salsa
Senior Member
It's amazing that Canada's 6th largest city still hasn't achieved that. Even Halifax is more fun than Mississauga.
It's amazing that Canada's 6th largest city still hasn't achieved that. Even Halifax is more fun than Mississauga.
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Downtown Mississauga did open a bunch of new places, including some nice new restaurants and finally a few patios that helped a lot, but still is very suburb. Very. Google "mississauga patios" and you will see what I mean of the beautiful new stuff as a small incremental step. They finally got a few decent places to hang and socialize for a beer on a summer night. I had a job interview (long before my current job) in one of the high tech IT positions, and the downtown region (Square One) is no longer your grandfather's Mississauga anymore, despite leftovers of its heavy suburbanite stripmall past. The downtown tower cluster glows colorfully at night now, with colored LED illumination. At nighttime viewed from a couple kilometers away, the Mississauga skyline is now more colorful than the Halifax skyline; you'd wonder if there was a city ordinance to force the installation of colored lighting on all the new towers. Also, the is finally a reasonable number of decent fancy nightclubs nowadays. City is slowly becoming more fun, if not as fun as others. Suburbs you definitely must have car, but Downtown is becoming reasonably walkable with increasingly landscaped sidewalks in certain sections. You do need an app to find the entertainment gems you didn't know anout one block off your walking route, as the fancy studd are not always all clustered promenade-sryle (like in other cities) even if within walking distance of each other. And at least they got something Toronto does not: Playdium!
Still would not live there, but I can see its fully self sufficient city potential; change is definitely in the air.
Maybe in 10-20 years, it will finally catch up becoming a 'real' city like Halifax. Walkability is rocketing upwards if you stay in the rapidly densifying downtown. Car-free is becoming feasible in downtown Mississauga. Autoshare carshare arrived and theres an emplyee bikeshare now. I think they are truly ready for rail service, including a dedicated corridor (e.g. future SmartTrack extension).
And I say this as someone who normally snubs a Mississauga style suburb, but the downtown region's last ten years (plus the future proposals) have caught my attention.
Last edited:
Transportfan
Senior Member
There already is a greenbelt to halt further expansion when it's reached.
JGHali
Active Member
That's because Halifax is a provincial capital, home to the largest military base in the country, thousands of postsecondary students, and has, ya know, history. And a downtown that rises up from a harbour (and a boardwalk running from one end to the other). St John's is a lot more fun than Mississauga too, inaccessible harbour aside.
I'm not sure I get the comparisons with Halifax, a city that is intrinsically walkable in layout, and manages this without 30-storey condo towers. The redevelopment plan is certainly laudable and I hope it bears fruit, but I'm not sure these kinds of comparisons are very relevant.
"Walkability" implies the close proximity of mixed residential, commercial, and employment areas, so much so that you needn't bother with a bus let alone a car much of the time. Halifax has sprawled out, but because it developed on a confined peninsula pre-automobile, an inherent compactness has been maintained that's only improving over time.
And it has stuff like this: http://i.imgur.com/BeMzGnc.jpg
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Halifax is better (overall), no doubt, but people who have visited Mississauga as recently as 10 years ago, need to take a 2nd look. It's literally a different city now. If it keeps up, one can really see that it really needs both the Hurontario and SmartTrack. The point being, judgements passed on Mississauga 10 years ago isn't valid today.
Last edited:
mdrejhon
Senior Member
[duplicate]
JGHali
Active Member
I suppose. To use Halifax as a comparison once more, better transit would help a lot there too, but is made more challenging because of a much older street layout and unforgiving geography. But various options are under study, including commuter rail from the suburbs to the peninsula or even a "fast ferry" from Bedford to downtown. The main distinction with Mississauga and SmartTrack is that in the context of such a service, Mississauga is more like Bedford or Lower Sackville.
Anyway, I went to a concert at the Living Arts Centre not so long ago, so the facilities are certainly there.
Anyway, I went to a concert at the Living Arts Centre not so long ago, so the facilities are certainly there.
TOareaFan
Superstar
Are there many 905 municipalities that don't have a facility in the league of the LAC? The discussion of things to do had me thinking people were talking about something(s) else.....but if it is mid sized performance halls....they are all over the place...no?
drum118
Superstar
That place is empty most of the times and used mainly for business these days.
There is nothing in the core that will support this loop when first built as well 20 years later with the white elephant in the core.
You will get the few events at the square, but not enough to support the line.
The free bus service was a failure 3 different times.
Will waste 10-15 minutes of riders time transferring between the 2 lines like the 15 minutes they do today using 19 to bypass the mall.
howl
Active Member
The whole root of "the Loop" problem is that the Mississauga City Centre is located in the wrong place. A city centre normally evolves naturally over decades. It marks the place where it is most convenient for most people to meet and do business. I think in Mississauga that location is Cooksville, where the old city hall used to be. Cooksville has Hurontario Street and Dundas Street, and the GO line. It's the place where people will gravitate to most easily. Trying to force people to use a "city centre" located off a secondary arterial road, almost a kilometer from the main arterial road, behind a shopping mall, with no access to inter-city transit, is not the place people naturally want to be. The politicians have been fighting an uphill battle for decades trying to make a city centre in a place that is not a natural city centre location.
At some point they'll have to decide whether to keep throwing money at the problem, or just give up and let the city centre gravitate back to Hurontario Street.
Last edited:
TOareaFan
Superstar
Just want to be clear...I was in no way supporting the loop with my post......I think the loop is a dumb idea. Was just surprised that someone suggested that Mississauga was developing a night life and that this was evidenced by them having a performing arts centre....if that is the case, I suggested, does that mean all the other 905 communities that have performing arts centres are also developing a night life?
Agreed. Cooksville would make a far better transit hub than Square One. Perhaps the solution, if the City is really insistent on sticking with Square One as their main transit hub, is to move the hub to the parking lot currently bounded on 3 sides by Hurontario, Square One Dr, and City Centre Dr. This would allow the main line Hurontario LRT and the Square One Loop to operate independently. Access to the mall from that location would be just as convenient as the current transit hub location.
Tuscani01
Senior Member
I believe the LAC was a single example. I grew up in Mississauga and would head to Toronto for nightlife. Today, my brother is barely leaving Mississauga. Failties in City Centre, and Bier Market are pretty popular spots. West 50 is another popular bar/lounge in City Centre. My Apartment is still a pretty busy nightclub, and Club 108 is back as well. There is so much more to do there today than there was in my days. Many of the bars and lounges in City Centre are packed on weekends, and there are a few clubs that even some of my friends from here in Toronto go to Mississauga for.
I was at Failties last year and was shocked at how packed it was for a City Centre bar. Didn't expect to find something like that in Mississauga.
P23
Active Member
if line 2 went to Mississauga I think it would actually help the city a lot. people from Toronto barely recognize it's existence because a trip there requires an hour of travel on multiple agencies, if you could just hop on the subway to go to a concert or something I bet the region would really grow.