Mississauga to open four of 12 Transitway stations next Monday
Transit officials are promising the new rapid bus route will speed commute times.

thestar.com
Nov. 10, 2014
By Tess Kalinowski

It has taken a decade of planning and four years of construction but next Monday the first phase of Mississauga’s new Transitway - four of the 12 stations - will finally begin trimming the commute times of MiWay bus riders.

The $460 million dedicated busway that runs along Highway 403 means bus riders will no longer be competing with cars for space on the road.

“When all the stations are completed in 2017 we will be reducing MiWay travel times from the City Centre transit terminal to Terminal 1 at Pearson International Airport from 50 minutes to 22 minutes,” said city manager Janice Baker at a ceremonial Transitway opening at Dixie Rd. Station on Monday.

Monday’s celebration had an air of relief as the Transitway construction comes more than a year late, delayed by utility relocations and construction setbacks.

“It takes MiWay to a whole new level of service. You sometimes think it will never happen but we’re here today,” said the city’s transportation commissioner Martin Powell.

Even the first phase of the opening, four kilometres and four stations - Central Parkway, Cawthra Rd. and Tomken Rd., as well as Dixie - will mean MiWay bus riders bypass 10 traffic lights.

Although some of the landscaping and exterior finishes aren’t yet complete, the Transitway will open with commuter comforts such as heated stations and shelters, rolling ramps along the stairways for bikes, bike parking and real-time bus arrival signs overhead.

The wooden ceilings, plantings and art installations have been designed to soften the look and feel of the concrete stations, which are fully-accessible with automatic doors, elevators and ramps.

There will be vending machines for snacks and drinks, but it will be a couple of years before they are equipped with Presto electronic fare card equipment. Eventually, the stations will also offer Wi-Fi although no date has been set.

Unlike GO stations, the Transitway is designed with limited station parking. In the first phase, only Dixie and Cawthra have parking with 170 and 60 spots respectively.

“Really you want people to take local transit or get a drop-off,” said Mississauga Transit director Geoff Marinoff.

The bus routes that will use the first Transitway stations, the 21, 107 and 109, have been running for a couple of years, he said. So for riders, Monday is really just about their bus driving on a different piece of road.

About 38 per cent of the MiWay riders are students. Once it is complete, the Transitway will also accommodate GO buses, saving many York and McMaster University students time travelling to the City Centre terminal at Square One.

Marinoff says the Transitway has the potential to help transform the way its young riders see transit.

“If we can get them to keep the transit habit, they’ll have a different lifestyle, a more European lifestyle,” he said.

When the whole 18-km. Transitway opens from Winston Churchill Blvd. to Renforth Dr. in 2017, transit officials say that trip, which takes 32 to 42 minutes now, will be reduced to about 20 minutes. It makes the bus competitive with a car, which takes about 15 to 18 minutes to make the same journey.

On Saturday, transit riders are invited to catch a shuttle at the City Centre and tour the four new stations.

The project has been funded by all three levels of government including $83 million from Ottawa, and $65 million from the province. The city’s $313 million has risen from an original estimate of $269 million.

The province contributed an additional $48 million through its agency, Metrolinx, toward the development of the Renforth transit hub that will be used by MiWay, GO and the TTC.