Mississauga Exchange District Condos | 232m | 72s | Camrost-Felcorp | Arcadis
- Thread starter ChesterCopperpot
- Start date
Reecemartin
Active Member
It's really so disappointing how ALL of this density will mostly be served PT wise by a SINGLE surface tram line!
drum118
Superstar
And what do you think that is needed to do what you think a single tram line can't do??
How can you justify it??
afransen
Senior Member
And not well served at that. Exchange District is relatively close to the LRT, but much of the density is over a km away from Hurontario. M City is 1.5 km away.
Reecemartin
Active Member
High capacity rapid transit? Metro Vancouver has many tower clusters smaller than this one with SkyTrain. It's obvious this level of density, the massive planned density, and the majorly busy existing bus terminals at MCC and Gateway justify way more than Finch West!
For serving MCC there are a number of possibilities, but they are not great because we didn't plan for rapid transit decades ago . . .
1) Could do the transitway to LRT conversion, would probably be the cheapest option but a long trip to Midtown Toronto . . .
2) Extend Line 2 to MCC, probably the highest cost option and also not super fast, also not to "downtown" downtown
3) A hybrid underground / elevated branch from a GO line - once electrified there's nothing preventing us buying low floor subway style trains and running them in a subway style tunnel / on viaducts. Probably less expensive than a subway (less stations to build) and higher benefit (faster trips) - likely the best business case.
Reecemartin
Active Member
To add to that, here is a city a fraction of the size of Miss. with a subway on the other side of the country . . . https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10059836&postcount=1928
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mininamib
Active Member
The cross Mississauga connection (from the Oakville to the Toronto borders) beyond Lakeshore along corridors such as Burnhamthorpe and Dundas could be fantastic candidates for a higher oder rapid transit. I know that there are future plans for a BRT along Dundas extending to Waterdown, but I feel that once it finally is realised, it will not be capable of meeting demand. I think it is set to be completed in the 2030's?
To take Dundas as an example, south of Toronto it runs through communities with a combined population of ca. 1.3 million (Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, and Waterdown borough of Hamilton). Until a BRT is completed, it is unfortunate that rapid public transit is expected to run along Lakeshore, necessitating first movement from Dundas down to the GO Lakeshore West line and then back out again. Otherwise, a trip with multiple bus transfers is the alternative.
I looked at a theoretical trip from Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital to Mississauga City Centre on a Monday option; the marginally quickest option involved backtracking by heading into Burlington for a connection on a bus travelling along the 407 toll highway.
To take Dundas as an example, south of Toronto it runs through communities with a combined population of ca. 1.3 million (Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, and Waterdown borough of Hamilton). Until a BRT is completed, it is unfortunate that rapid public transit is expected to run along Lakeshore, necessitating first movement from Dundas down to the GO Lakeshore West line and then back out again. Otherwise, a trip with multiple bus transfers is the alternative.
I looked at a theoretical trip from Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital to Mississauga City Centre on a Monday option; the marginally quickest option involved backtracking by heading into Burlington for a connection on a bus travelling along the 407 toll highway.
isaidso
Senior Member
All I'll add is that all this intensification of MCC will be for nought if the end goal isn't higher order PT and the re-working of all those stroads into pedestrian friendly city streets. Presently, it's dominated by asphalt and cars but it absolutely has the potential to urbanize and transform itself into a proper city.
Unfortunately, this area is in for an awkward 10+ years as density skyrockets while investment in PT lags. One has to think that PT will eventually catchup to the density being built. The dismantling of those stroads will come last.
Unfortunately, this area is in for an awkward 10+ years as density skyrockets while investment in PT lags. One has to think that PT will eventually catchup to the density being built. The dismantling of those stroads will come last.
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drum118
Superstar
Tell me where is the ridership for these ideas as it not there to today, let alone 20 years??
The Transitway is a GO thing going back as far as 2004 that was supposed to be seeing 25,000 riders at peak time, yet lucky to see 3,000 today. It has to be an BRT/LRT line since GO service branches off at both ends today as well miWay. You can have a branch line from the Crosstown Line using that Transitway.
RT in Mississauga is a dream of many, but will service very few due the limit pocket of density as well along the route.
Mississauga could got the SRT version from Kipling to MCC free in the 80s, but Mississauga turn it down. That Line platform can be found at Kipling Station today.
A subway to MCC will see a train hourly as it will likely have a 100 riders on it then and far less if more service was there.
Your best option is building a branch line off the Milton line as a bypass line using short trains underground or using an Tram-Train that connects to the Hurontario LRT line. Been calling for an Tram-LRT line to MCC for 15 years and we can't get the 3rd track for the Milton line that was to be in place by 2011. Been calling for 4 tracks in all rail corridor since 2002.
I call for 5 LRT lines back in 2005 and we are seeing one today. The others are still 20 years or so down the road.
You need to understand how ridership exist in the first place, where are they going to/from, not everyone want to go to Toronto downtown.
The big issue is cost to do white elephant transit planning, let alone operate them. Its like some LRT lines in the US that only carry 5,000 riders a day and go no where.
drum118
Superstar
Oakville was supposed to have an BRT on Dundas by 2020, but no density to support it today, let alone 15 years ago.
ML Vision back in 2007/8 was running service along Dundas from Toronto to Hamilton
I have joke that TTC 512 could end up in Stoney Creek for over 15 years, but that idea been kill as Toronto doesn't want to take the 512 to Kipling anymore.
When Hurontario surface, ML wanted to take the line along Dundas to Kipling until Hydro One kill that Idea. ML then wanted one continues BRT from Kipling to Hamilton with planning for it is underway in Mississauga with only 40% being an true BRT line. The rest is express service.
Reecemartin
Active Member
You're bio says "Miss where cars rule city growth" but the stuff you are saying doesn't sound like it's pushing for anything that's a substantial divergence from the status quo. Trams for Miss are not going to generate substantial modal shift, they will mostly be carrying existing bus riders (which isn't necessarily bad) but clearly the density exists for something more.
You aren't going to drive a major modal shift in a suburbanized locale like Mississauga with trams, this is what the US LRT systems tried to do, you need something that can provide more competitive travel times, not just dedicated lanes that signify transit but do not actually provide a competitive option. The idea that you would build a subway to MCC and run it hourly because it would have so few riders for one
Misses how busy buses to and from MCC from other major regional destinations already are.
And also
Misunderstands how you build demand for rapid transit in the first place -> fast frequent service.
The ridership which exists today is reflective of the ridership that is possible with an entirely bus based system with low average speeds and poor connections into Toronto and other important nodes - it is not reflective of potential ridership.
Sunnyside
Active Member
I'm curious how you would determine such a number for potential ridership. I too think there are places where higher-order transit is more appropriate than what we are building, but It's quite hard to present this. I have conducted reports on it before, but this was mostly an exercise in assessing population density vs. service hours/frequency today vs. comparable geographies. It seems business cases do not go through this exercise as well, so its not like Metrolinx actively looks for "potential ridership" as you describe.
sixrings
Senior Member
I just don’t know why it takes a decade to design and build a BRT on dundas.
Reecemartin
Active Member
The real explosion in development at MCC supposedly happened after the data had been run for Hurontario.
It's comparisons mostly, look at the ridership on the SkyTrain in Surrey for example, Mississauga is going to exceed Surrey on basically every metric! The city has like 2x the population and almost 2x the density and yet Surrey can justify a metro and Mississauga cannot?
Northern Light
Superstar
Its never quite as simple as 2x the density.........given origin/destination pairs, and feeder routes etc...........
I know you know that, but just important to put that out there.
That said, your point has some validity, a similar challenge exists w/the Golden Mile on Eglinton East (served by the surface Crosstown).
A transit proposal shows up, appropriate to the density that IS present, or perhaps a few thousand extra souls....................
And suddenly you have development proposals serving literally 10x the most optimistic estimate.
Now the surface provision of streetcar/LRT (little to no transit priority in the case of Crosstown) is almost certainly woefully inadequate.
This speaks to the notion that planning for land use and transit (and water, and hydro and schools) needs to be seamlessly integrated and in sync.
Regrettably, here in the GTA, it has not.