I am the candidate that wrote the proposal for changing the route of the LRT in Brampton. I welcome all of your input as I am seeking to have the best route possible for Brampton. I believe that my proposal is an improvement over the other options. Other politicians are pushing for a tunnel to Williams Pkwy or for it to stop at Steeles. I will try to do a multi-quote to respond to some of you while not flooding this thread.
The McLaughlin-OBRY route may not be perfect, but neither is the current route. My aim is to get a discussion started locally about where the best route is.
Creating a wider sidewalk for a more complete street is one of the reasons why I proposed this route compared to the downtown alignment which would not be able to create a successful pedestrian experience due to the narrow width of the right of way. The proposed removal of local bus service on Main St is another concern with the large distances between stops.
As far as I know, in Brampton I am the only one to have proposed an alternate route with a map. I know Peter Robertson drew a map with the LRT heading west to Churchville, up the same rail line then across Queen St to the PMH site.
I'll blame that one on spell-check. I have fixed it, thank you.
A section of the downtown route will run in mixed traffic. Having trains wait in traffic behind left turning cars plus waiting for the lane switch at Wellington will reduce the time difference.
There are more redevelopment sites along my proposed route. The current route services the Brampton Mall area. The rest of the route is the Historical District and a park along the Etobicoke Creek. My route gives better access to the Malta Road development (450 units), Sheridan Davis Campus, the Flower City Community Campus (65 acres & possible university site), plus redevelopment of the Queen West(aimed at 200 people plus jobs per hectare).
The cost savings of not having to replace the superstructure of the 2 Etobicoke creek bridges should go a long way to covering the cost of the extra distance. The tunnel from Nanwood to the Go station would be ~2km or $500 million at crosstown LRT cost. The cost of ~2km surface LRT is about $150 million. My route would be less as a portion would run in a rail right of way.
I was not involved in municipal politics at that time.
There would be little development on the part of the route that I am diverting. I'm afraid I can't do much about my writing style, but I wanted to do more than the usual bullet points and buzz words that most politicians use.
Also I said that running LRT in mixed traffic lanes would make that section effectively like a streetcar. In that section (apart from the driver cab at either end) it would look and operate very similar to the new Toronto streetcars.