[scarberiankhatru]

If taking the TTC downtown wasn't so frustrating (and it often takes longer than walking), many more people would take it short distances, less than 2km.

"And maybe that's true. Maybe it is not possible to outer suburbs to have a pedestrian environment, so they shouldn't bother trying."

If Mississauga is not going to build anything human-scaled, maybe they shouldn't.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

doady wrote:

And maybe that's true. Maybe it is not possible to outer suburbs to have a pedestrian environment, so they shouldn't bother trying.

For quite a while, I've looked at the Mississauga transit/planning situation and just didn't Get It. Like, sure running a city is monstrously-complex, but why all the Up and Down and So Little Forward?

Me sitting in on last week's Mississauga General Committee meeting helped me understand.

Mayor McCallion reminded all present that Mississauga began as a merging of several area towns like Cooksville, Streetsville, Port Credit etc. They were connected by roads along space that consisted of fields and farms.

I know this, because as a kid, I used to admire pond turtles at a farm where City Centre now is. My best friend's parents used to own a gas station on the north-east corner of Hurontario and Burnamthorpe where Absolute is now going up.

In the late 50's and 60's, Car was King --and with each decade, Car only got Kingier.

Mayor McCallion reminded us that Mississauga was incorporated in 1974. (I got to vote for the name MISSISSAUGA. I remember that)

Mississauga is a city that Car built. That's the Reality of It.

Our Mayor still drives herself around. Last Wednesday, she observed that traffic used to be only a problem during rush hour. "No more," she said.

And she promised unless Mississauga digs in, things will only get worse.

You know how our elected officials talk about "challenges"? Well, Mayor McCallion straight-shooted with words like "problems" and "difficulties" when she talked about transit last meeting.

McCallion's not afraid to use "difficulties" to describe "difficulties".

She tossed up several issues:

What's the good of more buses, when there are constantly more cars to BLOCK the buses?

How can you entice people to use transit when it can take up to two hours to get from one end of Mississauga to the other. (I tell you that was an insightful revelation. A Transit Mississauga there-and-back run is potentially a four-hour sucker. I can get to a warm-weather destination by plane in less that time.)

But it became clear what the biggest hurdle is.

People's "from these cold dead hands" grip on the steering wheels of their cars.

They refuse to give them up.

If my mom (age 79) and our mayor (age 85) are typical of seniors, not only will roads have to hold future GTA immigrants and their cars, but also a vatful of Boomers driving cars well into their 80's and beyond.

I can't even conceive of where Mississauga is going to put them all --the cars, I mean, not the Boomers.

One of the best insights I got during Wednesday morning was Councillor Iannicca. He observed that there are few cities in the world having to plan transit in a climate that swings 30 degrees either way.

From butt-freezing, nose-numbing arctic-Frigid to sweltering sunstroke humid I'm-gonna-melt Hell-Hot.

And you get to wait in a bus in that kind of climate! Ready? ...Now think yourself Elderly!

It occurred to me that in addition to having a City-that-Car-Built-Problem, Mississauga also has a People Problem.

Mississauga is AS likely to be successful wresting cars from their citizenry as anti-gun activists have of plucking Uzis from the NRA.

Signed,
The (I hate to admit it, but I love my car too!) Mississauga Muse

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

I wrote:

And you get to wait in a bus in that kind of climate! Ready? ...Now think yourself Elderly!

That should read, "and you got to wait for a bus in that kind of climate!"

Although that doesn't mean you don't get to wait in a bus as well.

WHOA! Hey look what I just found on youtube.com!

MISSISSAUGA TRANSIT

Signed,
The Mississauga Muse

 

[doady]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

If Mississauga is not going to build anything human-scaled, maybe they shouldn't.

Oh yeah that's the problem: MCC is too big AND too tall at the same time. They should have been building low-rise all along.

Nah, it wouldn't be any different. Mississauga and all suburbs should just stick to regular tract housing and business parks.

 

[dashingdan]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

Maybe if Hazel and the other councillors realized that people are more likely to take a subway than a bus, then they'd urge the provincial government to fund a Kipling to MCC subway extension. That's the only thing that will have any impact.

I think MCC is on the right track. But it has just started. Remember MCC was built from scratch. At first it was Square One, City Hall and the Library, and nothing else. Then came Coliseum, Playdium, Chapters, Jack Astor's et al., and then The Capital, Ovation, CityGate, and now Solstice and One Park Tower. More residents need more places to eat and all that, and the bases of these new condos can have ground-level retail.

 

[ahrvojic]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

Article

THE MISSISSAUGA NEWS
Transit outlook poor: Mayor
Councillor not in favour of lanes

JOSEPH CHIN
Oct 6, 2006

Mississauga - Mississauga is unlikely to ever have a truly efficient public transit system, because the city wasn't developed with that in mind, admits Mayor Hazel McCallion.
"Back in 1974 we allowed a lot of cul-de-sacs and winding roads to be built. They're beautiful for residents to live and drive around in, but difficult for buses. That's the problem," said McCallion.

The mayor was responding to a staff report, presented to General Committee Wednesday, on initiatives to promote ridership on Mississauga Transit.

These include introducing a transit pass for University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM) students, actively marketing the upcoming GTA farecard and pushing forward with the long-delayed Bus Rapid Tran-sit (BRT) project along the Hwy. 403/Eg-linton Ave. corridor.

While the initiatives were well-received by McCallion and councillors, they weren't as sanguine about the overall future of public transit in the city.

Standing in the buses' way, literally, are too many cars.

"No matter how many buses we put on the road, they're going to have to fight with cars," said McCallion.

Ward 4 Councillor Frank Dale noted it can take up to two hours to travel across the city.

"Short runs are okay, long runs are not. I understand why people with cars will use them," he said.

Dale had some good news for commuters. After a flood of complaints, GO Transit is going to provide parking at its new Square One hub. Construction on the 200-car lot should be completed by next spring, he said.

While Mississauga Transit stacks up well against systems in suburban municipalities, it still has a long way to go before it matches the level of service provided in downtown Toronto, said Transit Director Bill Cunningham.

"It's an unfair comparison...we're not at their stage of evolution," he said.

A ridership survey conducted last April shows 40 per cent of non-riders would consider using Mississauga Transit if there was a bus-only transit lane along Hwy. 403 to Kipling subway station, if they were provided with employer-subsidized passes and if there were bus-only lanes during rush-hours.

Ward 9 Councillor Pat Saito, however, isn't in favour of building more bus-only lanes because they're not used frequently enough.

"They have to be busy, otherwise it's one lane taken away from regular traffic," she said.

High occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, such as those along Hwy. 403 through the city, do not work either because most of the time they're standing empty, said Saito.

According to the study, ridership growth will come mainly from three groups: secondary school students, GO Rail riders and GTA residents entering Mississauga for work.

 

[EnviroTO]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

No one walks from Bloor to Queen in Toronto...are they gonna do it in Mississauga?

What? I have done that walk before. I walk from Spadina and Queens Quay to Dundas and Yonge all the time and it is almost the same distance. A lot of people living downtown walk that kind of distance. Walking around downtown seems to pass quickly compared to walking in the suburbs.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

Re: Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre (O

Thanks to ahrvojic for posting THE MISSISSAUGA NEWS article: "Transit outlook poor: Mayor Councillor not in favour of lanes".

"Back in 1974 we allowed a lot of cul-de-sacs and winding roads to be built. They're beautiful for residents to live and drive around in, but difficult for buses. That's the problem," said McCallion.

From mid-70's to mid-80's, I lived in one of the apartment buildings in the Hurontario/Paisley apartment complex area. I was lucky enough to have a car to drive along the winding residential roads and admire the houses in those cul-de-sacs where I wasn't.

I'm willing to bet that there are still people who were young apartment dwellers in the mid-70's who still live in an apartment.

That's actually one of the things I was thinking about when I was listening to the discussion on "transit corridors" during that meeting. The "Hurontario corridor" was referred to several times.

It occurred to me that the traffic, buses and fumes are/will be concentrated in those high-density transit corridors. When I thought about other high traffic routes, I couldn't think of a single one near Millionaire Alleys --or even McMansion Lanes for that matter.

It's like if you live in a real home, you are shielded from Traffic-Concrete-Density in your cul-de-sac sanctuaries. The renters in that Hurontario/Paisley area, on the other hand, have no such relief.

Then again, I guess that's ok, because stats show that Mississaugans rarely vote and those who bother, for the most part, own homes. Owners vote. Renters are essentially mute politically.

"No matter how many buses we put on the road, they're going to have to fight with cars," said McCallion.

Yes, that was said. But as I listened to the discussion, I wondered whether buses weren't fighting something more than just "cars".

Ward 4 Councillor Frank Dale noted it can take up to two hours to travel across the city.

"Short runs are okay, long runs are not. I understand why people with cars will use them," he said.

"people with cars"...

Well, people with cars first, have the money to finance their cars (insurance, maintenance, gas). That leaves many people who don't have the money for cars as lifestyle-imposed pedestrians!

Since that last General Committee meeting, I've been doing a lot of pondering.

Mostly, I've pondered on what was really-not-said at that meeting --only implied.

As related earlier, Councillor Iannicca commented on the 30-degree temperature swings we get from brittle-numbing Freeze to hell-humid-Hot.

A car provides protection from all manner of insults that Transit doesn't --comfort seating (which for many means you have the entire car just to yourself), concert-quality sound system (which for many means you can even have total quiet should you choose that "feature") flexibility (which for many means you can pull into a Tim Hortons for coffee and a tinkle anytime you want)...

So there's that cocoon-aspect to cars --but something else.

Discussion revealed how people get dangerously impatient at railway crossings. And how they'd try to go around barriers if the wait got too long. Or how they don't honour those special designated lanes. Or how motorists won't let buses back into traffic. Or how people don't want a bus stop at their house but City can put it at someone else's. Or how rude drivers would give even Councillor Iannicca the finger from the safety of their own cars... on and on.

Council murmured agreement to each sad This-Is-How-Things-Are "observation".

Me, sitting there, I finally Got It! I realized, "Cripes, I know what Council is trying to say but has only talked all around it."

"People are @$$****s!"

It isn't a car problem. Or a bus problem. It's a "People are @$$****s!" Problem!

I really enjoyed that General Committee meeting.

The Take-Home message for me was tune in to what isn't being said. At General Committee and Council meetings --and what ultimately reaches print in The Mississauga News.



Signed,
The (1 of 700,000 @$$****s in Mississauga) Mississauga Muse