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Brampton Cycling Infrastructure Roads Toronto Walking

How to reimagine our streets during a pandemic

In an interview with local news station CP24, Mayor John Tory said that the city was considering implementing one-way directional traffic on city sidewalks as part of a response to COVID-19. This idea was considered as a measure to ensure physical distancing on Toronto’s sidewalks. The mayor, however, does not support the alternate solution of […]

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Brampton Design Ontario Toronto

Some love for Ontario’s municipal flags

The flag of the City of Toronto, designed by Renato De Santis, is an example of a very good civic flag I was in Orillia last week, mainly to check out the new Simcoe County Lynx bus system. While there, the flag flying from the Opera House (formerly the city hall) caught my attention. Most […]

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Brampton Roads Transit Walking

Why transit users shouldn’t beg to cross the street

If Brampton wants to continue Brampton Transit’s success, it can start by removing beg buttons at all Zum stops to start, as well as any other transfer point. There’s nothing worse than waiting four minutes to safely cross the street to watch your bus pass by.

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Brampton Development Urban Planning

The death and life of Shoppers World Brampton

Shoppers World Brampton is destined for development as an urban mixed-use hub. The planning details have now been revealed.

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Brampton Development Transit Urban Planning

The future of Downtown Brampton

Metrolinx-owned houses on Railroad Street, Brampton Over the last three years, I have been following developments in Downtown Brampton, especially lands surrounding the Brampton GO Station. In April 2016, Metrolinx, the provincial agency responsible for GO Transit, began buying properties in the northwest corner of Brampton’s downtown core, including twelve houses and two low-rise office […]

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Brampton Politics

Why Brampton’s property taxes are high — and what it can do about it

To effectively reduce its residential property tax rate, Brampton must diversify its tax base It’s budget time for most municipalities in Ontario. Unlike cities elsewhere in the world — where municipalities can levy income, sales, and payroll taxes — places like Toronto, Ottawa, and Brampton rely on property taxes for most of their operating revenue, […]

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Brampton Infrastructure Transit

What GO Transit service to Brampton might look like without the freight bypass

VIA and GO trains meet at Brampton Station In 1967, GO Transit launched a new rail service between Pickering and Hamilton. The new commuter train service was made possible as GO just built a new freight bypass so its trains could avoid Downtown Toronto and connect to a new sorting yard in Vaughan. Today, trains […]

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Brampton Development Politics Transit Urban Planning

What’s next for Downtown Brampton?

Boarded up houses on Elizabeth Street, Downtown Brampton Earlier this year, the provincial government announced the location of Ryerson University’s Brampton campus, a partnership with Sheridan College, to be built on the GO Station parking lot in Downtown Brampton. Meanwhile, Metrolinx quietly purchased several houses and office buildings south of the station for new GO […]

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Brampton Development Ontario Urban Planning

Requiem for Ontario’s regional malls

Shoppers World Brampton, 2016, before the Target store was replaced by smaller stores, including Giant Tiger Recently, I wrote about the history of Ontario’s downtown malls. Most of these shopping centres, built in the 1970s and 1980s in the downtown cores across the province, failed by the end of the 1990s. The collapse of the […]

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Brampton Development Infrastructure Ontario Urban Planning

A tale of two university campuses

Site of Brampton’s new Ryerson/Sheridan campus Last week, the provincial government announced two new post-secondary educational campuses in Toronto’s fast-growing western suburbs, due to open in 2022. Wilfrid Laurier University will be partnering with Conestoga College on a new facility in Milton. Brampton will be getting a new Ryerson University campus in partnership with Sheridan […]