What happened to smart growth?

[TOareaFan]

The point of being at Queen and Main is that this location is served by GO train, GO bus, and 2 Zum bus routes. If more service were added to the GO train line then it would be very easy to reverse commute from Toronto. Meanwhile Mississauga Rd and 407 is served by lousy bus service, Highway 407 and 401, the vast majority of people will drive.

Since people will commute from all over the GTA to get to jobs a location with poor transit like this is problematic. Also Highway 407 has expensive tolls so many drivers use free parallel routes like 401, Derry, and Steeles which get congested in both directions in rush hour. If you are coming from Toronto you have no choice but to use 401 or Gardiner which is congested both ways. The traffic in Mississauga, which has far more office parks like this than Brampton is horrible in rush hour because of this. Plus it is shortsighted for an employer to not think about the effects of moving their headquarters a long distance (Yonge and St. Clair to Mississauga Rd and 407 can take 1+ hours by car due to traffic congestion).

There needs to be a provincial law providing significant tax credits for employment near major transit routes, and/or banning office parks with bad transit service entirely.

A reverse commute to Brampton by GO Transit is tough...so I am not sure how many that previously worked at Yonge & St. Clair and had their jobs moved to Brampton would do it even if the office was at Queen and Main......but, are you suggesting (under current rules) Brampton should have said to Orlando..."geez, thanks for attempting to bring the head office of such a large company to town and thanks for the potential of decent white collar jobs but, really, if you're not willing to locate them at Queen and Main, we do not want them and we will not issue building permits?" How would that go over at the OMB? Or should they accept that having these jobs improves the situation in Brampton, accept that not all office jobs can be in one designated location, accept taht the nature of their business (having stores all over the place to visit) makes highway access important to the company and, then, adjust their own transit system to provide a route that goes to/from the location (after all, that is all that they control transitwise). Should Mississauga have turned down the jobs that Orlando developments brought to their city because they were not on GO lines?

You're last notion of Provincial legislation is interesting (not sure how it would work) but the post I responded to singled out Brampton as a needing to "start making use of their major transport infrastructure" relative to other suburban nodes/cities. If that is the case, I am still not hearing an explanation of how they are not doing that, what infrastructure they have that they are wasting and what they could be doing better.

I think the biggest lesson we should learn from Brampton is that before you designate a place as a place to grow, before you encourage and allow municipality to grow to over half a million people....before all of that you need to figure out infrastructure at the provincial level....you need to figure out how to get all day two way transit there....and/or provide more than 3 lanes each way on one road of provincial highway to connect to the 400 series roads....and provide more than 400 hospital beds.

If Brampton is anything, it is a failure of the Province (in a very bi-partisan comment here as parties of all stripes have sat and encouraged/watched this happen) to recognize that having such a large group of people in one place without needed infrastructure is not a good thing......and, perhaps, it should be a learned lesson to apply to other places (whilst also playing catch up in Brampton ).

What comes first? Brampton's population reaching 600k or all day GO train service? What comes first? Brampton's population reaching 600k or their 600th hospital bed?

It is fine for the province to designate somewhere a "place to grow" but there has to be more to smart growth than just jamming more people int the same space (although that is part of it) or you lose the support of people for the growth. If you ran a plebiscite in Brampton and asked "what is the right number of new peole to allow/push into Brampton with the current infrastructure" (or words to that effect as I just rambled that question off as I typed) not only would you get no support for more population (no matter how densely/smartly they were located) you would likely get a lot of write in votes for negative population growth.....it is a mess out there and I think, wrongly, people outside point to easily at our municipal polititicians (who are not blameless) without looking at a much bigger picture.

 

[Dan416]

I find it incomprehensible that they opened a new hospital in Brampton and then closed the old one. Brampton should have two hospitals, Mississauga does.

 

[TOareaFan]

I find it incomprehensible that they partially opened a new hospital in Brampton and then closed the old one. Brampton should have two hospitals, Mississauga does.

Took the liberty of fixing your post. The new hospital (almost 5 years old so a bit weird calling it new) has yet to fully open.

Between Trillium Mississauga and Credit Valley there are over 1,100 hospital beds......sometime this year, Brampton Civic will get to 550 beds with no scheduled date for the full 608 beds.

Mississauga is larger than Brampton....but not twice the size......last I checked anyway.

EDIT. It should be stated that the old hospital was obsolete and a patchwork of buildings and expansions. Most people who studied the matter agreed that it should close....on the assumption it was replaced by the new 600 beds and that a replacement start construction at the old site. 5 years later the 600 beds are not fully open and demolition of the old hospital just started.

 

[Dan416]

Took the liberty of fixing your post. The new hospital (almost 5 years old so a bit weird calling it new) has yet to fully open.

Between Trillium Mississauga and Credit Valley there are over 1,100 hospital beds......sometime this year, Brampton Civic will get to 550 beds with no scheduled date for the full 608 beds.

Mississauga is larger than Brampton....but not twice the size......last I checked anyway.

EDIT. It should be stated that the old hospital was obsolete and a patchwork of buildings and expansions. Most people who studied the matter agreed that it should close....on the assumption it was replaced by the new 600 beds and that a replacement start construction at the old site. 5 years later the 600 beds are not fully open and demolition of the old hospital just started.

Oh so they are replacing the old one?

I work in Brampton and have heard horror stories about the new hospital.

 

[TOareaFan]

Oh so they are replacing the old one?

I work in Brampton and have heard horror stories about the new hospital.

In phases, they are building an "integrated health and wellness centre"......the first phase will provide ambulatory care and some day surgery. There are no plans for traditional hospital (eg beds) at PMH.

The horror stories at Brampton Civic are all, IMO, related to the overcrowding that results from the ratio of hospital size to population.

 

[andrewpmk]

There might be more than one designated area in the city for office development. Hurontario & 407 near the courthouse, Shoppers World, Bramalea GO and Bramalea Town Centre might also be designated growth areas for office development. The point is, office park developments that cannot be effectively served by transit should not be permitted to be built. The Loblaws headquarters (as well as the much larger Meadowvale Business Park area in Mississauga on the opposite side of the 407) should not have been allowed to be built, because it is poorly served by transit and the design of it makes significantly improving transit service in the future close to impossible. These sorts of developments will always have 90%+ of their employees driving to work and office park developments are a major cause of traffic congestion problems in the GTA. The fact that 401 & Gardiner often have worse traffic going towards Mississauga/Brampton/Oakville than in the other direction strongly suggests that this is a problem.

 

[TOareaFan]

There might be more than one designated area in the city for office development. Hurontario & 407 near the courthouse, Shoppers World, Bramalea GO and Bramalea Town Centre might also be designated growth areas for office development.

Assuming that Bramalea Town Centre is the City Centre (ie. typo) all of the areas noted (except Bramalea GO which has no office potential) are seeing some office development and the city is encouraging all as office nodes....they simply can't, however, turn away jobs/permits at the 407 and Mississauga Road location....partly because the city needs more office/white-collar employment to balance their current heavy weighting in warehouse/industrial employment, partly because if they did the jobs would just go to a simlarly located office location in another municipality (ie. it is not any municipality's mandate to fix these issues at their own cost) and partly (more importantly) current legislation and the OMB would force the issue anyway. While we should, provincially, strive for jobs near transit...some employers' needs will always be served by highway access.

The point is, office park developments that cannot be effectively served by transit should not be permitted to be built. The Loblaws headquarters (as well as the much larger Meadowvale Business Park area in Mississauga on the opposite side of the 407) should not have been allowed to be built, because it is poorly served by transit and the design of it makes significantly improving transit service in the future close to impossible.

Perhaps the issue is that this business park (that is already home to Loblaws, Medtronics, Uline Canada, Air Canada - announced, and others and, when complete, will have 8 million square feet of space and 10,000 jobs) which is on a major transportation route (407) and near others (how far is it to the Milton GO line?) is so poorly served by transit?

These sorts of developments will always have 90%+ of their employees driving to work and office park developments are a major cause of traffic congestion problems in the GTA. The fact that 401 & Gardiner often have worse traffic going towards Mississauga/Brampton/Oakville than in the other direction strongly suggests that this is a problem.

Outside of downtown/core Toronto is that 90% any different anywhere else? Are there any suburban office nodes (particularly, as we flip back to where I got involved in this and certain suburbs were lauded and Brampton criticized) where the ratio of drivers to transit users is significantly different? As for the reverse traffic.....a historical critcism of suburbs is that all they are is massive sprawls of houses without jobs for the people who live there.....so, now, Brampton (and others) have to take the responsibility for the reverse commute problems too? Should they not try to attract/accomodate employment? Should we go back to the days where all the suburbs are is single-family homes on 40 foot lots for people who work in the city? Of course not.

I appreciate the dialogue but I still have to remind of what brought me into this discussion.......what is it that Brampton is doing wrong and what transit infrastructure are they not taking advantage of? (as was suggested).

 

[andrewpmk]

The problem with suburban office developments is that you get a lot of people who live on one side of the GTA and work on the opposite side, for example because they were laid off from another job, or different members of the household work on different sides of the GTA, or because housing near the office park is expensive (not much of a problem in Meadowvale, but in Markham a house costs $600,000 on average), or because they prefer living in Toronto, etc. This results in heavy traffic congestion problems on Gardiner & 401 westbound in AM peak. A lot of people in suburban office developments will live nearby (e.g. people working in Meadowvale will live in Brampton) but many others will have long commutes. Furthermore low density office park developments just are not well suited to transit because they are low density and not pedestrian friendly, it is difficult to provide good bus service to these areas. Yes Meadowvale GO station is near the office park so reverse commute train service would help improve transit, and yes there is the potential to improve bus service significantly, but you will be lucky to get 10% transit modal share compared to 70% in downtown Toronto and lower but respectable shares in other areas served by the subway system.

If most jobs were in downtown Toronto, there would be no problem with people having long commutes on the highway between suburbs. Downtown is well served by transit ensuring high transit modal share and reducing traffic problems (traffic congestion is often much worse in suburban office park areas than downtown). Although housing is expensive near downtown, if living in condos becomes the norm for families then people will still be able to live reasonably close to work, though they will not be able to afford a house.

 

[jwill]

I would say this boils down to a lack of regional government in the GTA/Golden Horseshoe. Brampton knows it can't reject office developments on sites that are unlikely to ever have good transit service because if it says no, that development will just go down the road to another greenfield site with a local government that doesn't care about where its jobs are created. Offices are going to continue to find the cheapest possible sites with the lowest possible taxes anywhere in the region until there is a co-ordinated plan to direct job growth into sites accessible by higher-order regional transit. Right now we have 15 or so municipalities all competing for jobs, and none of them can afford to scare off development. In the end, the local government pays more for inefficient road infrastructure to serve these office nodes.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Kind of a unintended consequence of the nodal development planning of the GTA. Growth nodes are designated for intensification, however these nodes are in competition with other nodes in the GTA for the same (more or less) office developments and so each node loses it's power to plan and direct growth in their individual regions. As stated above business have the freedom to say "if you won't let me build my sprawling 1 story campus at 410 and Steeles, I'll take my business to 404 and Highway 7" etc

 

[Electrify]

For my term paper for my Intro to Urban Studies class, I did a critique of Toronto's Official Plan on its growth strategies. Specifically, I looked at its focus on Avenues and Employment Zones.

According to the plan, many of Toronto's arteries are to transform into "Avenues," long stretches of medium/medium-high density mixed use development. While this is a step in the right direction, the problem is that the focus will be split between staying and moving. Development will extend too far that it may prove difficult to walk, and density will be too high that getting through the area will be slow and tedious with wheeled modes of transport. Even small town main streets tend to have an area or intersection which is central to the district.

With a nodal focus, we know what things are supposed to be. Ideally you take transit to the centre of the node, and then you navigate it by walking. Obviously it isn't limited exclusively to that, you can still cycle or drive if you wish to, but different modes of transport are clearly for different purposes.

Another thing which the Plan focused on were Employment Zones, which are industrial areas and office parks. The Plan wants to see an increase of employment in these areas, but keep residential units separated from them. Not only is this the opposite of mixed use, which is the direction we should be moving towards, but it provides us with a fantastic opportunity to make these areas our new nodes! Putting residential buildings in an industrial area or office park would face less NIMBYism than when you do it the other way around, and it helps to turn these employment areas into places which can support frequent and reliable transit service.

 

[TOareaFan]

The problem with suburban office developments is that you get a lot of people who live on one side of the GTA and work on the opposite side, for example because they were laid off from another job, or different members of the household work on different sides of the GTA, or because housing near the office park is expensive (not much of a problem in Meadowvale, but in Markham a house costs $600,000 on average), or because they prefer living in Toronto, etc. This results in heavy traffic congestion problems on Gardiner & 401 westbound in AM peak. A lot of people in suburban office developments will live nearby (e.g. people working in Meadowvale will live in Brampton) but many others will have long commutes. Furthermore low density office park developments just are not well suited to transit because they are low density and not pedestrian friendly, it is difficult to provide good bus service to these areas. Yes Meadowvale GO station is near the office park so reverse commute train service would help improve transit, and yes there is the potential to improve bus service significantly, but you will be lucky to get 10% transit modal share compared to 70% in downtown Toronto and lower but respectable shares in other areas served by the subway system.

If most jobs were in downtown Toronto, there would be no problem with people having long commutes on the highway between suburbs. Downtown is well served by transit ensuring high transit modal share and reducing traffic problems (traffic congestion is often much worse in suburban office park areas than downtown). Although housing is expensive near downtown, if living in condos becomes the norm for families then people will still be able to live reasonably close to work, though they will not be able to afford a house.

I am struggling to understand what you are supporting/proposing. It sounds like you support two things that, I think, are unworkable. 1. Office development only at nodes/intersections that are served by subways and 2. employment only in Toronto and not in suburbs.

The first one the market will look after as subways will be a natural draw for office development so they will be a prefered location for the majority of offices...but some busineses will still prefer some highway access (case in point Loblaws......the location they chose likely lowered their occupancy cost but also gives the head office types easier access for when they have to visit their stores which are spread out all over).

The second one just feeds into the old, and widly criticised, notion as suburbs as nothing but bedroom communities for the city itself.

 

[TOareaFan]

Kind of a unintended consequence of the nodal development planning of the GTA. Growth nodes are designated for intensification, however these nodes are in competition with other nodes in the GTA for the same (more or less) office developments and so each node loses it's power to plan and direct growth in their individual regions. As stated above business have the freedom to say "if you won't let me build my sprawling 1 story campus at 410 and Steeles, I'll take my business to 404 and Highway 7" etc

I get, and agree with, the sentiment of your statement....but the specific project which has been criticised here (the Loblaws H.O. at 407/Mississauga Road) could hardly be described as a "sprawling 1 storey campus".

 

[andrewpmk]

Even if offices aren't all in Toronto (because the city limits are arbitrary) it is problematic if offices are a very long distance from each other. If Job A is in Brampton and Job B is in Pickering and it takes 2 hours to get between them via the 401 (or 1 hour via the 407, but the 407 is extremely expensive so most people use the 401), then it limits people's job choices. Either a person who lives in Pickering will turn down the job in Brampton, or they are forced to move and pay huge real estate commissions, or they are forced to do an insane commute. The severe traffic congestion problems in the GTA are clearly caused primarily by people who have long commutes from one suburb to another. There needs to be some effort to ensure that all major employment areas in the GTA are reasonably close to each other to avoid this sort of problem. Furthermore offices need to be well served by transit and a strong provincial policy is needed to give heavy tax incentives for employers to move near high quality transit. Buses every 30 minutes are not high quality transit and 99% of employees will not use them.

 

[TOareaFan]

Even if offices aren't all in Toronto (because the city limits are arbitrary) it is problematic if offices are a very long distance from each other. If Job A is in Brampton and Job B is in Pickering and it takes 2 hours to get between them via the 401 (or 1 hour via the 407, but the 407 is extremely expensive so most people use the 401), then it limits people's job choices. Either a person who lives in Pickering will turn down the job in Brampton, or they are forced to move and pay huge real estate commissions, or they are forced to do an insane commute. The severe traffic congestion problems in the GTA are clearly caused primarily by people who have long commutes from one suburb to another. There needs to be some effort to ensure that all major employment areas in the GTA are reasonably close to each other to avoid this sort of problem. Furthermore offices need to be well served by transit and a strong provincial policy is needed to give heavy tax incentives for employers to move near high quality transit. Buses every 30 minutes are not high quality transit and 99% of employees will not use them.

So you are saying certain places (in this case Brampton ) should not have any offices or, for that matter, employment lands?