Have you tried 109 after the April service increase? Peak frequency increased from 11 to 8-9 minutes, so MAYBE overcrowding not as bad anymore. Just be glad you don't live along Britannia have to put up with an articulated buses every 19 minutes on the 39. Every 19 minutes. WITH ARTICULATED BUSES.
Honestly, if you spend so money on a car, I don't see why not keep driving. Especially if you got a family, car actually saves money, unless you have to pay for parking.
The Winston Churchill and Erin Mills stations are more of a GO thing than a MiWay thing. The Transitway overall is a regional, long distance thing rather than a local transit thing. Mississauga will still need an Eglinton LRT eventually. Doesn't mean the Transitway is a failure, it just serves an entirely different purpose. Even with Eglinton LRT they would still need to complete the Transitway to alleviate the overcrowding around the City Centre terminal.
Eglinton was one of the three corridors the City was considering for an east-west LRT. They ended up choosing Derry Road.
Future East-West Rapid Transit Corridor
I've probably only taken the 109 once since April so I guess I wouldn't really know about the increased frequency, but that is good to know.
And yeah honestly, if I am going to the mall to shop, its definitely better to have the car. It just makes more sense. Can pack up bags easily in the car and the whole thing is faster and easier. But sometimes I like to take the bus out to the area, usually I'm just meandering and walking around the Square One area. Kind of don't like the idea of leaving the car in the parking lot for hours while I'm out and about... but maybe even still that would be better.
Yeah with the transitway being more of a regional thing, its definitely missing some connectivity to the West. If I was just trying to get to Renforth and then move throughout Toronto (which I have not done), it doesn't sound so bad, at least there is connectivity to the East. Although, if I had to go to downtown, I feel like it probably just makes sense to get to either Clarkson or Erindale GO and take the train to Union, as opposed to West End transitway to Renforth and then taking TTC to downtown.
The fact that the transitway doesn't run to Ridgeway at this point feels like a missing piece. When they built the transitway, there was empty fields by Ridgeway. Now there is the very busy plaza over there, as well as some industrial buildings (more jobs), and quite frankly people drive crazy around that area sometimes. It would be good if maybe some of those crazy drivers were transiting over instead. And then they would be able to build a connection from there to the who-knows-when, it seems distant future 407 transitway... not sure how they'd do the connection around 9th Line but I'm sure they could figure something out.
And yes honestly I understand why they chose Derry Road for a transit corridor, its worthy of it. But I think for overall connectivity of Mississauga, we need more East-West and North-South rapid transit routes. Would love a North-South rapid transit corridor on Winston Churchill but that's probably a pipe dream.
I too think a Mississauga Eglinton LRT makes sense. And then if you wanted to transfer at hurontario that would work because you’re going to have to transfer at square one anyways if you’re trying to get to the GO.
Eglinton LRT in Mississauga would work too in the future if you wanted to go North with connectivity to the Hurontario LRT. With the current transitway, you have to stop in at the Square One bus station, and then with the loop in the future that might slow things down a bit. If you could traverse just straight along Eglinton, there are a bunch of major roads you can make connections to to catch a transfer (or just complete your journey on foot even), and then again with the Hurontario LRT if you were going North you could bypass the Loop and Square One station.
Well, the Mississauga Transitway was built with upgrading it to LRT in mind in the future, so maybe one day there will be one.
View attachment 657276
Id be so annoyed if I lived in that area and there was no walkway where the blue line I drew is and I had to walk the red line.
I realize most of the people that live here are probably old boomers that hate transit, but why as a transit agency would you at least try to not make things as accessible as possible?
If the whole of the transitway was converted to LRT, would it be faster? I genuinely don't know the answer to that... it makes me think if we could possibly convert that into a passenger train line and connect it to the GO system. But I don't really know enough about all the technicalities involving transit like that, and it seems unlikely anyway. I understand the link between Erin Mills and Square One is a missing link regardless basically because of the Credit River and probably needing a bridge, but it would again just make the whole thing more seamless... even the connection from Square One currently going East towards Central Parkway is a little janky.
That area at Winston Churchill station you pointed out leaves me a bit dumfounded too. If you walk on that street, Colombo Crescent, there's a big wall there. Like the kind of noise barrier walls you find along highways. I know that those homes were built mid 2000s, so they predate the transitway. But I hadn't really walked around that area until the past few years, after the transitway was built, so I'm not sure if that wall was there before or after the transitway was built. If you walk along the little bit of a sidewalk that's there on that end of the transitway going in, it does seem a bit elevated to the street, but they easily could have made some sort of connection there. It would annoy me as well... especially if you had to walk all the way around and enter at the front of the transitway, its just an annoyingly long walk.
We don’t know though. There is a real possibility that wherever they wanted to build the catwalk the home owners said no because they didn’t want random people walking by their house. As someone who lived in eye sight distance of a subway stop I will say that everyday there was garbage left from someone who was walking by. It was just something you lived with. But I can see someone thinking I’d rather not get myself into something that might end poorly even if it’s for the betterment of transit riders.
I think that's definitely a possibility that that's what happened.
If you look at my screenshot of Erin Mills station, there is a pedestrian trail that connects to the station on the west end. Attached to that trail are two easements, one of which attaches to Idlewild Crescent. Well, I used to just walk in the area and enjoyed walking through that easement. But as they were building the transitway, that easement got blocked. I believe it said at the behest of a local resident's complaint, matter of fact, a wikipedia article says as much as well for either the Erin Mills station or the transitway's article, can't remember which. There was a phone number for maybe a year or so if you wanted to complain about that and contest it, but that's gone now and the sign just says it's closed.
I think maybe it was one of the homes beside the easement who complained, as one of those homes doesn't have wood, 6 footish tall fencing, but just has that short, most likely city installed short metal fencing. I could see why people wouldn't want all the foot traffic near them, but it is unfortunate for just the local community for the walkability of the area. As I said, used to love crossing through there on my walks which had nothing to do with the transitway... I've walked around many parts of the city and seen these kind of easements and many people don't install their own fencing, so you can easily see into their backyard, and hop the fence if we're being honest. But this is the only one I've seen where the easement got shut down... I always think about how someone who might live on that street and wants to walk to the station has to go around because of that.
