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Bramalea Road EA (City of Brampton)

That's a minor tributary of Etobicoke Creek. It also passes under taxiways and runways at Pearson Airport before joining the main creek itself.

The rail spur was laid out in the very early 1960s, when Bramalea was just getting started, and it was always there (and so was Steeles, which was a two-lane county road then). As there are still several customers who get rail shipments along the spur, it's not going away anytime soon.

Good info as always.

The 'minor' nature of the tributary which is listed as 'East Etobicoke Creek' in TRCA maps doesn't preclude the flooding issue noted above. That remains an issue.

I certainly am not advocating the removal of the spur; I do wonder if the alignment at the south end couldn't be tweaked such that it doesn't cross right at the intersection.
 
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There isn't much that can be done without having to go through a building in the area or forcing the rail spur against Orenda.

Oddly enough, they did realign the spur by several metres to fit in the Zum stop when they built it, but it's a barely noticeable kink.
 
I've read through the proposal and I think they've made the right choices. The only things I said to them was to
- insure that the transit and cycling infrastructure south of Dearborne should be physically separated from the rest of traffic
-sidewalks should be continuous south of steeles to the south city border
-widen sidewalks from balmoral to clark or even queen
 
The amount of traffic lights in brampton is atrocious. More gas is wasted when sitting at a stop light, than it does to drive at 110km on the highway.
Drivers in Brampton are notoriously the fastest in the GTA. The excessive traffic lights help calm traffic so I'm ok with it.
 
Brampton has the worst gridlock I've ever experienced. It can take forever to get anywhere during peak hours.
I don't think widening Bramalea Rd is the most ideal... better measures should have been taken in Brampton's infancy. One thing I wish they had would be service roads on either side of Highway 410 (much like the service roads alongside the QEW). Any time there is a 410 issue these could be made use of. I would also support the use of the metered traffic lights on ramps to the 410 in peak hours, again, much like parts of the QEW in Mississauga.
Widening Bramalea Rd is pointless because it has a ton of traffic lights anyways. That's not going to make commuting all that easier to be honest.
It isn't just you, in summer 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, when the Board of Trade conducted a survey of businesses, they were more concerned about transportation than COVID, especially transportation within Brampton https://www.bramptonbot.com/confidence
Yes, that was what I was thinking of; but I'm only realizing now its essentially in the intersection w/Steeles.

What a terrible choice there.

I'm not sure if that spur always had that alignment; or if Steeles always had its current alignment; but they are way too close together.

I can see what I believe to be former ROW just a bit further north, just east of Bramalea Rd.

That would have been a better alignment to reach the main corridor.

*****

Ya know, looking at this area, I was struck by the awful treatment of Etobicoke Creek, just west of Bramalea Rd.

So, just out of curiosity, I looked at the floodplain map for the area..........

Eeesh, how was this kind of planning ever allowed?

Look at the flood-risk area: (everything in Blue)

View attachment 293672
Note, while that's the East Branch of the Etobicoke Creek, it has a name, Spring Creek


The planning was allowed because it was back in the day when planning for a 100 year flood was enough, basically the issue is the 407 causes it to back up to Steeles, north of Seeles the CN bridge and Orenda have culverts that are too small for a Hurricane Hazel sized flood. Read more about it here https://trca.ca/conservation/flood-risk-management/flood-risk-spring-creek/

A side note as to the area between Steeles and the 407, it predates the 407, here is a photo from 1984
1610483383912.png






There is one major omission, since they started the Bramalea Road EA process, the Kitchener GO line has been approved for dramatically more service, and their proposal for Bramalea Road cannot handle sufficient movement of people and goods after that service arrives
 

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