miWay Transit

[Dan416]

It makes me angry whenever I see articulated buses on 39 Britannia. Every 20 minutes rush hour, every 32 minutes midday with articulated buses. The ridership has increased by over 3 times compared to 15 years ago, it has become one of the busiest routes in the city, but frequencies basically the same.

38/39 were the routes closest to my parents place, so I am slightly biased, but looking at the City of Mississauga report here, the 39 is neither in the top 10 of ridership nor the top 10 of overcrowded routes.

However, there must be an error in the second graphic because it lists 35 Eglinton twice. I wonder if they meant 34 Eglinton?

Source: https://www.mississauga.ca/wp-conte...nnualReport_singlpgsF_REtag_WEB_reduced_4.pdf

 

[doady]

39 had 6600 average weekday boardings in 2023. Maybe it dropped below 6000 in 2024? I don't know. I am guessing the second "35 Eglinton" in the graph is actually the 7 Airport which also runs partly on Eglinton. Or maybe they confused 39 with 35? I am surprised by the absence of 61 Mavis as well...

Regardless, I don't think it is acceptable to put articulated buses on 35 minute route. Yes, 35 minutes. I just rechecked the schedule. 35 minutes, not 32 minutes. 35 minutes with articulated buses during the midday.

It is long past time to increase the midday frequency to 24 minutes and rush hour frequency to 13 minutes. Every time new service changes come out, I expect improvements to the 39 but always nothing. Get the damn artics off of Britannia Road, please.

 

[doady]

Daily boardings, weekdays, October 2024 (vs. October 2019)

1. 35 Eglinton: 11820 (+40%)
2. 42 Derry: 11766 (+54%)
3. 66 McLaughlin: 10171 (+41%)
4. 61 Mavis: 9655 (+79%)
5. 1 Dundas: 9649 (0%)
6. 2 Hurontario: 9392 (n/a)
7. 26 Burnhamthorpe: 8291 (+52%)
8. 5 Dixie: 7992 (+9%)
9. 3 Bloor: 6881 (-3%)
10. 39 Britannia: 6538 (+47%)
11. 109 Meadowvale Express: 6384 (-24%)
12. 101 Dundas Express: 5780 (-24%)
13. 7 Airport: 5712 (+49%)
14. 107 Malton Express: 5223 (-16%)
15. 18 McLaughlin-Derry: 5071 (n/a)

Microsoft OneDrive

1drv.ms

 

[T3G]

It is long past time to increase the midday frequency to 24 minutes and rush hour frequency to 13 minutes.

Is this a frequency that would attract anyone out of the car?

Personally, I think the idea of ever waiting more than 12 minutes for a city bus, except for overnight, is ridiculous - especially when the drive time between terminal A and terminal B of the 39 is only 20 minutes. Transit fails when you have to make an appointment to be at a stop at a certain time, instead of arriving whenever under the expectation that a bus would show up in a reasonable time frame.

 

[doady]

Is this a frequency that would attract anyone out of the car?

Personally, I think the idea of ever waiting more than 12 minutes for a city bus, except for overnight, is ridiculous - especially when the drive time between terminal A and terminal B of the 39 is only 20 minutes. Transit fails when you have to make an appointment to be at a stop at a certain time, instead of arriving whenever under the expectation that a bus would show up in a reasonable time frame.

Well, 35 minute frequency on 39 Britannia obviously did not fail to attract riders otherwise I would not be talking about the overcrowding and articulated buses being used on the route. Increasing frequencies to 12 minutes would be about increasing capacity, not about reducing wait times. 12-minute frequency usually means a 6-minute wait, not 12 minutes.

Two buses on 39 Britannia to improve its midday frequency to 35 minutes to 24 minutes and take articulated buses off the route and reduce travel time by 5-6 minutes is good enough. Six more buses to increase frequency to 12 minutes just to reduce travel time by another 6 minutes, is it really worth it? Personally, I don't think so.

With such severe diminishing returns with each additional bus, it would make a lot more sense to spread those eight buses out to multiple routes instead adding them all to the 39, if reducing travel time is the only goal.

For example. two buses each on 38 Creditview and 45 Winston Churchill would increase their midday frequencies from 34 minutes to 24 minutes and 32 minutes to 22 minutes, respectively. Adding one bus on 53 Kennedy would increase its frequency from 34 minutes to 26 minutes. Even just five additional buses spread out on the 38, 45, and 53 already makes more difference than eight additional buses on the 39 would make.

 

[drum118]

What you need to know about Mississauga’s 20-year transit and road plan​

 

[doady]

Oh, I guess this explains why there have been no improvements to the 39 this year:

Pushback from the community saves busy Mississauga bus route
By Steve Pecar
Published September 15, 2025 at 4:46 pm

A planned change to a Mississauga bus route has been put on hold after a successful pushback from the community.

The change was to take place on Route 39 – Britannia, which travels through the middle of the Lisgar community in Meadowvale in the northwest area of the city.

MiWay, Mississauga’s transit system, proposed changing it to Route 50 – Lisgar, which would have travelled along Winston Churchill Boulevard between Meadowvale Town Centre and Britannia Road.

https://www.insauga.com/pushback-from-the-community-saves-busy-mississauga-bus-route/

Right now, 39 is the longest route in the network (whopping 90 minutes long trip during rush hour). Shortening it and taking it off Lisgar would make it easier to add service. Articulated buses and late night service is not fitting for a quiet residential street either...

The proposed route 50 is terrible though, so I guess I can't blame residents along Lisgar for protesting the loss of 39.

 

[Bordercollie]

The way that they have handled the Mississauga LRT construction is an absolute disaster.

The rails have been laid for months and no overhead work is started. Not to mention they they could start bringing the sidewalk back and building the bus stops but instead pylons are all over the place and everything is a disaster. No wonder businesses are suffering.

If the center track bed and tracks are laid it should proceed to the next step. Clean it up. Make it walkable. Keeping it a disaster zone for months with no work being done is unacceptable.

 

[drum118]

The way that they have handled the Mississauga LRT construction is an absolute disaster.

The rails have been laid for months and no overhead work is started. Not to mention they they could start bringing the sidewalk back and building the bus stops but instead pylons are all over the place and everything is a disaster. No wonder businesses are suffering.

If the center track bed and tracks are laid it should proceed to the next step. Clean it up. Make it walkable. Keeping it a disaster zone for months with no work being done is unacceptable.

This should be the the LRT thread as Mississauga has no control over it as well service for it other than paying for service along with Brampton.

At this time both the 103 and 2 are runing late northbound between Sq One Dr and Burnhamthorpe as trackwork is taking place with only a single lane of traffic. No idea what will happen for the next week or two for the the traffic effect on 103 and 2 from Central Pkwy to Sq One Dr as trackwork take place.

Other than that, will not comment on your posting here.

Based on what I see, Mississauga is not keeping pace with the city growth that the model split has fallen from 15% in 2007 to 10% today when it is supposed to be at 20%. Only saw 10 people on an westbound 135 at Mavis Rd at 1630 on an articulated bus while a 3 had 65 on a 40' bus 30 minutes later.

39 should have better service 7 days a week and been a pit since it started.

 

[doady]

It is really hurting MiWay too. The delays force them to put more buses on Hurontario to maintain the same frequency, which takes away buses from other routes.

But MiWay hasn't done a good job to provide riders some alternatives either. No combined McLaughlin/Confederation route for example. I suspect a lot of the new riders along McLaughlin are people trying to avoid Hurontario.

 

[drum118]

It is really hurting MiWay too. The delays force them to put more buses on Hurontario to maintain the same frequency, which takes away buses from other routes.

But MiWay hasn't done a good job to provide riders some alternatives either. No combined McLaughlin/Confederation route for example. I suspect a lot of the new riders along McLaughlin are people trying to avoid Hurontario.

Right now, Dundas to Sq One Dr is effected with trackwork been done since September for the 2 and the 103. The 103 and 17 have to deal with the single lane netween Kingsbridge and the 403 off ramp. and will remain that way for about another 6 months.

17 should be finally be off detoured after 6+ months to rebuild Topflight intersection if it has open this week based on what I saw on Sunday. O.ther than that, there has been a short section from time to time this year where a single lane is in place but hasn'y effected transit service that much.

Will not see the 28 and 66 combined as they have two different headway with the 28 only needed a 40' buses while 66 is using 60'. Since there has been a decline of riders on 66 this year that may change in 2026 for service and bus size. Unless McLaughlin/Confederation route is a grid route bypassing CCTT its a waste of riders travel time having to go to/from CCTT as a single seat ride.

One big question I noticed this year is why are buses running 15-20km below the speed limit as well spending 1-3 minutes sitting at various stop for no reason?? Will say the routes have too much time padded in the run time.

The other thing I see is service is cut on various routes and has been moved to other routes with higher ridership as there is not enough service hours that used to exist before 2018.

Right now the city seems more interested making sure students get good service while the working class is getting poor service. 66, 126 mainly service students. Those who use transit beside work get poor service.

 

[T3G]

One big question I noticed this year is why are buses running 15-20km below the speed limit as well spending 1-3 minutes sitting at various stop for no reason?? Will say the routes have too much time padded in the run time.

The 109 is a big offender for this. On the transit way it feels like we're crawling, and the really long break mid route at Square One also does no one any favours.

 

[doady]

I think the lack of McLaughlin or Mavis buses connecting to 26/126 Burnhamthorpe and 1/101 Dundas, forcing riders onto Hurontario is really bad, even before the construction. It is a huge gap in the grid. I was thinking an all new route (Express?) to complement 28/66 rather than replace them, to preserve service along Redmond and to Cooksville GO.

28 Confederation kind of chicken/egg. Does it need less service because of low ridership? Or is ridership lower because it is an extremely short route with a detours to serve Redmond Dr and Cooksville GO? Confederation is actually a high density corridor, I don't think it is a mismatch with McLaughlin at all. And it is so close to Hurontario, so if they make it part of the grid network, it can give riders an alternative to 2/103 and not have to endure all that construction.

 

[drum118]

I think the lack of McLaughlin or Mavis buses connecting to 26/126 Burnhamthorpe and 1/101 Dundas, forcing riders onto Hurontario is really bad, even before the construction. It is a huge gap in the grid. I was thinking an all new route (Express?) to complement 28/66 rather than replace them, to preserve service along Redmond and to Cooksville GO.

28 Confederation kind of chicken/egg. Does it need less service because of low ridership? Or is ridership lower because it is an extremely short route with a detours to serve Redmond Dr and Cooksville GO? Confederation is actually a high density corridor, I don't think it is a mismatch with McLaughlin at all. And it is so close to Hurontario, so if they make it part of the grid network, it can give riders an alternative to 2/103 and not have to endure all that construction.

I have called for a decade that there needs to be a grid route on Mavis that go east on Dundas to The GO station. This will feed riders to/from the GO network and allow riders to bypass CCTT to get to/from Dundas faster.as well take presure off CCTT.

As for the 28, it service the hosipital along a low density route and goes off grid to pickup a fai number of riders. You can make McLaughlin/Confederation a grid route but how to deal with riders been feed into CCTT to het to the Hospital other than use the current 2. That will work around 2030 when the new hospital opens as it will be next to the LRT with a stop at the dorr.

With construction of the Dundas BRT, a grid route network is needed and should be in place by 2028

The 109 is a big offender for this. On the transit way it feels like we're crawling, and the really long break mid route at Square One also does no one any favours.

I have been on some of those supposed express buses that crawl and stop for no reason along the Transitway.

End of the day both pf you and other should appear before the Transit Advisory Committee and air your comments. You will gain more support than dealing with customer service.

 

[anb]

One thing that Brampton has over MiWay would be that at least all buses try their best to connect to one of the Zum routes whether they are on grid or not, so you wouldn't have to take more than 2 buses to most areas. MiWay needs to think more grid like, especially on their N-S corridors.

You could technically make McLaughin/Confederation into one route the same way that the Bramalea and Dixie buses head to the BCC terminal and then back on grid, or at the very least interline both the 28 and 66 routes.

Mavis should stop heading to CCTT, head down to Dundas and either go to UTM, Cooksville, or Trillium. Erin Mills should have a proper bus route from Steeles to Clarkson, as it is ridiculous that you need to take 4 whole buses to head up and down the corridor, and 1 of them includes a GO Bus.

Maybe have extra smaller routes too like one going on Tenth Line to Eglinton then on Ridgeway. Or extend the 44 to head to Port Credit on Misssissauga Rd.