TOAreaFan, your argument against the LRT, of no one is travelling from Downtown Brampton to Port Credit is exactly the same argument that was used by opponents of KW's LRT line. "No one travels from one mall to another!"
That's not the point. It's not travelling between the end points. It's travelling between different points. It gives a good option for someone to go from Steeles to Eglinton, or Ray Lawson to Dundas, or what have you.
I pointed out the responses of the officials to that public gathering giving this 47 minute ride between Brampton and Port Credit as one of the only two benefits that they are pitching. I agree with you but no one is showing what the benefit (relative to current options) is of those shorter trips are. I suspect they are marginal and I suspect that is why the proponents of this show the "benefits" on the longer trips because it makes their option look better.
It's also good from a network stance. Aside from the GO Barrie, KW, RH, Markham lines which are unlikely to be electrified/get additional stations anytime soon, the only real rapid transit, high frequency, better stop spacing, north-south line in the GTA is the future Vaughan-Spadina-University-Yonge Line. That's it. There's nothing else. The Hurontario LRT will be the western GTA's YSUV. The Hurontario corridor is one of the busiest (if not the busiest) transit corridors in the GTA. Ignoring it because we don't get the GO train service is ridiculous and petty.
What are the benefits of this network to the constituents? The people who will pay for it and will/will not use those benefits. If the Hurontario corridor is one of the busiest transit corridors in the GTA (no way its
the busiest) then that must be in the south end because it is not even close to being the busiest in the north end.
All I have said relative to the GO is that this LRT is should be no where near the top priority for Brampton's transit needs.
They need to resolve how they're going to bring it into DT Brampton, but let's be serious. DT Brampton is dead. There's an awesome poutine place and ice cream place and that's it. It comes to life for events and farmer's markets, but if you watch, no one goes into the stores during those events. You're not going to kill business if you route it up Hurontario. It could only get better. All those Brampton residents in 1/car are causing more congestion than any bus or LRT will.
You are arguing points I never made so I will leave those to be responded to by people who are making them.
I was a fan of the one-way loop in DT Brampton and it's unfortunate there's no effective way of building it that way.
If Brampton can't decide, at least build it to Steeles. It'll be in Brampton and connect to the southern most transit terminal.
I reaffirm that I believe the best place to terminate the LRT is the busway...."Brampton", however seems to have decided to waste valuable resources bringing it all the way to Nelson.
Also, page 60-61 shows that travel demands are higher between Brampton-Mississauga than Brampton-Toronto.
http://www.brampton.ca/en/Business/...l/2009/TTMP Final Report March 2010 part1.pdf
Interesting that you would quote that study, I actually have read that report before and find it to be the most compelling evidence that there is no need for the LRT to extend to Brampton.....of course there is the difference between comparing Mississauga destinations and Downtown Toronto....DT Toronto has an identified transit hub at Union that all transit commuters (from all cities) are pointed to....so the Toronto commuters in the report you link to are far more servable by one transit investment than the Mississauga commuters.
I have never questioned that there is a fare amount of traffic between Brampton and Mississauga but it is not exclusively (or even predominantly) along the corridor that this LRT serves. Ask yourself, how many of those inter-city trips are improved by this LRT? How many people travelling from Brampton to Mississauga in the morning are in an easy reach of that stretch of Brampton the LRT serves? How many of them are headed to that part of Mississauga that the LRT serves? It is a small percentage so if the goal is to serve that constituency this LRT fails miserably.
I don't actually know how many people are commuting from Brampton to Mississauga and what the exact destination of their commutes are but there are hints that a significant sum of them are not headed to or from places served by the LRT.
One hint (sorry has to be anecdotal) is that Hurontario is not the only (or most) congested n/s road headed out of Brampton....another is that a lot of Mississaugas employment lands are not on/near Hurontario (Airport, Airport business park, all the industrial lands, the businesses in the Erin Mills/401 area) and are not served by the LRT.
Another hint might just lie in this image taken from the same report you point to.
The numbers are bit dated (pre-Zum) but they clearly point to something.....the Hurontario/Main corridor is no where near the top of the list on ridership.
Since a fair number of those routes in that chart also extend into Mississauga, I think it is a fair to guess that it also does not deliver the most Bramptonians to/from Mississauga.
Yes, I believe that all day GO trains are/should be a higher priority to Brampton's transit needs than this LRT but, even without that bias, it is very difficult to see what benefits this expenditure will deliver. Again, I think the "best" plan would be an interchange station at the busway with LRT going south to the lake and Zum going north.