[T3G]

Real WTF moment yesterday evening as I saw a transit enforcement officer standing at the north end of City Centre terminal screaming viciously at people who were jaywalking against the light protecting the bus exit.

The amount of people who run right into the path of ongoing buses at the exit is absolutely getting out of hand, but having someone screaming, however righteously, at people who jaywalk instead of, say, a cop to ticket them (or, even better, having transponders in the road to trigger the light for buses exiting the terminal, because if there is nothing going, there is really zero reason to have to wait), seriously makes me question the intellect of the person who decided to have this. Having a person of authority screaming at a civilian for any reason is a really bad look for a government agency.

 

[drum118]

Real WTF moment yesterday evening as I saw a transit enforcement officer standing at the north end of City Centre terminal screaming viciously at people who were jaywalking against the light protecting the bus exit.

The amount of people who run right into the path of ongoing buses at the exit is absolutely getting out of hand, but having someone screaming, however righteously, at people who jaywalk instead of, say, a cop to ticket them (or, even better, having transponders in the road to trigger the light for buses exiting the terminal, because if there is nothing going, there is really zero reason to have to wait), seriously makes me question the intellect of the person who decided to have this. Having a person of authority screaming at a civilian for any reason is a really bad look for a government agency.

The only light that can be trigger is the crosswalk signal and that is even an issue. Where do you put the trigger for the buses with enough time to stop riders crossing the exit when they stop a few feet from the crosswalk waiting for a green and the first bus bay is 40 feet away?? You also have an intersection to deal with that involved GO Transit buses as well. There is no way to do what you want at the end of the day. Not a well thought out terminal.

 

[ShonTron]

Yeah. At the time it was built nearly 30 years ago, the terminal was set up for easy cross-platform transfers, lots of waiting space, with most exits/enters via the lower level Square One exit. The on-street overflow platforms and the GO stops to the north weren’t a thought then.

There are way too many passengers now that have to cross to get to the 502 Züm, to GO, and even to some MT buses now.

The Brampton Gateway Terminal will be so much worse too with a southside LRT terminal.

 

[doady]

They already had all these problems in mind when they built the terminal. That is why the terminal has two floors: second floor for the bus loop, first floor for the transitway station. That is why they set aside land for a second transitway station and second terminal at Hurontario/Rathburn.

 

[JJTheJetPln]

The only light that can be trigger is the crosswalk signal and that is even an issue. Where do you put the trigger for the buses with enough time to stop riders crossing the exit when they stop a few feet from the crosswalk waiting for a green and the first bus bay is 40 feet away?? You also have an intersection to deal with that involved GO Transit buses as well. There is no way to do what you want at the end of the day. Not a well thought out terminal.

What would the next iteration of the terminal look like if it were to address these issues?

Yeah. At the time it was built nearly 30 years ago, the terminal was set up for easy cross-platform transfers, lots of waiting space, with most exits/enters via the lower level Square One exit. The on-street overflow platforms and the GO stops to the north weren’t a thought then.

There are way too many passengers now that have to cross to get to the 502 Züm, to GO, and even to some MT buses now.

The Brampton Gateway Terminal will be so much worse too with a southside LRT terminal.

I fear it's going to be worse regardless of which side the LRT terminal is on just due to the overcrowding on the 502/511 and other busy routes. My concern is that the LRT station is not going to have enough space for however many people are travelling on the LRT, and that it might spill onto the tracks, or the road.

 

[drum118]

What would the next iteration of the terminal look like if it were to address these issues?



I fear it's going to be worse regardless of which side the LRT terminal is on just due to the overcrowding on the 502/511 and other busy routes. My concern is that the LRT station is not going to have enough space for however many people are travelling on the LRT, and that it might spill onto the tracks, or the road.

. At the time it was built nearly 30 years ago, the terminal was set up for easy cross-platform transfers, lots of waiting space, with most exits/enters via the lower level Square One exit. The on-street overflow platforms and the GO stops to the north weren’t a thought then.

There are way too many passengers now that have to cross to get to the 502 Züm, to GO, and even to some MT buses now.

The Brampton Gateway Terminal will be so much worse too with a southside LRT terminal.

CCTT was out dated before the shovels went into the ground as it was supposed to handle 25,000 riders a day for a city of 250,000 when it open with the city being well over 300,000 when it did. 2005 saw the L expansion that saw 35,000+ riders a day as well the building of Station Gates to handle sidewalk loading for GO Transit.

When the Transitway was built, a new shelter and bus bay on Rathburn was bult for CCTT. Can't recalled when the shelters and stops went up for westbound Rathburn stops. When Brampton 502 show up, its stops have been in a number of locations.

Mississauga has been trying to reduced the number of routes serving CCTT, with poor results for the last 15 years.

When I look at Brampton Gateway terminal, it is well under built. When the LRT starts, it will be a zoo for riders trying to get to/from the Gateway Terminal to the LRT station as ML has been unwilling to move it to the Northside from the Southside. Even if is move to the northside, there will be issues for riders getting to/from Gateway to the LRT stop. Expect huge ridership on those center platforms at Sq One and Gateway that could see overcrowding on them for weekdays.

Gateway needs a new terminal and it will be not cheap to build it.

 

[doady]

CCTT was out dated before the shovels went into the ground as it was supposed to handle 25,000 riders a day for a city of 250,000 when it open with the city being well over 300,000 when it did. 2005 saw the L expansion that saw 35,000+ riders a day as well the building of Station Gates to handle sidewalk loading for GO Transit.

Mississauga already had over 250,000 by 1976. Are you saying this terminal was designed before Mississauga was even incorporated as a City, 15 years before the transitway was first proposed, when Square One was still surrounded by farms?

Anyways, I don't see the relevance of city-wide population on the design of a particular terminal in a city. Big cities don't build big bus terminals. Big cities build things like transitways and LRT and subways to get buses off the road. They spread the buses out instead of focusing on one giant bus terminal.

Building bigger bus terminals because there are too many buses is like building bigger roads because there too many cars.

Mississauga has been trying to reduced the number of routes serving CCTT, with poor results for the last 15 years.

Routes bypassing CCTT have become increasingly popular over the past 15 years: 26 Burnhamthorpe, 35 Eglinton, 53 Kennedy, 103 Hurontario Express. Do you have ridership data to contradict this?

When I look at Brampton Gateway terminal, it is well under built. When the LRT starts, it will be a zoo for riders trying to get to/from the Gateway Terminal to the LRT station as ML has been unwilling to move it to the Northside from the Southside. Even if is move to the northside, there will be issues for riders getting to/from Gateway to the LRT stop. Expect huge ridership on those center platforms at Sq One and Gateway that could see overcrowding on them for weekdays.

Gateway needs a new terminal and it will be not cheap to build it.

If Brampton pays that price it's because they voted against LRT north of Steeles and plans to expand their bus fleet from 533 buses to 938 buses by 2034.

Mississauga and Brampton combined have similar population and transit ridership to Calgary (1.3M population and 123M vs. 144M boardings in 2023). The difference with Calgary is it has 60km of LRT, with a bus terminal at each station, while Mississauga and Brampton have 0km.

 

[sixrings]

Mississauga already had over 250,000 by 1976. Are you saying this terminal was designed before Mississauga was even incorporated as a City, 15 years before the transitway was first proposed, when Square One was still surrounded by farms?

Anyways, I don't see the relevance of city-wide population on the design of a particular terminal in a city. Big cities don't build big bus terminals. Big cities build things like transitways and LRT and subways to get buses off the road. They spread the buses out instead of focusing on one giant bus terminal.

Building bigger bus terminals because there are too many buses is like building bigger roads because there too many cars.



Routes bypassing CCTT have become increasingly popular over the past 15 years: 26 Burnhamthorpe, 35 Eglinton, 53 Kennedy, 103 Hurontario Express. Do you have ridership data to contradict this?



If Brampton pays that price it's because they voted against LRT north of Steeles and plans to expand their bus fleet from 533 buses to 938 buses by 2034.

Mississauga and Brampton combined have similar population and transit ridership to Calgary (1.3M population and 123M vs. 144M boardings in 2023). The difference with Calgary is it has 60km of LRT, with a bus terminal at each station, while Mississauga and Brampton have 0km.

Part of the problem is that in Calgary they know exactly where they want the transit to serve. The downtown. Downtown Calgary. In the Mississauga and Brampton situation part of the transit needs to go to MCC and Brampton downtown while another part of the transit needs to be directed to getting people into Toronto as fast as possible. Two totally different services.

 

[doady]

Part of the problem is that in Calgary they know exactly where they want the transit to serve. The downtown. Downtown Calgary. In the Mississauga and Brampton situation part of the transit needs to go to MCC and Brampton downtown while another part of the transit needs to be directed to getting people into Toronto as fast as possible. Two totally different services.

We are talking about overcrowded bus terminals, so seems like Mississauga and Brampton have a very good idea where they want transit to serve as well.

Brampton Gateway didn't need to become the terminus of the LRT. Mississauga didn't build the Transitway in MCC and take the buses off Rathburn and Station Gate Road. They didn't follow Calgary's example. Take the buses off the road.

Derry has 6-minute service and Mississauga looking at LRT. Queen Street has 3-4 minute service and Steeles 4-5 minutes, but Brampton is looking at... on-street BRT? 938 buses by 2034...

 

[sixrings]

We are talking about overcrowded bus terminals, so seems like Mississauga and Brampton have a very good idea where they want transit to serve as well.

Brampton Gateway didn't need to become the terminus of the LRT. Mississauga didn't build the Transitway in MCC and take the buses off Rathburn and Station Gate Road. They didn't follow Calgary's example. Take the buses off the road.

Derry has 6-minute service and Mississauga looking at LRT. Queen Street has 3-4 minute service and Steeles 4-5 minutes, but Brampton is looking at... on-street BRT? 938 buses by 2034...

I think my point which maybe I didn’t make was that Mississauga runs its transit like a hub and spoke through MCC. Which has benefits but also negatives. The problem is not everyone wants to go to MCC so there’s lots of detours. As for the transit way. Yes it doesn’t need to deal with traffic. But it is again the antithesis of as the crow flies to get to Kipling station. And yes it will connect to the lrt. So I guess it will be good for those trying to go to midtown Toronto. But I’m afraid most people want to head downtown Toronto.

 

[Sauga89]

I think my point which maybe I didn’t make was that Mississauga runs its transit like a hub and spoke through MCC. Which has benefits but also negatives. The problem is not everyone wants to go to MCC so there’s lots of detours. As for the transit way. Yes it doesn’t need to deal with traffic. But it is again the antithesis of as the crow flies to get to Kipling station. And yes it will connect to the lrt. So I guess it will be good for those trying to go to midtown Toronto. But I’m afraid most people want to head downtown Toronto.

But the transitway does as you say connect to the Hurontario LRT, which in turn connects to the Milton Line. If it's hard to get downtown, I would view that more as a problem with the design/capacity of the LRT and Milton Line than an issue with the transitway, though the number of transfers is annoying.

In the long run, I might suggest tearing out the transitway and replacing it with some kind of hybridized tunnelled branch from the Milton Line, but that's just my fantasy. The MiWay focus on the MCC bus terminal as a hub would make a lot more sense though if the MCC ever got a GO station.

 

[doady]

I think my point which maybe I didn’t make was that Mississauga runs its transit like a hub and spoke through MCC. Which has benefits but also negatives. The problem is not everyone wants to go to MCC so there’s lots of detours. As for the transit way. Yes it doesn’t need to deal with traffic. But it is again the antithesis of as the crow flies to get to Kipling station. And yes it will connect to the lrt. So I guess it will be good for those trying to go to midtown Toronto. But I’m afraid most people want to head downtown Toronto.

Most people in Brampton and Mississauga want to head to Brampton and Mississauga.

I guess we can debate what is the Transitway's place in the bigger regional picture alongside the future 407 Transitway and Kipling and Crosstown, etc. and how to attract riders. But Mississauga and Brampton are dealing with overcrowding, not lack of riders, and ultimately rapid transit is more about increasing capacity to solve overcrowding than about attracting riders. In MCC in particular, this means building the Transitway.

The hub-and-spoke thing also stems from the lack of a Transitway in MCC. Build the Transitway, build the remaining Transitway stations (Ridgeway, Creditview, Square One, Hurontario), build the long-proposed second City Centre terminal, and CCTT becomes much less of a focal point. Likewise, if Brampton hadn't voted against LRT north of Steeles, if there were already shovels in the ground for Queen Street LRT now, we wouldn't talking about the Brampton Gateway terminal being too small.

 

[drum118]

June 4

Maureen Cosyn Heath is the new Transit Manager who first day was on Monday.

As of July 1st, 2025, anyone 65 or older will be able to ride the transit system free in place of the $1 fare.

The last of the 2300 and 2400 buses are in service with 0723, 0810, 0903 and 0910 still on the road as white. They will be gone or should be gone this month as they are pass their 15 year life cycle. Only a small amount of blue express buses still to be painted orange and they should be done this month.

Now as to when the 80 2500 series buses will arrive, only NFI knows. The artic will be diesel since NFI not producing hybrid for them at this time.

 

[T3G]

What is supposed to be replaced by the 2500s?

 

[drum118]

What is supposed to be replaced by the 2500s?

2500 is the year bus number just like the 0900 retired numbers and not following TTC number system as well a few other systems. Last I knew, we are getting 80 buses this year that were order last year if NFI return to 9-12 month delivery timeframe. Due to supply chain issues, the 2300 and 2400 where running 6-9 months late as they were order in one batch. All 40's are hybrid buses