Transit is the missing piece

Torontosun.com
March 30, 2017
By Neil Sharma

The Greater Toronto Area is on the cusp of an unprecedented population explosion, and while that signifies a healthy, prosperous region, concerns about its preparedness abound.Top of the list is an efficient transit system, and as urban planners at a CityAge conference learned recently, in Toronto, there is much work to be done.Steve Daniels, vice-president of development planning at Tridel, spoke to the Toronto Sun about the GTHA’s imperatives leading up to 2041, when it’s expected the region’s population will increase by roughly 40 per cent.

Daniels says cities and municipalities need to maintain infrastructure to such levels that continued development is sustained. As well, transit nodes, like the TTC subway extension into Vaughan, for example, are crucial to residential development.“The justification for intensification is transportation,” he says, “meaning if we’re going to intensify development, transportation is a key piece of that.“People want to be able to live and get to work without congestion.

There’s a cultural shift, like out in Vaughan, where you get more intensification where these transit hubs need to go.”According to Daniels, minimizing sprawl is a good thing. “Concentrating development where you have transportation hubs, having infrastructure there and putting in intensification to support that is good development and good community building.”The close connection between population growth and transit infrastructure is no more evident than in Mississauga, now Ontario’s third-largest city.

Mississauga is expecting 300,000 new residents over the next couple of decades and has begun transitioning from suburb to urban centre.Downtown Mississauga will see 10 new residential towers called M City built over the next decade-to-15 years that will house 12 to 15,000 new residents, and it is building a dedicated LRT on Hurontario St.Neither project would be viable without the other.

Mississauga issued over $1 billion in building permits in 2015 and it is on track to surpass that this year. While the city doesn’t have the kind of density required to build subways, it is augmenting bus service with BRTs (bus rapid transit) and GO Train service. “All of this is to ensure all these neighbourhoods are woven into the fabric of Mississauga to build a complete city,” said mayor of Mississauga, Bonnie Crombie. “We’re looking at our future. The final four BRT stations will be built over the next year. We’re looking at the Dundas corridor for higher order transit; what will make sense, a BRT or LRT?”

Crombie also champions what the city’s named The Missing Link, in which it - along with Toronto, Cambridge and Milton - is trying to divert freight traffic from the Canadian Pacific southern rail line in Milton to the north line, and replacing it with commuter trains.Echoing Daniels’ remarks about connectivity, Mississauga’s planned population and job booms will spur the need to travel to and through surrounding municipalities for work.

Because there’s no more land in Mississauga, henceforth development will be infill, manifesting in condos, townhomes and stacked townhomes.Crombie has aptly dubbed future planning an urban renaissance, stating, “When we talk about downtown, we want it to mean downtown Mississauga and not have any reference to Toronto.”In doing so, she intends to turn Mississauga into “a complete city,” which she defines as meticulously planned, green and walkable - and, of course, fully connected by transit.“We’re an engaging place,” said Crombie. “People dream of living in Mississauga and we very much feel that urban planning is our legacy for future generations because it is how we’ll be judged. We will have a profound impact on the future. There’s a need to build a complete city where people live, work and recreate.”