As you may know I am Chair of Transit Alliance a GTA wide civic advocacy group: https://transitalliance.ca. My recent The Brian Crombie Hour show on Friday, May 31st, at 6 pm was about transit: https://youtu.be/xIPtGTRz6TM. I have done a TEDx talk on transformational transit: https://youtu.be/bF7hM0JLJg0.

The most transformation transit for Mississauga would be all day two way frequent GO service on the Mississauga Milton line. The Neptis foundation report from 2014 and the Big Move said it was a 8:1 benefit to cost ratio project, the highest in the GTA and probably in North American. Sheppard was below 1 and Scarborough just above 1:1 benefit to cost. This could be added with just negotiation with CP who own the tracks now as there is enough rail capacity for most of the way. The constraints are over the Credit River and through Streetsville, so for a while it might be Erindale south with the more frequent service.

I’d add a station at Cawthra where it crosses Dundas and add a large bus or BRT connection there so all the Dundas travelers could transfer to the GO to get to Toronto or to the Kipling subway, UPX or west to the jobs around Meadowvale. If it was running first every half hour and then long term every 15 minutes, both ways, it would be like having a surface subway for Mississauga. It can’t just go southbound in the morning and outbound in the evening.

We have been talking about this for longer than 25 years. In the 1960’s when an eastern freight bypass in Ajax was built to get the CN freight traffic off of the Lakeshore Line allowing Lakeshore GO service a western Freight bypass was proposed for the right of way along the 407 to take the CP traffic out of the middle of Mississauga and Toronto. But it was never built and today dangerous freight still moves right through our City and Toronto on the CP line.

The Feds and the Province have said they will fund the project but haven’t actually done so yet. We need leadership to lobby for, negotiate for and demand, all day two way GO service on the Mississauga Milton line. It may take commitments for greater density around transit nodes to motivate the investment but that will be paid back through increased ridership, less car connection and increased property taxes.

The Hurontario LRT needs to terminate at a GO station so that traffic goes both ways. It should go north to the Brampton GO but if they say no then it should turn east at Derry and go to Malton and the Malton Go. Malton residents need great service to the jobs west of them on the airport zone.

Lakeview can transform our waterfront and add needed housing but without transit it will be a congestion nightmare. There is a rail line and right of way that goes from Lakeview to the GO Lakeshore line merging in before Longbranch. This could be a high volume shuttle to the GO station or even a GO train. The line also already owned by Metrolinx continues up to the Kipling GO and Subway station. If there was a train that went from Lakeview to Longbranch to Kipling it would convert a congestion nightmare into one of the most connected places in the GTA, and provide a west GTA connection from the Lakeshore line to the Bloor subway rather than having to go to Union.

Brightwater will have similar congestion issues and the solution is to extend the Hurontario LRT across the Credit River to or closer to the over 10,000 new people there.

The Airport Corporate Zone is the second largest employment zone in Canada and needs better transit than one BRT and needs to be connected to downtown. The solution for the western Meadowvale / Pill Hill area is all day GO to the Meadowvale station. The solution for the office area south of the airport is either the BRT extended north to the airport to connect with the UPX or even to Malton and Malton Go or extend the UPX one station south from the airport to Eglinton. We need to create a network for transit to work not just lines that end and don’t connect up with other lines.

Others have discussed a subway to Dixie which would be great but when Vaughan is building 50 and 50 storey towers at the Vaughan Metro centre and at Steeles and Yonge, both places getting subway extensions, and Mississauga has capped height at Dixie to 12 and 25 stories we will never get the subway and frankly it’s not cost justified for Metrolinx to extend it. Metrolinx are already in conversations with Quadreel for a station at East Mall close to their development at Cloverdale but that’s because Toronto are approving 40 plus stories for 16 towers there, so it makes sense.

Brian Crombie