SashaLemon
Active Member
What is the situation along the transitway as far as TOD goes? Even if its a mix of residential, commercial and office, still should be TOD. Right now all I see are suburban office parks with seas of parking.
Mississauga Mississauga Transitway | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | IBI Group
drum118
Superstar
The Transitway is in an ROW of an hydro corridor, transmission lines for gas and oil. This rule out TOD. To the north you have low density to mid rise buildings. and see no increase for it.
Along Eglinton Ave, the southside is employment land as well the northside with the south side could see higher density under the airport flight path. Eastgate is employment land.
Only Square One lands can see TOD
afransen
Senior Member
This is why I am dubious of highway ROW transitways. We should reserve separate ROWs for rail transit...
ARG1
Senior Member
Highway ROWs are fine if you treat them as they are, connector lines. Rather than lines where people work and live on, they're lines where people connect to for Orbital travel. This plays into the most common misconception of Transit that ridership depends on nearby development walking connections which simply isn't true, and Toronto is one of the biggest examples of this.
afransen
Senior Member
Fair enough. They can act as supplemental infrastructure, but highway transitways do not foster livable transit oriented development. That should be more of a focus in transit investment, not merely creating a sorta fast way for a regional bus to get across the region. Reserving rail ROWs is not expensive.
robmausser
Senior Member
Highway ROWs are good for rapid regional transit and inter-city transit. They are only good for local express transit as busways, as the bus can use the ROW to bypass a bunch of stops/traffic, and then leave the ROW and then go directly to the area of development. But they must be supplemented with a local every-stop bus as well.
Don Coyote
Active Member
What are the chances that this line gets extended a bit one day to link up to the future 407 transitway?
Sunnyside
Active Member
Provincial visioning indicates this would become a part of (what I call) the nu-transitway, which is set to have some sort of rail service (“LRT”) instead of BRT. It’s almost the same alignment, but instead of going north following the 407 from the 407/403 in Oakville, the line will follow the 403/Transitway to MCC, Pearson and then link up with the 407 again via the 427 or hwy 27.
This is both a more prudent and ridership-dense option for an orbital line, and I prefer it. I won’t go into all the benefits, but in brief, the MCC-YYZ-VMC-RHC corridor is heavily used today and will need upgrading eventually. Repurposing the transitway for rail service was always part of the design and saves costs for new infrastructure. And, if built by 2051 as indicated, would mean the transitway will have served its purpose for nearly 50 years.
To answer the question more directly… because the OG 407 Transitway has no similarly popular section to get the ball rolling, if we do eventually build it then a connection will go without saying. You will be waiting a very long time for either version though!
micheal_can
Senior Member
With the Hurontario LRT going to the City Centre, how likely will this be studies to convert it? Or, will this potentially stay a transitway into perpetuity?
drum118
Superstar
Zero as it stands today and 20 years plus down the road based on current ridership numbers if at all. It's a GO thing.
If it is decided by the province to have a branch line off the Eglinton Crosstown Line, the existing Transitway is built to run both LRT/BRT but would require the shutting down of the transitway to build one direction at a time or both to do it. Then there is the option of tunneling it at great cost and timeline and building access to the existing stations.
As noted above 427 or 27 with MTO saying no to the 427 like it has for years south of the 401. This leaves Hwy 27 for the transit connection to Hwy 407
You have the missing sections from the eastern section to MCC that was to be tunnel under Hurontario to CCTT, but Hazel did not have the $20 million to do it at the time. Then there is the tunnel or overpass from CCTT to the northside of 403 and then the ROW from Mavis to Erin Mills that was supposed to see two more stations added to it.
The plan that is on the book is to see the extension go west from Winston Churchill by Hwy 403 to Hamilton and not build the Ridgeway Station as planned. Ridgeway was removed when that section was built due to poor numbers for it.
The original plan to go east was to use the hydro corridor on Hwy 27 to Sheppard and then follow the Sheppard Hydro corridor across Toronto that is now dead since Hydro One wants to protect the corridor for future expansion for it.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Sounds like we need to wait till the Crosstown line is built, and potentially the future extension of it to the airport before any though o doing anything more with the transitway is done.Hopefully, if a conversion is done, it is not as painful as it was in Ottawa.
robmausser
Senior Member
My understanding is that the Transitway was built with upgrade to LRT in mind. Not sure exactly what that means, but I would hope it means its pretty painless.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I thought that was also said about the ones in Ottawa too. Regardless,we won't know for at least 10+ years as we need to wait for both the Hurontario LRT and the Crosstown West LRT are done.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
I mean it’s true in both cases… it’s just that that only really means that the corridor geometry will accommodate rail.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Wow, setting the bar really low.
My thinking is if they built it so that all they needed to do was dig out the roadway, lay rail bed material, ties and track,and string the wires, that would be reducing the headaches of the Ottawa area.