A lot of people who live further west in areas like Stoney Creek drive past West Harbour to get to Aldershot. The culprit being lack of parking at West Harbour. This is why it's good that Confederation station is getting built. But I have a feeling it won't be long before Confederation's parking lot gets full. This station is going to attract riders as far as Grimsby and Beamsville. Then we'll probably have riders driving past both Confederation and West Harbour to get to Aldershot.
I like the idea of adding garages to GO stations to increase parking spots, because they're a more efficient use of land vs just expanding a surface parking lot. I would even support consolidating huge surface parking lots by constructing a garage. Once constructed, MX can sell off the land the surface parking used to sit on to developers to construct buildings closer to the stations.
MX should incorporate sheltered/ indoor bike parking in every garage they construct. So as to make the garages beneficial to both car drivers and bike riders.
Not every garage MX builds has to be massive like the one at Bramalea. They could build smaller garages such as the ones at Aurora or Centennial.
I like the idea of replacing surface parking with vertical parking and transforming the surface into housing and connecting transit facilities. Mimico was an imperfect example. (Which has crashed and burned and will remain so for some time I think), Port Credit has minimal parking , but a strong central location with strong and improving transit connections, Clarkson has an immense garage now, with substantial surface parking that could see 50 % redeveloped, Oakville has both an immense garage, and acres of surface parking which is just begging for repurposing as Oakville midtown gets off the ground, Brontë has acres of surface parking in the middle of an industrial area, and so probably remains untouched for some time, Appleby the same, except for the neighbouring proposed Developement which would add adjacent towers, Appelby has large parking areas to the south ( more residentail side) and north ( industrial), and so in the future you could see the southern surface parking being largely repurposed. Burlington Fairview has both a garage and surface parking on the north industrial side, and minimal parking on the southern, more residential ( with more building and proposed) and commercial very adjacent to the station, and that southern parking could probably be reduced.
And then you have Aldershot, which is a real commuters park, although is the Bayview Junction speed and frequency issues are solved, could see its role for Hamilton and Penninsula reduced. However, the connections to Waterdown may continue to get stronger and the need for parking increase as well.
And you need connection to separated bike lanes as well to these stations. (Along with the ‘bike’ garage as you have pointed out)
Going eastbound from Union most likely reveals much of the same pattern, but I am not as familiar with those stations, and some of their proximity to the 401 may inhibit any use but parking.
As for the north, one can point to Bloomington and smile.
I am conducting a personal experiment in Montreal again and have to report that I may be a chicken at heart, but comparing bike lanes separated by paint vs bike lanes seperated by permanent concrete barriers, is like comparing apples and oranges. And the sense of security is so much further enhanced with the latter option.
