howl said:
I'm wonder if the people who are against the LRT have some bizarre desire to see downtown Brampton fail - perhaps a secret group of pro-suburban/anti-urbanites who feel personally threatened by the global warming inspired "war on cars".
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Yeah, pretty much. They think that downtown Brampton can remain the same sleepy place it has always been.

Except that it can't....density isn't just Toronto. I bet few people in Brampton have even heard of the Place to Grow strategy, let alone realise that they are impacted.

BRampton is actually a very interesting case study as they are agressive on BRT and will have LRT too. Buyin on transit use is already pretty high. They implemented Presto quickly.

- Paul
 
howl said:
I think people who are suggesting alternate routes for the Brampton section don't understand that the LRT is one link is a system-wide network. By linking the LRT directly and efficiently to the GO station it allows people living in Kitchener, Guelph and Georgetown to get to jobs in Brampton and Mississauga without driving.
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They can already get jobs in Brampton without driving now....so the LRT has no impact on people in those towns getting to Brampton.

It also allows people living in Brampton and Mississauga to get to jobs in Kitchener, Guelph and Georgetown.
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Again....very possible and feasible today. The connections to DT Brampton for 3/4 cities you mention is and will continue to be the GO corridor......travel times to and from Mississauga are marginally improved with this LRT for a very, very small percentage of the people making the trip.......and may be worsened for the majority.

I'm wonder if the people who are against the LRT have some bizarre desire to see downtown Brampton fail - perhaps a secret group of pro-suburban/anti-urbanites who feel personally threatened by the global warming inspired "war on cars".
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The people I have spoken to and read comments from who are opposed are far too diverse to be a "group"....there are people (the ones who get most of the press) who oppose it on the "heritage" basis....there are people who support LRT but want it to somehow serve the new healthcare facility just to the east of dt....there are people who support LRT but want it along a significant length of Queen Street......there are people who support LRT but want to divert it west to serve the only post-secondary campus in town.....there are those that oppose LRT altogether on the basis that the numbers used to produce the sort 2031 ridership figures are blatantly "cooked" and even those ridership numbers (in their own reports) are within the capacity of a full BRT...so this, they think, represents an overbuild.


Whatever the varied reasons, I can assure you there is no secret cabal of people stirring up a brew for some nefarious purpose. Other than the Heritage argument (there is some validity in all these positions) and it will ultimately fall to council to decide what they want to do....democracy is working as various citizens, and their representatives, try to achieve what they think is best for Brampton....this is nothing new...it is something that has played out in lots of places and is playing out in Brampton.....so don't spend too much time trying to learn the secret handshake to get into the meetings ;)
 
I think you're missing the point of the argument. The point is the direct connection is an important link in the REGIONAL transportation network which affects the lives of thousands of people, which is why it's being paid for by the Province. You can't compare today's meager network with the future needs of the region since this connection will have a direct impact on where people choose to live and where employers choose to locate in the future. Most of the arguments against LRT going through downtown Brampton are local issues that affect a few hundred people at best. The LRT isn't primarily for downtown Brampton, although they stand to make some significant financial and social gains from it. The LRT is for people throughout the whole Region, it just happens to pass through Brampton.
 
howl said:
I think you're missing the point of the argument. The point is the direct connection is an important link in the REGIONAL transportation network which affects the lives of thousands of people, which is why it's being paid for by the Province. You can't compare today's meager network with the future needs of the region since this connection will have a direct impact on where people choose to live and where employers choose to locate in the future.
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No, I am looking at all the plans and see very little in it that actually improves Brampton's position within the region. There is nothing this line does that improves that....in fact may make it even easier for people to choose to live in other community K (or W) and work in other community M.

Most of the arguments against LRT going through downtown Brampton are local issues that affect a few hundred people at best.
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1 of the arguments can be categorized as local....and yes it affects a few thousand people.....but that is kinda the point (from a local perspective) the largest (and growing) opposition is people unaffected (either negatively or positively) looking for a better solution from a local perspective. If the negative impacts are on a few people nearby, surely you see that that means the greater number of Brampton's 600k people are not impacted by this at all and some of them are wanting their councillors to push back and find a route that impacts (positively) their lives.

The LRT isn't primarily for downtown Brampton, although they stand to make some significant financial and social gains from it. The LRT is for people throughout the whole Region, it just happens to pass through Brampton.
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Your spot on......this wasn't designed to benefit Brampton at all....and I suspect if they had been able to find a yard location further south in Mississauga this would have been the #HLRT instead of being extended to pass through (and help people pass through) Brampton.
 
If you look all the major nodes the LRT will connect - Port Credit, Cooksville, MCC, Shopper's World, Downtown Brampton - plus connecting 3 different GO Train lines, 2 GO Transitways, and unifying Hurontario-Main bus services - I think it will have a big regional impact.

I think it will have huge benefit for Brampton also because of the need for better connections to Mississauga. I think that is limiting Brampton Transit. There is only so much BT can do if so many people want to cross the border. You can see the huge boundary with Toronto limit YRT too. So I think better integration with Mississauga Transit will help a lot. I don't think Zum service all the way to Sq One in the very heart of Mississauga good solution for long term. The LRT will simply be better for regional transit.
 
People move from Mississauga to Brampton for the bigger house. They are not interested in higher density or transit, otherwise they would have stayed in Mississauga. They want the small town lifestyle. Single-family houses not multi-family housing. Brampton's growth is basically all single-family housing, more than any other municipality in GTA. So not surprisingly the possibility of LRT transforming Downtown Brampton into a real downtown scares the residents. It's a culture clash.
 
doady said:
People move from Mississauga to Brampton for the bigger house. They are not interested in higher density or transit, otherwise they would have stayed in Mississauga. They want the small town lifestyle. Single-family houses not multi-family housing. Brampton's growth is basically all single-family housing, more than any other municipality in GTA. So not surprisingly the possibility of LRT transforming Downtown Brampton into a real downtown scares the residents. It's a culture clash.
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All absolutely true. The problem is that you can't fight the density, it is coming, period. And to the extent that Brampton bought into the Place to Grow strategy, Brampton's elected officials have signed up for it. They just aren't in a hurry to tell their constituents this.

And Brampton residents do benefit from the transportation corridors that are being built thru the area.

- Paul
 
doady said:
People move from Mississauga to Brampton for the bigger house. They are not interested in higher density or transit, otherwise they would have stayed in Mississauga. They want the small town lifestyle. Single-family houses not multi-family housing. Brampton's growth is basically all single-family housing, more than any other municipality in GTA. So not surprisingly the possibility of LRT transforming Downtown Brampton into a real downtown scares the residents. It's a culture clash.
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That is such a narrow definition of how/why people end up living in Brampton it is laughable. I would bet the vast majority of Bramptonians have never lived in Mississauga.....some may have, some may want to and some have no interest in it.......but no one that moved to Brampton in the last 30 years was looking for a "small town lifestyle"......if they want that they are in the wrong place.

Mississauga found the density bug when they started running out of greenfield land to develop....a natural progression of suburban communities....until then they were happy to approve the same sort of sprawling, SFD, developments that has built Brampton and will for the next 10 years or so (when Brampton also will run out of land).....the truth is that the vast majority of Mississauga looks like the vast majority of Brampton.
 
doady said:
People move from Mississauga to Brampton for the bigger house. They are not interested in higher density or transit, otherwise they would have stayed in Mississauga. They want the small town lifestyle. Single-family houses not multi-family housing. Brampton's growth is basically all single-family housing, more than any other municipality in GTA. So not surprisingly the possibility of LRT transforming Downtown Brampton into a real downtown scares the residents. It's a culture clash.
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By many measures the transit in Brampton is better than the transit in Mississauga (in fact, I think you've even mentioned this fact in the past, Doady). Brampton is also more blue collar than Mississauga.

A greater proportion of single-family housing than Milton, Aurora, Ajax, King... seriously?

Acting like Brampton is some sort of stuck-in-time, anti-change, anti-density upper class suburb is just ignorant. Don't be ignorant like the LRT opponents.
 
CDL.TO said:
Acting like Brampton is some sort of stuck-in-time, anti-change, anti-density upper class suburb is just ignorant. Don't be ignorant like the LRT opponents.
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I do not buy into the 'upper class' statement, which suggests the 'culture clash' referred to snobbery. I didn't take it that way. But..... the culture clash comment is relevant. I agree it shouldn't be taken as unique to Brampton.

The furor that erupted up around Mount Pleasant and Davisville recently is the same phenomenon....in that case, residents up there never conceived that town homes would be built in an area that traditionally didn't have any. Very few people have any idea what the Official Plan allows in their area...until the bulldozers turn up.

The population growth we are facing in the GTA simply cannot be solved with continued focus on the automobile. This isn't a war on cars, it's simply accepting the fact that 13 million people can't fit their cars on our roads, no matter how wide we make them. This is a painful discovery for people in ever suburb....it just happens to be playing out in Brampton this week. All the other suburbs that are built around the automobile will find this out in due time....as was noted, Mississauga is already much further along this path.

- Paul
 
Provincial law REQUIRES each GTA municipalities to have a certain amount of new development as infill development. With Brampton's massive greenfield growth it is seriously behind on its infill requirements. Brampton either needs to allow hundreds of new townhouses throughout the city . . . or it needs to promote a high density core supported by transit. The LRT and new development in the core help PROTECT established neighbourhood from redevelopment. Fighting against the LRT and new development in the core promotes townhouse and apartment development in established neighbourhoods.
 
howl said:
Provincial law REQUIRES each GTA municipalities to have a certain amount of new development as infill development. With Brampton's massive greenfield growth it is seriously behind on its infill requirements. Brampton either needs to allow hundreds of new townhouses throughout the city
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I think you will find that, each year, hundreds of townhouses are built in Brampton..it may actually shock you.

. . . or it needs to promote a high density core supported by transit. The LRT and new development in the core help PROTECT established neighbourhood from redevelopment. Fighting against the LRT and new development in the core promotes townhouse and apartment development in established neighbourhoods.
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That is the first time I have heard that..whenever I question the development inducing potential of this LRT (there is just not that much developable land near it) I am always told of how I am being nearsighted and that this LRT will lead to redevelopment.....so you are saying if this LRT is killed, then the redevelopment of old Brampton will happen?
 
TOareaFan said:
That is the first time I have heard that..whenever I question the development inducing potential of this LRT (there is just not that much developable land near it) I am always told of how I am being nearsighted and that this LRT will lead to redevelopment.....so you are saying if this LRT is killed, then the redevelopment of old Brampton will happen?
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The comment was in response to the post above which stated that Bramptonians were generally against medium and high density infill development throughout their city. Since the Province requires a certain amount of infill development that infill development either needs to go in the core , or it needs to be spread out into the established neighbourhooods. If Bramptonians are against infill development in their established neighbourhoods then they should support LRT in order to support new development in the core. By deterring redevelopment of the core they are making it much more likely that infill projects will spread into their established neighbourhoods.

To look at it another way, based on Provincial law Bramptonains can't decide they want no infill development - therefore they have to decide where they want it to go - in the core or in their established neighbourhoods.
 
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