Why Doesn’t Mississauga Have a Subway?
February 19, 2018
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So, what’s preventing a subway from being built?
Some might argue it has to do with political will.
As anyone who remembers Rob Ford knows, subways can be very contentious—especially when considering the fact that they are quite expensive to build.
If a city or province spends billions on a subway that never gets used, the optics are not favourable.
There are also alternatives to subways and with more viable options (RER, LRT) in front of them, why would Mississauga councillors risk it all by backing an idea without a credible plan or money behind it?
However, people might not realize that a subway was once a possibility. In fact, almost two decades ago, Mississauga was in the running for one.
When Toronto was
planning to extend the existing TTC subway network by the year 2011, it mentioned Mississauga specifically. That plan included extending the Bloor Danforth west bound line into the Dixie GOstation (as cited in
this 2001 report), with possible further expansion all the way to City Centre (making that map we have up top not that far fetched).
Ultimately, extending the Bloor Danforth subway into Mississauga was dead on arrival when the City Centre option was screened from further consideration because the Region of Peel didn’t support the project as part of their official plan, preferring instead a
dedicated bus rapid transit corridor and an extension of the then-proposed Eglinton subway line. The Eglinton subway line was subsequently reburied by the Mike Harris Conservatives, and only now has rapid transit been revived for Eglinton with the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, slated to open in 2021.
The idea of a subway/transit line extending from a large metropolitan city into an adjacent suburb/edge city is not a figment of imagination. Surrey BC has that connection
when it comes to Skytrain stations from downtown Vancouver, and Laval in Quebec is
home to three Montreal Metro subway stops.
Sure, there may be one day when a Mississauga subway from Toronto will grace our presence, but we can’t guarantee you it’ll be in any of our lifetimes.
So there you have it, the subway dream failed to manifest because it never quite made sense to all the right people at the right time.
We’ll see how the subway conversations continue as RER and the LRT take shape in the city.
