton over the north/east lines, that statistic doesn’t go up because Hurontario and the Busway are already credited. Whereas if you defer Barrie and Unionville, the metric goes down. That’s both a political and a technical way of saying, the rich mustn’t get richer and Barrie deserves its share... which yes works against build transit where it should go, but I’m OK with that. We are wasting enough money making Scarberians feel the love.
When I ride Milton (admittedly only once in a while), one thing that strikes me is how many riders now get on and off at Kipling instead of continuing downtown. I am getting more and more convinced that other solutions to cross Mississauga travel, such as extending Line 2, and expediting BRT on Dundas, may be a better answer to that rich ridership potential than RER. The busway terminates badly, at Renforth....maybe a more elegant connection to the city eg Line 2 would help. Don’t assume that the off peak, 2 way riders all want to go downtown just because the day workers do.
And lastly, I still believe that the price of adding 2 tracks to the Galt Sub is really, really huge. If we put that on the table and then had to agree on what needs to be deferred to cover that cost.....would we still feel the passion? Just a hunch.
- Paul
