HawthorneVillager.com

Hi Everyone,

Please find below a letter I sent to the editor of the Milton Canadian Champion January 30, 2013. The letter is regarding my strong desire for the province to assist us with our rush hour commute with two promises the provincial government promised to assist us with our provincially mandated growth.


Rush-hour gridlock big problem in this town, it must be addressed

Dear Editor:

Rush-hour gridlock is a serious problem in our town.

Only the Province can significantly help us in this regard by delivering on promises it made in being our partner in our growth.

Recently I attended Metrolinx’s The Big Move roundtable discussion.

I sincerely hope the Province keeps its promise of all-day, two-way train service to Milton.

This will go a long way in providing residents who live here, and who are coming, an option to commute to and from work each week, and will overall assist us in our transportation needs.

This expanded transit service is an essential need that we need implemented in the short term, and shouldn’t be delayed to 2020.

I also would like to thank the Province for the new schools construction that was announced recently, as well as all the Milton and Halton councillors and school trustees for working together in bringing the urgency of addressing the school construction issue to the Province’s attention.


Tony Lambert
Local and regional councillor
Wards 1,6,7 and 8
http://www.tony-lambert.ca

Forget go transit. Widen the roads and the 401 faster to be ready for growth, not react 5 years too late. Sorry Tony, you're on the wrong page altogether here.

This is odd. I agree with Sandeep.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

Derry road at 2 lanes each way is a joke.. It should be 3 at least.
Since I moved here in 2009 it made sense, but the past 6-9 months I've noticed its much more busier.

I don't wanna imagine what'll be like once the houses on savoline open up in the spring/summer.
Time will tell :/

Hope there's plans to widen it soon and make right turn lanes but lets face it, we know if there's a plan it'll be delayed for a few years from original date.

Also add $5000 to every new home sold here like Markham is doing to pay for the arena. The newbies should be paying for all this since they're coming and making it all trafficky up in here.

How does all-day two-way train service help with rush hour gridlock?
We already have rush hour two way train service.

Are people electing to sit in their cars for 5 o'clock gridlock, but would exercise the option to come home at 3 if there were only a train?

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

For sure more people would take the GO train if there was all day service. I know of two just off the top of my head. Neither keep regular 9-5 hours. It really sucks to take the bus. Heaven forbid you should want go to and from work outside of rush hour.

I've kept mostly 9-5 hours but have taken the 5:30am bus to get to work early, busses in the middle of the day to be able to get to Dr. appointments in Milton (ever take a bus when you're pregnant? Not fun w/ morning sickness), busses in the evening if staying at work past 6:30pm, and when working really late a few times I only narrowly caught the last bus home for the night. The one that stops at every. single. station. Sometimes it was tempting to just give up the ghost and start driving.

Hi Sandeep,

Great point, thanks. Milton added more residents during the 2001-06 census period than Toronto did (22,468 people vs. 21,787). And we are anticipating far more growth — from the current population of 100,000 to 238,000 by 2031. As a town Milton will also be concentrating its intensification efforts around the GO station, with 5,000 apartments planned for the area alone.

As well, Milton GO ridership is up 9 per cent since fall 2010, 14 per cent since 2007, according to Metrolinx. In fact the Milton to Union line is the fastest growing passenger route in the entire Metrolinx system. The vast majority of new people who move to Milton, are coming from Mississauga, followed by Toronto. They have their jobs in Mississauga, and Toronto, which they need to get to each work day from Milton. As we continue to grow, there will be more grid lock on our roads unless we have more transit options such as two way all day trains. Many commuters already take the bus during the day after rush hour, many of these buses are at capacity or are at standing room only.

Also twenty-five per cent of riders using the Milton station are from places west of Milton such as Cambridge, Kitchener and Guelph. As these areas grow, so will the demand on our GO transit to Union and back, as well as stops along the way in Mississauga. These commuters from Cambridge Kitchener and Guelph live south of the Kitchener GO stop and find the Milton train very convenient.

Now is the time to plan for the expansion and implement over several years. Metrolinx appears to being backing away from promises made to us to support our growth with such things as a GO station at Trafalgar and north of Derry, and two way all day train service.

It is critical to me that the province support our growth through such issues as transportation infrastructure, and that the growth that we are forced to follow by the province does not inconvenience my constituents. It does not make sense to try to play "catch up" on transportation infrastructure in the future, when we KNOW the future, today. We have already seen "catching up later" does not work.


Thank You,
Tony

Tony Lambert
Town & Regional Councillor
Wards 1,6,7 and 8
http://www.tony-lambert.ca

I take the GO Train about 3 times a week. I don't think I see a large amount of people getting off at any Mississauga stations. Like it or not, most of the gridlock is on the roads. People drive because the GO isn't feasible for their lifestyle, destination or whatever. I don't think all-day GO Service is what we should be focussing on.

Still not sure how all day train service affects rush hour gridlock - unless there are solid numbers that show people who are driving in rush hour that would take a later train in the morning and earlier train at night. The provincial budget simply cannot afford all day 2 way service. If there is a need for an extra TO bound train or 2 in the morning, and an extra Milton bound train or 2 in the afternoon/evening, then ok, that makes sense and can mostly pay for itself - but both way all day service does not make sense when we have a $12 billion deficit!



quick question Tony - you mentioned 2 promises in the first part, but only one promise in the actual letter. I am not completely up on the provinces transit promises - what was the other one they said besides all day service?

Thanks!

Hi rickp,

Besides a long term plan for all day train service, the other promise from the provincial government is a GO station at Trafalgar north of Derry road.


Best Regards,
Tony

Tony Lambert
Town & Regional Councillor
Wards 1,6,7 and 8
www.tony-lambert.ca

I agree 100%. It is normally assumed that the majority of working Milton residents have jobs downtown Toronto which is not necessarily the case as evidenced by the gridlock experienced on the roads. The fact is that many people have destinations other than Toronto and need to drive because a transit system does not exist to take them to their workplace. Therefore I don't see any other solution except to build or expand roads to accommodate another 40 to 50,000 residents by the end of this decade.

It's not just a later train in the morning and an earlier train at night. It is the fact that even if you work 9-5ish you don't have any options to go in early (say for 7, which is not unreasonable) or stay late (past 7pm which again is not uncommon, especially for those of us who might have work-related dinners to attend). Ask people who have taken a GO train (whether they take the train regularly or not) if they have ever driven down to the Lakeshore line in Oakville. We've got people on the roads in rush hour who are driving to a *different* GO line to get better service. Like I said earlier, there are people who work right downtown who still don't take it because they may come in at rush hour but leave at off-peak hours or vice versa. They are still driving in or out during rush hour. Fix the service and you'd have these people of the road in an instant, and I bet there are a lot of them.

Fixing the service may make financial sense if it means not having to expand roads.



A transit system doesn't exist so the only solution you see is to build roads? Not, say, a transit system that would actually take people to where they need to go?

What a crock this all is!

Step 1. Build 33% less capacity than will be required (4 lanes rather than 6).
Step 2. Increase the subdivision density beyond the level of Mississauga (which has mostly 6 lane arterials).
Step 3. Implement "Smart Growth" or "New Urbanist" design principles such as having no right turn lanes at critical points.
Step 4. Implement more traffic lights than would normally exist in a suburban setting.
Step 5. Then, to add insult to injury, time the traffic lights for "traffic calming" rather than efficient travel.
Step 6. Be sure to spend as much money as possible on non-infrastructure projects like the Velodrome, Sports Center, etc etc.
Step 7. Claim there isn't enough money to build wider roads up front.
Step 8. Claim that "transit" is the only solution to this gridlock-by-design and ask the province for billions of dollars in additional transit spending.

Tony I think the answer is simple. Tell the province were not building any more housing until we get our infrastructure support.

There are options if you work late. I've taken the GO Bus home and make it in 65 minutes. That's only an extra 7 minutes over taking the train.