Mississauga Mississauga Transitway | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | IBI Group

[ShonTron]

I don't think malls that are not situated at a natural endpoint of any routes need to be terminals. Transfers can easily be made on-street. The Meadowvale TC terminal could be closed down.

Except that Mississauga decided that one mall should form the core of its downtown, and the other mall has a major hospital, high schools and new high-rise residential buildings. Ideally, major transit terminals should be where people are, and where people want to go.

Part of the problem with the Transitway is that except for Square One/Mississauga City Centre, it doesn't go to where anyone are nor anywhere they want to go. The only way to facilitate that is through transfers and routing buses off the Transitway to take people where they want and need to go.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

I can't believe they still don't use the Transitway on Sunday. I come from Guelph to Square One on Sundays once and a while and this irks me every time.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I can't believe they still don't use the Transitway on Sunday. I come from Guelph to Square One on Sundays once and a while and this irks me every time.

They must think they are the equivalent of a Toronto subway, and must close it down on the weekends.

 

[drum118]

They must think they are the equivalent of a Toronto subway, and must close it down on the weekends.

Be thankful its not every weekend and only sections are close when they do close it. Getting a bus can painful at times. Over all, its only a short wait at most close section with some section being faster to walk it.

Impossible to do all the work that needs to be done in the short time frame it is close as well taking decades to do it.

I prefer seeing the weekend closure as things will be done faster and cheaper, than dragging it out. Expect to see various stations close for X time frame when they have to be rebuilt in the coming years, then dealing with the mess for months or years.

The Transitway will "NOT" see Sunday service until all the stations are completed which is some time in 2017 and "VERY DUMB". Some has to do with lack of funding for service hours as well poor ridership at this time. I have been shot down at Budget meetings for getting better service on Sunday for the whole system, but any extra funding found is put into the building of the over budget Transitway.

 

[Transportfan]

Except that Mississauga decided that one mall should form the core of its downtown, and the other mall has a major hospital, high schools and new high-rise residential buildings. Ideally, major transit terminals should be where people are, and where people want to go.

I didn't make myself quite clear on this. SQ1 is an exception because it's such a destination and hub, but for typical malls, a nearby hospital and a few condos in the vicinity don't warrant a terminal when riders can just board/disembark at said facilities. Most 416 malls don't have TTC terminals at all. At the Woodbine Centre, buses just bypass it and continue to a nearby logical looping point.

 

[Aldebaran]

Cities grow organically and in unexpected ways... often by trying to cope and make do with decisions previously thought unwise... only to ultimately make them work, forgetting and forgiving their initial (often exaggerated) folly.

With the best of intentions and in the name of creating a dense and vibrant urban environment, many wish that all those glassy buildings and corporate headquarters around Skymark to have been built in Mississauga's City Centre instead. Analogously, many wish that Square One and all that development around it to have been built around the train station in Cooksville instead.

However, much like God (or Ghandi, if you happen to be an atheist,) cities work in mysterious and initially perplexing ways that are frustratingly gradual and long-term.

Mississauga can take the issue of a rail-less centre and eventually make it work... just like how a Yonge-and-Bloor resident deals with the fact that he/she is separated from a rail line at Union. Mississauga is now already paying attention to Cooksville.

Similarly, Mississauga can also deal with the issue of a transitway being in the middle of nowhere by developing and transforming that old "nowhere" into a new "somewhere"... just like how Bloor used to be a "nowwhere" to much of pre-1850 Toronto. Some membres have already proposed this.

Many things come into perspective when I start to look at my timeframe (i.e. lifespan) as fleeting and ephemeral, and espouse a long-term, trans-generational view that goes onward and carries on without me.

Futuristically, I hope to see an Inukshuk-like city centre that extends a southerly appendage towards and amoebically swallows Cooksville, a northerly appendage towards Eglinton, as well as easterly and westerly tentacles along a neo-transitway, hopefully 403-less, linear spine.

 

[boris davenport]

They must think they are the equivalent of a Toronto subway, and must close it down on the weekends.

You are correct

 

[ShonTron]

I didn't make myself quite clear on this. SQ1 is an exception because it's such a destination and hub, but for typical malls, a nearby hospital and a few condos in the vicinity don't warrant a terminal when riders can just board/disembark at said facilities. Most 416 malls don't have TTC terminals at all. At the Woodbine Centre, buses just bypass it and continue to a nearby logical looping point.

No, the problem isn't just that the Transitway goes from nowhere to nowhere via Square One/MCC, it goes along a corridor that unless the hydro towers are no longer needed, and Highway 403 is removed, is nearly impossible to develop. In any logical scenario, the intersection of Eglinton and Erin Mills Parkway is a logical place for a transit node. At Erin Mills Station, however, you're surrounded by hydro lines, freeway on ramps and NIMBYs living in single-detached homes.

 

[mpd618]

No, the problem isn't just that the Transitway goes from nowhere to nowhere via Square One/MCC, it goes along a corridor that unless the hydro towers are no longer needed, and Highway 403 is removed, is nearly impossible to develop.

(What if the hydro lines were to be buried?)

 

[salsa]

(What if the hydro lines were to be buried?)

Then great! Now they just need to bury the highway.

 

[ShonTron]

(What if the hydro lines were to be buried?)

That'd be tough. There are also several pipelines along that stretch.

 

[Aldebaran]

"No, the problem isn't just that the Transitway goes from nowhere to nowhere via Square One/MCC"

One end is connected to the highest concentration of office space in Mississauga and largest airport in Canada... perhaps you exaggerate? ☺

"it goes along a corridor that unless [...] Highway 403 is removed, is nearly impossible to develop."

Nothing is stopping developers from constructing condos with windows a few yards away from the cars wizzing by on the Gardiner. Sure, the Gardiner could one day disappear, but it's a slow and gradual process.
Highway 403 may probably be flanked by development before people start thinking about getting rid of it.

 

[salsa]

I didn't make myself quite clear on this. SQ1 is an exception because it's such a destination and hub, but for typical malls, a nearby hospital and a few condos in the vicinity don't warrant a terminal when riders can just board/disembark at said facilities. Most 416 malls don't have TTC terminals at all. At the Woodbine Centre, buses just bypass it and continue to a nearby logical looping point.

These various terminals all over Mississauga look as if someone just decided "lets make this location a hub", then rerouted a bunch of buses to go to there, wasting time looping in and out of a bunch of parking lots. These hubs don't even have a roof over your head, or are relegated to the back end of a butt-ugly mall. It's time to get rid of them.

 

[Aldebaran]

Finally, I would just like to say something about "NIMBYs".

I often find that when I am in disagreement with others and I complain about their stance or ridicule their belief on a basis which I view to be rational, informed, altruistic, and correct beyond any shadow of the doubt, I later discover that the issue was deeper and that I wasn't so right.

Take the issue of the Erin Mills station, along with the article that Drum posted.

Was the station perfect? No.
Was there room for improvements? Yes.

Who made us discover that the washroom could have been located elsewhere at a more suitable location from the get-go, with Metrolinx's admission, thereby revealing a design flaw in the original plan and leading to a better station design in the future? The NIMBYs.

Ultimately, through the efforts of whom will there be less light polls, and consequently, less light pollution? The NIMBYs.

Ultimately, through the efforts of whom will there be 14-metre high trees, making the station more green and attractive? The NIMBYs.

Really then, and regardless of the opinions and beliefs being held, it was the NIMBYs who actually improved things in a very real and tangible way, in the real world. Certainly more than my meaningless, self-righteous cyber complaints behind a computer screen.

I, the "good guy" who cares about the city and the way it looks and functions... the guy who is educated and informed about what is good and bad for the city... the guy who would sacrifice his comfort and convenience for what could benefit the city... I turn out to be a phony.

Here are people whom I thought only cared about themselves with no regard to their city, and who could not possibly know what is good planning... and yet they sacrificed their time and effort to get off their computers and put pressure on Metrolinx to instigate positive changes and improvements that could very well become part of a best-practice blueprint for the future.


Are these people doing this only for their own personal interests and not the city's?
That's not the point, and it's not for me to judge. I don't have the full story.

Do these people hold outdated, misinformed opinions about what constitutes good planning? Maybe, but insults will not make them change their minds. Difference of opinion is a fact of life, let's deal with it in a civilized way without insults.


None of this would have happened if I wasn't so binary. I don't have to choose to be with one side or the other. I don't have to be either pro-Metrolinx or pro-NIMBY. It's almost never black and white.

 

[ShonTron]

"No, the problem isn't just that the Transitway goes from nowhere to nowhere via Square One/MCC"

One end is connected to the highest concentration of office space in Mississauga and largest airport in Canada... perhaps you exaggerate? ☺

The Transitway will end at Renforth and Eglinton. A short walk to perhaps two office buildings, maybe an industrial mall or two, at best. Many, if not most, of the offices in the sprawling Airport Corporate Centre aren't close enough to the Transitway to be walkable. A shuttle bus will be required to get to and from the Transitway stations.

As for the "NIMBYs" label, you're right that Metrolinx blundered here, badly, and I'll soften my stance. It's a terribly laid out station, nearly impossible to get to without a car or transferring to/from another bus. And yes, Metrolinx made several errors and should have been more sensitive to the local residents. But the local residents should have known that they were going to live behind a transitway station -- it's been on the books for at least thirty years. The media attention focused on their complaints, not the stupidity of Erin Mills Station to begin with

NIMBYs did successfully oppose a proposed station at Mississauga Road. But it would have been value-engineered out of existence -- like the City Centre tunnel, and stations at Mavis and Creditview -- as well anyway.