Suggestions: Redesigning Bramalea GO Station, Brampton

[Tithian]

I need help.

Let's say you had carte blanche to redesign the Bramalea GO Station in Brampton, ON (at Steeles & Bramalea). You could only redesign the space currently used by GO Transit and you have no control over the surrounding development. What kind of ideas would you like to see incorporated into a new Bramalea GO Station?

I'm trying to conceptualize some creative ideas.

I was initially leaning toward a new urbanist-style Transit-oriented development, but that proved to be a bit lazy and ill-advised. The problem I'm facing is the nature of the surrounding place. Bramalea GO Station is situated in a rather bleak sea of industrial parks and warehouses. Trying to transform the station's parking lot into a TOD site just seems unrealistic. The station is divided from residential areas by several long and ugly blocks of warehouses, , and getting into it by foot requires crossing wide 6 lane roads. I'm also sceptical that anyone would want to by a condo that looks out on such a desolate neighbourhood.

At the same time, situating a shopping center around the site seems unwise, given the fairly close proximity to Bramalea City Centre Mall.

So now I'm leaning toward keeping it simple and just creating a better transit station. Ideas? Opinions?

 

[TOareaFan]

One change I have always thought would improve this station would be to change the entrance/exit onto Steeles. If you are familiar with Brampton/Bramalea I would, essentially, copy the exit from the Bramalea City Centre that tunnels under Queen Street allowing westbound traffic to exit directly onto Queen.

Applied to the GO station, that would mean tunneling under Steeles so that cars and, more importantly, buses had direct access onto Steeles via a looping tunnel. It would shorten the time to exit the station and create better traffic flow.....it would also connect the station to the north side of Steeles where, contrary to popular opinion, I could see the potential for some apartment/condo construction....particularly if each building built had some ground floor commercial/retail space. Much of that warehouse/industrial stuff on the north side of Steeles is dated and a bit dysfunctional (built long ago without the ceiling heights that modern industiral/warehouse space offers/requires) and I would guess is probably suffering higher vacancy and lower rents than "market" so there might be some (longer term) potential to redevelop that swath of industrial between Steeles and Orenda....after that it is a residential area.

Along Bramalea road itself from Orenda to the new Medallion rental building is a mish mash of, I would think, easily re-developed properties that could be further residential/apartment sites.

Keeping to your mandate, however, it might also behoove GO to find a development partner to start that ball rolling by redeveloping the site of the current bus parking lot into a rental building or condo....again, with ground floor commerical/retail/restaraunts facing onto Steeles......generate some income, produce ridership that walks to the station and get the ball rolling.

The easy thing to do would be to just leave it as is. Accept that it is a commuter/drive-to train hub and accept that within its current environ it is best left alone and focus on the Brampton and Mt. Pleasant stations to "do something different".....that might not be that bad of an idea....but I do think there are other options.

 

[savevp]

I am not terribly familiar with Bramalea GO but I know that all new GO stations are being built in a historical style. Like this:

As well, these smaller station take up a relatively small footprint in the parking lot and may provide room for shops, etc.

Hope this helps.

SVP

 

[ShonTron]

Aurora, pictured above, is not a neo-historicist station, but is indeed a real, bona-fide historic passenger station. The same with Maple, Bradford (also on the Barrie Line), Brampton and Georgetown (Georgetown Line, shared with VIA), Hamilton GO Centre, Markham.

PoMo (or in most cases, LoPo) GO historicist stations are found at Mount Pleasant, Rutherford, King City, East Gwillimbury, Stouffville. Minimalist stations at Malton and Etobicoke North and a few other places are too simple and vague to be anything much.

I don't have a problem with Bramalea being what it is: a sea of parking. This is because it makes it easier to develop Brampton Station, the bus loop is much improved now. I saw that GO put out tenders for the construction of a new station building, probably because the current one (a LoPo, yet functional) is now probably too small to handle the increased functions or there are structural issues.

What I'd do is this: build a parking garage, and try to get some neighbourhood commercial and community services to fill out the space. You aren't going to get everyone out of their cars, but why not take advantage of a "captive" audience - get a grocery store in there, a dry cleaners, a take-out/fast food restaurant or two, a day care, an auto-repair shop in there that can cater to the commuter crowd, but also take advantage of the increasing density in the area (like the new rental towers on Bramalea Road). An LCBO would be smart as well.

Milton is the place I thought of this. Across a new internal street from the station and bus loop is a Loblaws Superstore, and other commercial stores and restaurants. At least cut down on unnecessary car trips, space out the mad rush of cars out after a train gets in, and use land where residential (so close to the tracks, industry, airport noise) may not fit, but commercial sure could.

 

[kettal]

1 - a bike & pedestrian path from the nearest residential neighbourhood to the station. It only needs to be about 500 m to Avondale Blvd.

2 - a multi-level parking garage, with a bike cage. access to the bike cage is only for registered keyholders, to prevent theft.

Other than that, I don't have much hope for anything exciting at this station.

 

[savevp]

Aurora, pictured above, is not a neo-historicist station, but is indeed a real, bona-fide historic passenger station. The same with Maple, Bradford (also on the Barrie Line), Brampton and Georgetown (Georgetown Line, shared with VIA), Hamilton GO Centre, Markham. QUOTE]

Whoops! Live and learn...

Anyway, here is Langstaff. It is a brand new station (there is also and older building South of the 407). It is also in a sea of parking lots and is in a nice style. Check out the picture at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GO_Transit_Langstaff_01.JPG

 

[Hipster Duck]

The area around Bramalea station is the most inhospitable corner of the GTA to build anything remotely urban. Only the prospect of living beside a collection of refineries could be worse.

 

[andrewpmk]

Build a pedestrian bridge over Steeles and the small rail spur to the north. This will help connect the GO station to the residential areas a short walk to the north (there is a condo on the west side of Bramalea a few blocks north of Steeles). Right now there is heavy traffic (including heavy truck traffic) at the intersection of Steeles/Bramalea which is dangerous to cross.

 

[KEO]

Move the terminal closer to the mid range part of the bus loop. As it is, if u are buying a ticket and need to rush to catch ur bus it is just too far away. There is currently one of the big parking lots butting up against that area, which could easily accommodate a new terminal building. U could also add(at minimum) a small stripmall along the same stretch backing onto Bramalea. I can't tell u how many times I've been pissed of that I can't get any real food while waiting for the bus, so put in a small variety of fast-food places. It would NEED a proper cafe lounge(like Tim Horton's, Starbucks, Great Canadian Bagel, etc., etc.), a healthy option fastfood(like a sub place) and a small McD's or something like that.

I would call those necessities from which to start

 

[DKsan]

Of the four Zum routes, three are east-west routes, and one is north-south.

My ideal fifth Zum route was a Zum Bramalea, that would hit both the mall and the GO Station (as well as the hospital, and several high schools).

 

[ShonTron]

Bramalea Zum is not a great idea. Zum is supposed to be a medium to long-distance, intermunicipal linehaul expres service, look at Queen and Main for examples of this. There's only a need to continue to improve service on the 15/15A, it's pretty quick as Bramalea Road has very few conflicts between Steeles and Queen due to the greenbelt parkland on one side and few intersections. Dixie makes more sense.

Bramalea was planned back in the 1960s as a New Town. Where Bramalea GO is now made sense as only industrial, being so close to the airport and the railway (which did not have GO at all until 1973). BCC was supposed to be surrounded, as it is now, by high-density residential and central uses such as the civic centre and the central park. It was a mega-vision of Don Mills in the outer suburbs.