Sean Marshall

Category: Ontario

  • The decline of Downtown Chatham Centre

    The decline of Downtown Chatham Centre

    Downtown Chatham Centre

    It is no secret that I am fascinated by Ontario’s failed downtown malls. Over the last decade, I have visited most of these half-dead shopping centres, from Thunder Bay to Sarnia to Peterborough. All of these malls were built in smaller centres hoping to revitalize their urban cores, especially after the successes of the Toronto Eaton Centre and Ottawa’s Rideau Centre.

    A majority of downtown shopping centres in Ontario counted Eaton’s as an anchor, starting with London’s Wellington Square in 1960. New malls in Sudbury (1970), Hamilton (Jackson Square, 1972-1975) and Kitchener (Market Square, 1974) followed, with the pace of downtown mall openings quickening in the late 1970s and 1980s as the provincial government provided assistance through the Ontario Downtown Redevelopment Program (ODRP).

    A few downtown malls did not secure Eaton’s as the lead anchor. These malls, which were anchored by Sears, included King Centre (Downtown Kitchener’s second indoor mall), Cornwall Square, and Downtown Chatham Centre. I visited the latter mall in late September 2023.

    Chatham, a small city located halfway between London and Windsor, has had bad luck ever since the 1950s. City growth was curtailed when neighbouring townships fought the city’s annexation efforts to develop new industrial lands on the urban outskirts. Political pressure from exurban residents kept the city rather isolated from the new Highway 401, which passes south of the old city limits; residents of the hamlet of Charing Cross opposed a highway interchange that would have provided direct access into Downtown Chatham. Meanwhile, a new Multi-Malls shopping development was approved for a site north of Chatham; an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board by the city was dismissed, and the new Woolco and Loblaw-anchored plaza helped to draw customers — and tax revenues — from the city proper.

    This unfortunate situation was only rectified in 1998, when the City of Chatham was amalgamated with not just its neighbouring townships, but the entire county, creating the new municipality of Chatham-Kent, coming far too late for the industrial and commercial development Chatham had hoped for. In the meantime, a new downtown mall that would not only retain shoppers but hopefully attract new visitors to the city, was seen as the solution.

    While most downtown malls built during the ODRP era were led by Eaton’s and Cadillac Fairview, the Downtown Chatham Centre (DCC) was managed by Cambridge Shopping Centres. The city of Chatham conducted the land assembly (using its powers of expropriation where necessary), and cleared two city blocks, including the Garner Hotel, the old market square, the Romanesque Harrison Hall, and several commercial blocks, including a shuttered Eaton’s store.

    Downtown Chatham in the 1950s. Most of the buildings in the foreground and midground have since been demolished. The old market square became a parking lot by the 1950s; to the immediate left of the old market is the 3-4 storey Eaton’s store. Harrison Hall, with its conic tower, stands behind Eaton’s.
    The Downtown Chatham Centre soon after opening in 1983 (Chatham-Kent Museum)

    Instead of Eaton’s — which closed its Chatham store in 1974 — the lead anchor would be Sears, which was expanding its Canadian footprint at the time, as it just pulled out from its 25-year partnership with Simpson’s. Unlike most downtown malls built in Ontario, DCC had always offered ample customer parking, located in a garage linked to both of the mall’s two shopping levels, as well as an adjacent surface lot, with mall visitors able to get their parking validated. On the south side of the mall, there was a Miracle Food Mart, along with a food court on the second floor. Downtown Chatham offered the only full-line department store in town; the mall also had the city’s only escalators. The plaza out front featured a fountain in the summer and a public skating rink in the winter.

    Harrison Hall, which was home to both the City of Chatham and Kent County before demolition in 1978 to make way for the Downtown Chatham Centre. (Chatham-Kent Museum)
    The site of demolished Harrison Hall in 2023. A sign still directs drivers to the Sears receiving area and the parcel pick-up.

    For a time, DCC held its own. Sears was a much more suitable department store for a smaller industrial/agricultural city like Chatham than Eaton’s would have been. Though the Multi-Mall development north of the city on Highway 40 and the Thames-Lea plaza in the suburbs provided competition, the downtown mall’s regional market dominance was undisputed in the 1980s and most of the 1990s. Unlike Eaton’s, Sears Canada was particularly healthy until the early 2000s as it catered to the suburban middle class; in 1999, it purchased the remains of the bankrupt T. Eaton Company, converting many better performing Eaton’s stores to its own brand.

    Unlike Chatham’s peer cities like Brantford and Sarnia, the mall’s tenant mix stayed relatively healthy well into the new millennium (see the 1992 and 2014 tenant lists below). Though Miracle Food Mart closed, that space was remised into a Sport Chek and a Goodlife Fitness gym. It wasn’t until the last decade that serious decline began to set in.

    What happened?
    The empty public plaza outside the vacant Sears store

    There were several factors that led towards the decline of Downtown Chatham Centre, similar to the reasons why most downtown malls failed. The main difference is that the decline came later than most others.

    Chatham’s economy, like most smaller Ontario centres, was in flux, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s. Free trade agreements affected the local industrial economy, which was already weaker than neighbouring cities like Sarnia, Windsor, and London-St. Thomas.

    Factory closures included the Navistar plant. For nearly a century, International Harvester was one of Chatham’s largest employers. The Chatham plant, which assembled International truck tractors and employed 2400 workers in 2001, closed for good in 2011. The rise of Walmart, which moved into the old Woolco store on Highway 40 along with other big-box retailers, also hurt the downtown mall. But Sears Canada entered its own death spiral in the mid-2000s. In 2005, the company was taken over by the private equity firm Pershing Square, whose CEO, Edward Lampert, was already slowly sucking the American parent company dry. Sears Canada sold off its credit card division, its Downtown Toronto headquarters, and eventually the leases for its most attractive stores in 2012 and 2013, including the former Eaton’s flagship in Toronto Eaton Centre.

    By 2014, the DCC Sears was converted to an outlet store, foreshadowing its eventual closure in 2017, less than year before the entire chain disappeared from Canada.

    Mall interior looking east, September 2023

    In September 2023, there were only a handful of open stores left inside DCC, including Northern Reflections, a Dollarama, Fit4Less (a budget brand of Goodlife Fitness), Ardene, an independent jewellery store, and a Hart discount department store located in the old Miracle Food Mart/Sport Chek space. All open retail spaces were on the first floor; the escalators were completely blocked off. The Ardene store was already in the process of moving to the Thames-Lea plaza.

    Security guards were stationed at both public entrances, likely to ensure the mall did not become a hangout for Chatham’s unhoused.

    Mall interior, looking west

    The mall also has a pharmacy and medical office, but since 2015, they are accessed only from the outside, in a storefront facing King Street.

    What’s next?
    Chatham-Kent Civic Centre, built in 1975-1976

    The Municipality of Chatham-Kent currently occupies the Chatham Civic Centre, which was built in the late 1970s on the site of a former gas works on the Thames River. The Civic Centre requires major renovations or replacement, and the municipal government is considering purchasing part of the Downtown Chatham Centre, and moving the municipal government, the main library, and the art gallery/museum into the Sears store, which would be heavily renovated. Staff report that the cost of purchasing and renovating part of the DCC ($42,387,400) was similar to renovating the existing Civic Centre, library, and museum ($38.7 million to $45.8 million) and nearly half the cost of building brand new.

    Earlier plans also included a new entertainment centre to host concerts and the Chatham Maroons minor hockey team, replacing an existing municipal arena constructed in 1949. Those plans were later dropped by the mall’s owners.

    If Chatham-Kent agrees to purchase and renovate the vacant Sears store, they will relocate to nearly the same site as the old Harrison Hall.

    The proposed relocation of the civic centre and library to a central location, adjacent to the RideCK transit terminal (which serves the old City of Chatham as well as many smaller population centres within the municipality) is certainly a more sustainable and equitable outcome than building a new civic centre outside the downtown core. It repurposes an existing building and helps to support downtown business. However, more housing, both on the surface lot and on any vacated civic properties would help bring even more people into the downtown core, which can use the boost. Though retailers may not flock back into the mall once renovations are complete, the storefronts offer flexible space for community programs and small business incubators.

    For a small city like Chatham, this is likely the best outcome.

    1992 Tenants

    Below is the list of tenants at Downtown Chatham Centre in 1992, obtained from the 1993 Canadian Directory of Shopping Centres, published by Maclean-Hunter.

    Anchors
    Miracle Food Mart (32,925 sq. ft.), Sears (71,903 sq. ft.)

    Fashions and footwear
    Children’s wear: Just Kids
    Unisex/family wear: Cotton Ginny, Le Château, Pantorama, Stitches, Work World
    Ladies’ wear: Addition-Elle, Born Free, D’Allairds, Fairweather, Irene Hill, Just Petites, Lady Foot Locker, The Lady’s a Champ, Mariposa, Northern Reflections, Pennington’s, Personally Yours, Reitman’s, Ricki’s, Station Cotton, Suzy Shier, Thyme Maternity
    Menswear: Tip Top
    Footwear & leather goods: Foot Locker, Joggers, Kinney, The Shoe Place
    Jewellery/accessories: Lady Jewellery Company, Ostranders, Young’s Jewellers

    Other retailers
    Books: Classic Bookshop, Coles
    Drugs/health & beauty: Pharma Plus, The Soap Emporium
    Department/mass merchandiser: A Buck or Two
    Electronics: Radio Shack
    Gift: Den For Men, Things Engraved
    Hardware/paint & paper: Tool Den
    Housewares: Junor’s, Stokes
    Music/Records: Sam the Record Man
    Pet: Pet Paradise
    Photo/Camera: Black’s, Japan Camera 1 Hour Photo.
    Restaurant/fast food: A&W, Crumbles Muffins, Frankfurters, Lumberjack Restaurant, Manchu Wok, Mulligan’s Roadhouse, Sorrento
    Specialty Food & Drink: Bright’s Wines, Laura Secord, The Gourmet Cup
    Stationery/Card: Carlton Cards, Hallmark, Willson Stationers
    Toy: Toys & Wheels
    Variety/Convenience: News Room
    Dry Cleaners: La Moderna Dry Cleaning.
    Hairstyling/Esthetics: The Golden Razor
    Theatre/Entertainment: Fun & Games
    Miscellaneous: Infoplace

    2014 Tenants

    The 2015 Canadian Directory of Shopping Centres tenant list was shorter, though still much more robust than former Eaton’s-anchored downtown malls in comparably-sized cities like Sarnia, Brantford, or Peterborough at the time.

    Anchors
    Goodlife Fitness (15,126 sq. ft.), Sears (71,903 sq. ft.)

    Fashions and footwear
    Unisex/family wear: Bluenotes, Le Château, T’s & Sweats
    Ladies’ wear: Cleo, Fairweather, Impression, La Senza, Northern Reflections, Platinum Boutique, Suzy Shier
    Menswear: Collins Formal Wear
    Jewellery/accessories: Ardene, Charm Diamond Centres, Peoples Jewellers
    Footwear & leather goods: Bentley, Payless Shoe Source

    Other retailers
    Books: Coles
    Gift: Things Engraved
    Housewares: Avenel Collections
    Restaurant/fast food: A&W, I Luv Juicy, Subway, Wokhouse
    Specialty food: Laura Secord
    Stationery/Card: Hallmark
    Wireless/telecommunications: Bell, Fido, Koodo Mobile, Rogers, Virgin Mobile
    Variety/Convenience: Dollarama
    Hairstyling/Esthetics: Classic Nails
    Miscellaneous: CNIB Lottery Centre

  • The slow way to Peterborough

    The slow way to Peterborough

    A busy GO Transit Route 88C bus loads passengers in front of the Peterborough Bus Terminal in the city’s downtown core

    Peterborough, Ontario, a city of 84,000 people, is about a 90-minute drive from Downtown Toronto, without heavy traffic. A regional centre for central-east Ontario, Peterborough is home to Trent University, a mid-sized liberal arts institution with about 10,000 full time students, and Fleming College, which has over 6,000 full time students and 10,000 part time students.

    Given its relative importance and its proximity to the Greater Toronto Area, especially Durham Region, one might expect to find good transit links from Peterborough to not only Toronto, but elsewhere in Ontario. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

    Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Greyhound Canada’s remaining service in Ontario and Quebec, there were four daily Greyhound buses between Peterborough and Toronto (three on Saturdays and Sundays), with one of those daily runs continuing east on Highway 7 to Ottawa, with stops in towns such as Havelock, Madoc, and Perth.

    The scheduled time between the old Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets and Downtown Peterborough was between one hour and 45 minutes (making only an intermediate stop at Scarborough Centre Station) and two hours, 15 minutes (making local stops in Ajax, Oshawa, and Orono).

    2019 Greyhound timetable for Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto service. Note the overnight 5757/5790 runs that also followed Highway 7, but only stopped at Madoc for a rest break.

    In September 2009, GO Transit first started a bus service between Oshawa GO Station, Downtown Peterborough, and Trent University, following the success of other bus services to universities and colleges in the region. Before 2020, that route made only four stops between Oshawa Station and Downtown Peterborough; all were park-and-ride lots adjacent to Highway 35/115; the bus would take just over an hour between the station and Downtown Oshawa.

    Despite GO Transit’s competition, the Greyhound service remained popular, as it offered a direct, faster, one-seat ride between Downtown Toronto and Downtown Peterborough, with most buses only stopping at Scarborough Town Centre along the way. Three days a week, there were connections to Bancroft and Pembroke. GO Transit’s advantage was a slightly cheaper fare, connections to local transit and other GO services, and a more convenient service for passengers travelling between Durham Region and Peterborough. Unlike Greyhound, GO Transit continued to Trent University. Apart from the Newcastle (Hwy 2 at Hwy 35/115) park-and-ride, where passengers could connect to GO Transit routes 90/91 to Newcastle, Bowmanville, Courtice, and Downtown Oshawa, the park-and-ride stops were little-used.

    GO Transit Route 88 map, January 2020. There were only four stops between Oshawa GO Station and Peterborough Bus Terminal

    In mid-2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing major reductions in bus and rail ridership, GO Transit cut and consolidated several services, particularly in areas where local transit agencies operate. Route 90 was reduced to early morning and late-night service between Union Station and Oshawa GO when trains were not operating. The remainder of Route 90 through Courtice, Bowmanville, and Newcastle was cut entirely. Route 91 was merged into Route 88, which added new stops in Courtice and Bowmanville.

    Route 88B, which includes stops at park-and-ride lots at proposed new GO Stations in central Oshawa and Courtice, takes up to 120 minutes to get from Trent University to Oshawa Station. The regular 88 bus takes 105 to 115 minutes to complete the trip. That is a very long time to sit on a bus, especially one not equipped with a lavatory.

    GO Transit’s Route 88 bus timetable, including connecting train service from Toronto Union Station (click for larger size)

    On Thursdays and Fridays, during regular school days between September and April, there are several express 88C buses, that only stop at Trent University, Peterborough Bus Terminal, and Oshawa GO. They make the complete trip in 1 hour 20 minutes; from Union Station to Downtown Peterborough is 2 hours, 20 minutes, not much slower than the slowest Greyhound bus.

    The Route 88 route map in September 2023

    Granted, for anyone living in Bowmanville and headed to Peterborough, the route is an improvement, with a new one-seat-ride now possible. While travelling to Peterborough earlier in September, I noted several passengers getting on in Downtown Bowmanville. But for through passengers, the backtrack to get to the Clarington Boulevard Park & Ride (the proposed location for the Bowmanville GO Station) and then the local stops to Newcastle are a bit annoying. Once on the highway, the bus has to get off at the Highway 35/115 split near Pontypool, and again at County Road 10 near Cavan and Millbrook, despite the very occasional time a passenger wants to get on or off (which has never happened when I rode Route 88). These diversions add 2-3 minutes each to the trip.

    Pulling up to a deserted GO bus stop at County Road 10 near Cavan

    These carpool stops might be useful if there were connecting transit services, rather than just a parking lot and a bus shelter. The 35/115 lot near Pontypool is 34 kilometres to Lindsay, a town of nearly 20,000 people, but whose only transit connection is a 3 day/week TOK coach bus between Haliburton and Toronto. A shuttle connection to Lindsay (which has a local transit service) would provide new links to Toronto, Durham Region, and Peterborough. Meanwhile, the Highway 2 carpool lot does not have direct Durham Region Transit service either.

    Since Greyhound Canada’s withdrawal from the Canadian market, GO was the only intercity operator serving Peterborough until earlier this year, when Rider Express and Flixbus resumed service on the Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa route. Both companies offer express, one-seat rides to downtown Toronto, but they have two major disadvantages over GO or even the old Greyhound service: frequency and in-town connections.

    Flixbus offers one daily round trip, leaving the Union Station Bus Terminal at 11:00 AM and arriving at a Tim Hortons parking lot (at 1200 Lansdowne Street West, on the southwest side of Peterborough), at 1:05 PM, with stops near Scarborough Town Centre and at Thickson Road and Highway 401 in Whitby. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 9:05 PM, arriving in Toronto at 11:05 PM.

    Boarding a Flixbus coach in a parking lot behind a Tim Horton’s in Peterborough’s suburbs

    Rider Express runs on the same route four days a week, leaving Union Station at 12:00 PM, arriving at a different Tim Horton’s parking lot (on Ashburnham Road, on the southeast side of Peterborough) at 1:45 PM, making one stop in Scarborough. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 10:05 PM and arrives in Toronto at 11:35 PM. The map below shows where GO, Flixbus, and Rider Express stop in Peterborough.

    While GO stops at Trent University, Downtown Peterborough, and a park-and-ride lot on the south end of the city, Flixbus and Rider Express only stop at locations close to the main highway on the south side of Peterborough, pulling into parking lots with nowhere to sit and no real amenities, unless waiting passengers had a car to wait in or paid for a coffee or snack at the Tim Horton’s. The old Greyhound terminal, which was located on the same block as the downtown transit terminal, has since been sold, and is now converted for local community services. Though they offer a much faster ride to downtown Toronto, the private operators are neither frequent enough nor convenient enough to compete with GO.

    One day, Peterborough may get intercity rail service again thanks to the federal High Frequency Rail project, still in the early procurement phase, which would provide the speedy, frequent intercity service Peterborough needs. Until then, Metrolinx should revise the entire Peterborough bus service, including working with Durham Region and the City of Kawartha Lakes to make the service more useful for more riders, with a mix of daily express buses and enhanced local connections. The Selwyn Link bus service, which connects GO and Peterborough Transit with Selwyn Township and Curve Lake First Nation at Trent University, is great example to build upon.

    I have updated the Ontario Intercity Transport Map for September 2023 with new and revised routes right across the province. The notable losses include Prescott-Russell’s abandonment of its rural on-demand service, the closure of Grey Transit Route’s service between Walkerton and Flesherton, and Trailways’ stop in Chatham. The London-to-St. Thomas gap remains unfilled, and there’s a clear gap in Huron and Bruce Counties, especially with the loss of service to Walkerton. For the most part, it is good to see most regional transit services continuing, with mostly minor adjustments.

    I look forward to sharing my Canada Intercity Transit Map, based on work I recently completed for Infrastructure Canada, in the near future.

    Link to intercity map
  • Lost in the weeds: OBRY, 18 months later

    Lost in the weeds: OBRY, 18 months later

    After the last train departed from Orangeville on December 17, 2021, the Orangeville-Brampton Railway (OBRY) became yet another abandoned railway, the last chapter of a once-expansive network of rails that branched out across Midwestern Ontario. Orangeville was the divisional point of Canadian Pacific’s Bruce lines, which served Owen Sound, Walkerton, Teeswater, Fergus and Elora, and dozens of towns and villages en route. By 1995, all of those branches were abandoned by CP, so in 2000, the Town of Orangeville purchased the remaining bit of track to serve local industries, and even launched a scenic excursion train, the Credit Valley Explorer, several years later. For about a decade, the future looked bright.

    The Town of Orangeville, which was eager to walk away from the railway it once proudly owned, was quick to tear up the tracks within its boundaries, soon to be replaced by a new multi-use path. In July 2023, the ties are still mostly in place, for now, waiting to be dug up, and while the road crossings are now smooth, signal gantries are still standing on Broadway and Townline Road.

    At the old yards and station grounds, the “new” station building, opened in 2007 for the Credit Valley Explorer and an office for OBRY rail crews, is being used as a temporary branch of the Orangeville Public Library, as the main Mill Street location undergoes major renovations.

    Warped rails and ties on the old railbed at Townline Road, Orangeville
    Railway crossing signal gantries on Townline Road, stripped of their crossbucks and lights
    The “new” Orangeville station, built for the Credit Valley Explorer and an office for OBRY crews; currently used as a temporary location for the Orangeville Public Library

    Through Caledon and Brampton, however, the track remains mostly in place, though it has largely been covered by weeds. Near Alton, the Mile 31 signpost remains erect, though nature has completely taken over the right-of-way.

    The Region of Peel now owns the corridor, with the promise of a new rail trail, though with the impending disbandment of that upper-tier municipality, it will be up to the Town of Caledon and the Cities of Brampton and Mississauga (and possibly Credit Valley Conservation) to follow through with removing the rails and ties and putting down a new trail.

    Mile 31 signpost, north of Alton

    In the meantime, the Region of Peel removed the crossings of Highway 136 near Alton. The rusted track simply disappears into the roadbed on either side. The crossing at Mayfield Road at the Brampton/Caledon border has also been removed to allow for widening of that major arterial road. Otherwise, the tracks are still in place, though weeds, debris, and concrete blocks placed at several bridges to deter unauthorized use, have made the rails impassable.

    The abandoned OBRY track disappears at Highway 136 (Porterfield Road)
    The former Highway 136 (Queen Street) crossing in Alton

    At several crossings, the crossbucks, lights and bells have been removed, replaced with warnings to plow drivers to raise their blades at the disused tracks.

    At Old School Road, the crossbucks are gone; new signs warn snowplow drivers to raise their blades at the abandoned tracks

    In Brampton, though, transit buses still stop at the crossings on Queen Street, Bovaird Drive, and Steeles Avenue as if anytime was still train time. The signals protecting the diamond at the busy CN line in Downtown Brampton are still active, 18 months since the last train passed through on the Orangeville line.

    When I last passed by the diamond, on July 5, I saw work equipment on the old OBRY right-of-way, so perhaps that, too, is not long for this world.

    Looking north to the Brampton diamond; an excavator can be seen just north of the CN mainline

  • Reviewing GO Transit’s big April changes

    GO Transit bus on the Gardiner Expressway. Route 21 will se major changes with the new schedules

    On Saturday, April 8, GO Transit will introduce big changes to its rail and bus services. Brampton and Waterloo Region will see the biggest benefits, while a major gap in Ontario’s intercity bus network will finally get filled.

    However, major construction work on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines will require the bustitution of most trains on those two corridors for at least a few months. Most buses serving the Milton Line will no longer operate to or from Union Station, but instead connect with the Lakeshore West Line. Finally, one of GO Transit’s oldest bus routes will finally disappear for good.

    Though the scale of these service changes is truly impressive, there are some drawbacks that hopefully will be addressed in the near future.

    Kitchener Line/Route 30

    Map of the GO Transit Kitchener Line, with bus routes 30, 31, and 33.
    From the official timetable.

    As part of the April 2023 changes, GO Transit will finally introduce hourly weekend service on the Kitchener Line between Union Station and Mount Pleasant GO in northwest Brampton. Most Route 31 “train-bus” trips will be cancelled, while Route 33 (Guelph-Brampton-North York) takes over the Guelph via Highway 7 service completely.

    With the exception of weekday counter-peak periods, early mornings, and late evenings (when Route 31 will still operate), Brampton finally has the all-way, two-way, every day train service it has been requesting for decades. Because of schedule constraints, and limited track space, weekend trains will not be stopping at Etobicoke North.

    Route 30, the Bramalea-Kitchener-Waterloo bus, will also operate 7 days a week, with an easy transfer at Bramalea GO Station. This is the fastest and most frequent service between Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo (private intercity bus service to Kitchener are limited, and they only stop at Sportsworld, near Highway 401), and should help build ridership for future train service expansion.

    Unfortunately, there remains no quick GO bus service between Toronto, Brampton, and Guelph; passengers must still endure the Route 33 milk run on Highway 7 through Georgetown, Acton, and Rockwood. Weekend service on Route 48, the Guelph-Bramalea-Highway 407 route, timed to connect to Kitchener Line trains, could provide this useful link until track capacity is improved west of Bramalea and through Halton Region and Wellington County.

    But finally, Bramalea GO Station, with its new bus loop and easy transfers, fulfills its promise as a useful intermodal transit hub.

    Route 17: where GO Transit has never gone before

    Map of GO Transit Route 17, connecting Waterloo, Guelph, and Hamilton.
    From the official timetable.

    The introduction of GO Transit Route 17 between Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, and Hamilton is, in my view, even more significant than the new weekend train service on the Kitchener Line.

    This new bus route is the first time a GO Transit service has gone against its 55-year-old business model of a Toronto-centric system, where all train services converge on Union Station, and all bus services supplement the train corridors or connect to a suburban Toronto terminal. This might even be the most significant GO Transit service change since the first Highway 407/York University bus service began in September 2000. The 407 Corridor, originally a single bus route connecting Oakville, Mississauga Square One, Bramalea, York University, and Markham, has expanded into a multi-branched 24-hour/7-day corridor that now extends to Oshawa, Guelph, and Hamilton.

    Route 17, which will run hourly on weekdays, directly serves four university campuses (University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Guelph, and McMaster University), a record for any single bus route in Canada (only the TTC Yonge-University Subway serves as many university campuses in a one-seat ride). It also provides a direct Guelph-Kitchener-Waterloo link (which was only provided by infrequent Greyhound buses before 2020) and replaces former Coach Canada/Megabus routes abandoned prior to or during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Though Route 17 finally fills several gaps in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, it is, at best, a first good step.

    For one thing, Route 17 is too slow to effectively serve as a great Kitchener-Waterloo/Hamilton connection. The travel time from University of Waterloo to Downtown Hamilton is between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and thirty minutes. The typical driving time is about one hour. It is more competitive between Guelph and Hamilton, though the route diverts to Aldershot GO Station to connect with the GO Transit Lakeshore West corridor, adding 15-20 minutes of travel time over a direct McMaster/Downtown Toronto routing.

    Finally, there is no weekend service offered at this point, and the new route misses Downtown Kitchener, diverting via the Conestoga Parkway, though a stop at Victoria and Frederick Streets east of downtown provides connections to several GRT bus routes. There is also a need for better connections between Cambridge and Guelph, something that GRT, Wellington County, and Guelph should work together to fix.

    I am hopeful that the new hourly weekday service is attractive to students and commuters, and that ridership grows to a point that GO considers weekend service and either express runs, or a restructuring of the corridor to provide more direct services.

    On Wednesday, March 29, I spoke to Craig Norris on CBC Kitchener’s Morning Edition about new Route 17, weekend service on Route 30 and the implications for Waterloo Region and beyond.

    Untangling Route 21

    Map of the Milton Line and Route 21, after the April 8 2023 service change.
    From the official timetable.

    Route 21, the Milton GO bus corridor, provides Milton-Mississauga-Toronto service at all times except the weekday peak period direction, when GO operates seven trains between Milton and Union Station. Unfortunately, the busy Milton Corridor is Canadian Pacific’s mainline between Toronto and Chicago. Unlike CN (whose mainline is used by GO’s Kitchener Line between Bramalea and Georgetown), CP has been less amiable to GO service expansion outside the peak period window.

    Because of passenger demand in central Mississauga, Route 21 has traditionally been one of GO Transit’s most complex routes, with ten distinct branches, with service to each station every 15-30 minutes at most times. With increasing traffic into and within Downtown Toronto, especially on summer weekends, Route 21 can be very slow and unreliable, with GO Transit forced to divert its buses on Route 21 and 31 away from its Union Station Bus Terminal to Port Credit GO.

    Though weekend train service on the Kitchener Line solves the problem for Route 31, without access to CP’s tracks, Milton Line passengers must ride buses, which have to go somewhere.

    The solution, then, was to permanently divert Milton Line buses to the Lakeshore West rail corridor. Route 21A will operate between Milton GO Station and Oakville GO Station, serving Sheridan College’s Oakville campus and the 407 Corridor at Trafalgar Road (allowing for new transfers from Milton to Hamilton/McMaster and Mississauga/Pearson Airport). Route 21B will run from Lisgar GO, serving Meadowvale GO, Streetsville GO, and Erin Mills Transitway Station before connecting to trains at Clarkson GO. Route 21C runs between Erindale GO, Square One, Cooksville GO, and Port Credit GO. Only during early mornings and late evenings will Route 21 serve Union Station, making all stops to and from Milton.

    Dixie Station also loses its weekday Route 21 service. The station is not well connected with local transit nor is it in a walkable area, so it is completely dependent on drive-up traffic. That should be fine for commuters who can rely on the regular train schedules, and who don’t need to leave Toronto early or late, but it worth pointing out.

    These changes simplify Route 21, and provide a reliable and predictable, albeit slower, connection to Downtown Toronto. They provide new connections to the busy Highway 407 bus corridor, and allow GO to divert buses and drivers to other services.

    One thing GO can do to improve the utility of its realigned bus service is operate the new branches at all time periods to maximize ridership. For example, Route 21A, while providing new useful links between Milton, the Highway 407 corridor, and Sheridan College, does not run in the peak direction when the Milton Line trains are running, with no southbound buses from Milton to Oakville between 5:03 AM and 9:28 AM. A similar gap exists northbound in the late afternoon on weekdays.

    Other changes

    The Stouffville Line, which enjoys hourly train service seven days a week, goes down to just peak period rail service starting April 8. Work to double-track the corridor through Scarborough has been continuing, albeit slowly, so hopefully the suspension of off-peak trains will help speed up construction. Work to expand the Lakeshore East/Stouffville corridor through Toronto’s east end has also forced train service reductions between Toronto and Oshawa.

    On the Barrie Line, there is similar ongoing work to double track sections of that line continue, including a new viaduct over the CP mainline near Dupont Street. Off-peak trains that normally go as far north as Aurora are being replaced by buses, with limited weekend trains to Allandale Waterfront Station in Barrie continuing in service.

    Route 81, one of the older bus routes in GO Transit’s network, will finally disappear. The bus route, connecting Whitby GO Station, Port Perry, and Beaverton, has seen low ridership, with alternative service provided by Durham Region Transit’s Route 905 to Port Perry and DRT’s rural on-demand service.

    Finally, though they are not amongst the major upcoming changes, GO Transit’s services to Orangeville and Peterborough remain inadequate. Route 37, between Brampton and Orangeville, still does not operate on weekends, nor is there a morning northbound bus from Brampton. Ironically, there is better service leading north from Orangeville towards Shelburne, Dundalk, and Owen Sound operated by Grey County’s rural bus system.

    Meanwhile, Route 88, which connects Oshawa GO Station with Peterborough and Trent University, was diverted several years ago to serve Bowmanville, replacing since-cancelled Route 90. Unfortunately, this results in a long, nearly two-hour bus ride between Oshawa and Trent University, or four hours between Toronto Union Station and Trent. The drive, with moderate traffic, is less than half that. Though Rider Express now operates a bus from Toronto to Ottawa via Peterborough, it only runs once a day, four days a week.

    It would be great if GO Transit could speed up Route 88 to make it a viable and attractive option between Toronto, Durham Region, and Peterborough.

    Finally

    On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised by GO Transit’s April service changes. Weekend service on Route 30 and the new Route 17 between Hamilton, Guelph, and Kitchener-Waterloo close some major gaps in that part of the province. The Route 21 changes make a lot of sense and open up new connections, though many bus passengers will not be happy with the new forced transfer to get to or from Downtown Toronto. Though bustitutions on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines are not ideal, they will allow for important work to improve rail service on those two corridors. Finally, attention to bringing faster and fuller service on some bus routes – like 21A, 37, and 88 will help build a complete transit network across the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

  • A transit tour of Southwestern Ontario

    Huron Shores Transit bus stop in Grand Bend

    In January 2023, while visiting the site of the now-demolished Sarnia Eaton Centre, I took advantage of two new rural transit services serving Southwestern Ontario: Strathroy-Caradoc Transit and Huron Shores Area Transit. While both services connect London and Sarnia, they operate as separate services with different fares; they also have different terminals.

    Strathroy-Caradoc Inter-Community Transit bus at Lambton Mall in Sarnia

    Strathroy-Caradoc Transit offers the most direct service between London and Sarnia, with stops at London International Airport, Downtown London (on York Street near the VIA Station), Komoka, Mount Brydges, Strathroy, Lambton Mall, and Downtown Sarnia.

    The regular cash fare between London and Sarnia is $20, though from London or Sarnia to Strathroy, the fare is $10. On my westbound trip on Sunday, January 29, the schedule allowed for a quick washroom and coffee break in Downtown Strathroy, a necessity given the long ride on a small minibus.

    Returning the next day from Sarnia, I opted to ride Huron Shores Area Transit (HSAT) back to London. HSAT, which is also contracted to Voyago, connects several communities in Lambton, Huron, and Middlesex Counties. All four HSAT routes converge in the summer resort town of Grand Bend. Two routes operate seven days a week (Route 1, connecting Sarnia, Forest, Thedford, and Kettle Point & Stoney Point First Nation, and Route 2, serving Exeter, Lucan, Centralia, and London). There are two additional routes operating two days a week from Grand Bend to Goderich and to Parkhill and Strathroy.

    Unlike Strathroy-Caradoc, HSAT operates on a flat $5 cash fare. Even though I was traveling the long way between Sarnia and London, with an hour-long layover in Grand Bend, I was offered a slip of paper marked by the driver that allowed me to board the second bus without a second fare. Huron Shores buses have bike racks, though the operator recommends calling ahead to ensure their availability.

    While Strathroy-Caradoc Transit serves downtown London and Sarnia, HSAT’s buses go only as far as the first major destination in both cities. The Sarnia stops for Route 1 are at Lambton College and nearby Lambton Mall, while the London stops on Route 2 are on London’s north end, near Masonville Place and at the University Hospital on the Western University campus. Getting downtown requires a transfer to Sarnia or London Transit.

    Huron Shores Area Transit bus at London’s University Hospital. Note the bike rack.

    Though VIA Rail still operates one daily train between Toronto, London, and Sarnia, it is not on a convenient schedule for most passengers (it leaves Sarnia early in the morning and arrives late in the evening), so the new bus services fill a key role in providing mobility options. Though it is more expensive, the Strathroy-Caradoc route is the direct and the fastest connection. But Huron Shores trip is the more scenic and cheaper ride.

    I updated my Ontario intercity transportation map for April 2023 to include the major GO Transit service changes, the gradual resumption of some Ottawa commuter bus routes, the start of Travelways bus service between Detroit, London, and Toronto, and minor route and service changes elsewhere in the province.

    The hour-long layover in Grand Bend gave me a chance to wander the town. On the main street, almost every business was closed for the season. There was very little traffic on Main Street, so it had a bit of a ghost town feel. On Highway 21 and to the east, however, typical chain stores like Tim Hortons, Sobey’s, and Shoppers Drug Mart serve the year-round population.

    Grand Bend’s famous beach — in January
    Hello Sunshine
  • The end of Sarnia’s Eaton Centre

    The end of Sarnia’s Eaton Centre

    Late last year, I wrote about the closure of the Hamilton City Centre mall, the last of Ontario’s downtown Eaton Centres to open. But Hamilton’s failed shopping centre wasn’t the only old downtown mall to close in recent years: Sarnia’s Bayside Centre, opened in 1982 as the Sarnia Eaton Centre, was recently demolished, with a seniors’ residence and long-term care home set to take its place.

    Bayside Mall in 2013

    I previously visited Sarnia’s Bayside Mall in 2013, when the mall was already mostly dead. Community uses, such as a local museum, a Canadian Blood Services clinic, a seniors’ drop-in centre, and a March of Dimes office predominated, with only Hong Kong Express and Subway left in the food court, and a few other shops — a rug store, an optician, a beauty salon, and a pharmacy — scattered amongst the vacant storefronts. The old Eaton’s department store was already converted into offices for Lambton County’s social services department.

    The old fountain at the main entrance to Bayside Mall in 2013.

    As I discussed previously on this website, there was a downtown redevelopment boom across Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s, with municipalities and the province eager to support the construction of new shopping centres to help them compete with suburban malls.

    The Sarnia Eaton Centre was the first of several malls funded by the Ontario Downtown Redevelopment Program, though previous downtown shopping centres, such as Hamilton’s Jackson Square and the Sudbury City Centre, were built with municipal support.

    The case for Sarnia Eaton Centre was always weak, but it was the result of inter-municipal rivalry as much as it was an attempt to revitalize Downtown Sarnia. In the 1970s, Lambton Mall opened in the city’s outskirts, near the intersection of Highways 40 and 402. But Lambton Mall was built outside the city limits, in suburban Sarnia Township. Lambton Mall’s anchors included Sears, Canadian Tire, and Toys R Us.

    While Sarnia Township’s population was growing due to residential, industrial, and institutional growth (Lambton College’s main campus was also established in the township, near Lambton Mall), the City of Sarnia’s population declined. Along with the new Eaton Centre, the city also encouraged new highrise residential development in the downtown core, and two new office buildings were also constructed. The city – with support from Imperial Oil, a major employer – renovated the old movie theatre, converting it to a playhouse for local productions and touring shows.

    The Imperial Theatre remains a popular attraction

    When it opened in 1982, Sarnia Eaton Centre was the centrepiece of Sarnia’s downtown comeback. It filled in nearly four blocks of Downtown Sarnia, with Lochiel Street closed between Christina and Vidal Streets, and Victoria Street closed north of Cromwell.

    The mall was anchored, of course, by Eaton’s, a smaller, two-storey store with 91,470 sq. ft. of floor space (just under 8500 square metres), and an A&P supermarket on the southern end. Sarnia Eaton Centre’s 1993 Canadian Directory of Shopping Centres, showed that the mall still had a healthy assortment of national retailers, along with some local businesses. But many retailers refused to renew their store leases, and when Eaton’s entered bankruptcy for the first time in 1997, the Sarnia store was among the first to close.

    The City of Sarnia merged with Sarnia Township in 1991, while the area surrounding Lambton Mall continued to grow as the region’s commercial centre. Big-box stores such as Walmart and Home Depot clustered around the older mall, and even with Sears Canada’s closure, Lambton Mall continued to do well, with Marshalls/Home Sense taking over the old Sears store.

    2013
    Lochiel Street, looking west from Christina Street, in 2013 and 2023
    2023

    The Bayside Mall property was purchased by Seasons Retirement Communities in 2017, and most of the mall was demolished in 2021-2022. Lambton County, which operated its social services offices in the former Eaton store, expanded its footprint, with a new municipal courthouse located next to the old Eaton’s store, which was renovated.

    Lochiel Street has been partially restored as a pedestrian walkway across the site, while the southern half of the old mall will be redeveloped for mid-rise seniors’ homes, with a central plaza.

    Map showing the redevelopment of Bayside Mall, with the Lambton County building, in red, already complete in early 2023. The top of the map faces west.

    Bayside Centre is certainly not the only mall property in Ontario to be redeveloped for new housing — Hamilton City Centre will soon come down for similar reasons, and other older malls will soon follow — but it’s among the first.

    Meanwhile, Downtown Sarnia will continue to hold its own. It has a few nice restaurants, cafes and pubs, and the highrise development of the 1970s and 1980s ensures that there’s a local population that will frequent the businesses there. The addition of seniors housing won’t hurt either.

    Below is the list of tenants at Sarnia Eaton Centre in 1992, obtained from the 1993 Canadian Directory of Shopping Centres, published by Maclean-Hunter. In 1992, the collection of retailers was still quite strong, largely driven by Cadillac Fairview’s leasing team.

    Anchors

    A&P (26,512 sq ft), Eaton’s (91,470 sq. ft)

    Fashions and footwear
    Children’s wear: Just Kids
    Unisex/family wear: Le Chateau, D’Gala, Pantorama, Stitches, Thrifty’s
    Ladies’ wear: Fairweather, Irene Hill, Just Petites Lady Foot Locker, Lindor, Reitmans, Smart Set, Suzy Shier
    Menswear: Tip Top
    Footwear/leather goods: Agnew, Baronessa, Bata, Belinda & Brother, Joggers, Kinney, Mr. Minit Shore Repair
    Jewellery/accessories: Ardene, People’s

    Other retailers
    Books/stationery: Carlton Cards, Garfield, WH Smith
    Health and beauty: Caryl Baker Visage, Shoppers Drug Mart
    Department store/mass merchandiser: Marks & Spencer, A Buck Or Two
    Electronics: Radio Shack
    Entertainment: Fun & Games
    Furniture & furnishings: Brass Collections
    Gifts: Things Engraved
    Hardware/paint & paper: St. Clair Paint and Wallpaper
    Housewares: The Royal Douton Store, Stokes
    Music/ records & tapes: Discus, Music World
    Pets: Tropicarium Pet Centre
    Photo/camera: Black’s, Japan Camera
    Restaurants & fast food: Elephant & Castle, Global Donuts, Hamby’s, Hong Kong Express, Kernels, Mykie’s, Viva Pasta
    Specialty food & drink: Laura Secord, mmmarvellous mmmuffins, Second Cup

    Services
    Banks/financial: Canada Trust, TD Bank
    Hairstyling/esthetics: Regis Hairstylists
    Medical/dental: Tridont Dental
    Travel: Marlin Travel
    Misc: Infoplace

  • The train is returning to Timmins (sort of)

    The last train left Timmins Station in 1990. Today, it serves as a bus terminal for local and Ontario Northland buses

    Northeastern Ontario got an early Christmas gift from the provincial government on December 15, 2022. On that day, the province announced the purchase of three new trainsets for the restoration of passenger rail service to North Bay, Timmins, and points in between.

    Prior to 1990, there were two daily trains between Toronto and Northeastern Ontario: the daytime Northlander, which ran between Toronto, North Bay, and Timmins daily except Saturdays, and the daily overnight Northland, which continued north to Cochrane and Kapuskasing, with a bus connection to Timmins.

    The Northland, which was operated with VIA equipment, was cut as part of a devastating slash to VIA’s budget by the federal Progressive Conservative government. Other trains cut in 1990 included the daily train services from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal to Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The remaining train service between Cochrane and Northern Quebec soon followed.

    The only train service left in Northern Ontario were remote services still provided by VIA Rail (the local Sudbury-White River RDC train and the transcontinental Canadian, reduced to three days a week and rerouted on the more remote CN mainline), Algoma Central between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, the Polar Bear Express/Little Bear service to Moosonee, and the 6 days/week Northlander service between Toronto and Cochrane, which was re-routed from Timmins (though a bus connection at Matheson was maintained).

    A railway overpass, completed shortly before its abandonment, crosses Highway 101 (Algonquin Avenue) towards Downtown Timmins, with the station building in the distance. A Timmins Transit bus lays over at the terminal.

    With the passenger service gone, the tracks through the urban areas of Timmins were quickly removed. The old railway right-of-way in Schumacher, a mining town just east of Downtown Timmins, became the new route of Highway 101, bypassing the old main street, hastening Schumacher’s decline. The station in Timmins was repurposed as a bus terminal for Ontario Northland and Timmins Transit.

    The old route of Highway 101 through Schumacher

    In 2012, the Northlander, which used refurbished former GO Transit single-deck railcars, was cut by the provincial Liberal government, citing declining ridership and high subsidies ($400 per passenger). The train also required an auxiliary power unit, as Ontario Northland used only freight locomotives.

    The southbound Northlander arriving at Gravenhurst in 2012. The auxiliary power unit is immediately behind the locomotive.

    The new trainsets will be the first time in generations that Ontario Northland won’t be using second-hand passenger cars. In the 1970s, Ontario Northland acquired used Trans-Europe Express (TEE) trainsets from Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Though the cars were modern by Canadian standards, the motive power proved unsatisfactory in winter weather and were replaced by older EMD FP7 engines. In 1992, the ageing TEE cars were replaced by the refurbished GO Transit cars.

    Ontario Northland TEE trainset with original power unit at the far end, 1981. Photo by Barry Lewis, photo attained via Wikimedia Commons.

    Like the old TEE trainsets, the new Siemens trainsets will operate in a semi-permanent configuration, with a Siemens Charger locomotive at one end and a combined passenger/control car at the other end, similar to how the new VIA Rail trains will operate. The Siemens Charger locomotives are used by several passenger services in North America, including Amtrak, Brightline, and VIA, while the Siemens Venture cars are very similar to those being delivered to VIA.

    The proposed paint scheme, depicted in a government release below, evokes the old TEE paint scheme, with the modern colours used by Ontario Northland.

    Rendering of the new Northlander trainsets (Ontario Government press release, 17 December 2022)

    The revived Northlander service will operate between Toronto and Timmins, with a rail or bus connection to Cochrane, the southern terminal of the Polar Bear Express train to Moosonee. There will be new train stops north of Toronto at Langstaff GO Station (where there are connections to York Region Transit and frequent GO buses on the Highway 407 corridor) and Gormley, a station site with far less connectivity.

    Map of the proposed Northlander service, from the Updated Business Case

    The trouble, however, is the Timmins terminus. Though the new Siemens trainsets are double-ended and will not require a wye to change directions, most of the track in Timmins has been torn up. As explained earlier, the track into downtown has been partially built upon, and the current end of track is 13 kilometres to the east of central Timmins, on Highway 101 in the small community of Porcupine.

    Schematic of the proposed Timmins Station and service shed from the Updated Business Case. Highway 101 is at bottom left.

    This is where the new station is projected to be built.

    Looking towards the end of track on Falcon Street, Porcupine

    The Porcupine area has local transit service, a Timmins Transit bus that serves Schumacher, South Porcupine, and Porcupine every 30-60 minutes. The proposed station site is about the same driving distance from the city centre as Timmins Airport, which offers direct air service to Pearson and Toronto Island airports.

    According to the business case, the estimated annual ridership for the restored rail service by 2041 is 39,220 to 60,110. Assuming a train in each direction, six days a week, this will mean only 63 to 96 passengers per train, the capacity of just two coach buses, at only a marginally faster speed than the existing Ontario Northland motor coach service. A significant benefit of rail over bus is the reliability in winter conditions, certainly important for Northern Ontario, bus without significant investment in the track infrastructure, it is hard to find much in the way of improvements to the intercity network as a whole. Restoration of the Northlander still does not support travel to Sudbury, the largest community in Northeastern Ontario with the most important medical centre in that part of the province.

    At least the Northlander will get new, reliable equipment for once that will be easier to maintain and obtain parts for. As it is essentially the same equipment as VIA and Amtrak’s new fleets, should the Northlander fail to meet even the meagre ridership projections in the business case documents, the equipment will certainly find new use elsewhere.

    I wish I could be more upbeat about the future of passenger rail in Northern Ontario, an area that deserves reliable, useful intercity transport. The purchase of new rolling equipment is a positive development, but without significant improvements to track speeds, a more convenient Timmins terminus, and a complete transport plan for the entire region that can help build train ridership and support communities elsewhere in Northern Ontario, the renewed Northlander will suffer the same fate as the last iteration.

    Correction: the Cochrane-Senneterre train lasted a little bit longer past the 1990 VIA Rail cuts.

  • Ontario intercity transportation at the end of 2022: More choices, fewer routes

    A Red Arrow coach lays over at a Harvey’s restaurant in Kingston on the way to Ottawa

    On December 7, I took a trip out to Kingston to ride the newest coach operator to arrive in Ontario: Red Arrow. A division of Pacific Western, Red Arrow is the latest carrier to stake a claim to the busy Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa route, which is now served by five private companies.

    Between Toronto and Ottawa, five intercity coach carriers–Megabus, Rider Express, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, and Red Arrow–compete for the same passengers, along with VIA Rail and three airlines (Air Canada, WestJet, and Porter).

    There is also fierce competition for the Toronto-London route. Passengers have the choice of taking Megabus, Rider Express, Onex, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, VIA Rail, or a very slow weekday-only GO train. Along with VIA, Flixbus also continues west, to Windsor (where the Tunnel Bus connection to Detroit has finally been restored). The Toronto-St. Catharines-Niagara route is also served by multiple bus and rail services.

    Red Arrow coach seating

    Despite new intercity coach players like Red Arrow (which provides a high-end coach service, with comfortable seating in a 2+1 arrangement, along with complimentary soft drinks and light snacks) and Book-A-Ride (which operates like a charter airline, with schedules that change frequently based on demand), many other routes still have limited or no service. Flixbus quietly dropped its Kitchener-Hamilton-Niagara route earlier this year, eliminating service on a corridor that once had frequent Canada Coach Lines buses; that route had been sold in 1990 to Trentway-Wagar/Coach Canada. Flixbus also ended service to Guelph, instead concentrating on its other corridors. Early next year, Megabus will end its route between Toronto, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

    The deregulation of motor coach services within the Province of Ontario may have made some sense. The old bargain of providing exclusive franchises for busy, profitable routes made sense when operators would use those cash cows to help subsidize less-trafficked rural services. But as Greyhound, Stagecoach, and other large companies bought up smaller carriers (such as Gray Coach, Canada Coach Lines, and PMCL) in the 1980s and 1990s, they were allowed to slowly abandon the smaller routes. Greyhound itself divested most of its network before disappearing altogether. As the franchising scheme didn’t work, there was no point keeping it.

    But now, there’s the absurd situation where there are up to 25 daily buses and trains between Toronto and Ottawa (see table below). In contrast, there is not a single daily bus service connecting Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo–two urban centres of over 500,000 people each, just an hour apart, with three large universities (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier, and McMaster) and two major colleges (Conestoga and Mohawk) between them.

    Available trips from Toronto to Ottawa, December 2022, with times for Kingston and Peterborough. Bus and rail tips to Montreal via Kingston are not included.
    A PDF version can be found here.

    Elsewhere, where GO Transit and government-subsidized regional connections have filled gaps, the services are often slower and less direct than the old coach bus service. PMCL used to operate daily bus service between Owen Sound and Toronto via Collingwood and Barrie. Today, the same trip is possible via Grey Transit Route, Colltrans, Simcoe County Linx, and GO Transit, but the trip will take the better part of a day. Meanwhile, other gaps remain. Elgin County (Aylmer and St. Thomas) and Haldimand County (Caledonia, Dunnville, Hagersville, and Jarvis) are left without any outside connections.

    Such is the state of the intercity transportation network (if you can call it that) in Ontario.

    Though I enjoyed the trip on Red Arrow to Kingston (especially as I took advantage of a special $25 fare), I wondered how well the service will do here in Ontario. Its base price is over $100 one-way to Ottawa, more expensive than other coach operators and priced more like VIA Rail, which itself is slightly faster (as long as CN freight trains do not get in the way). Red Arrow uses the same locations in Ottawa (the VIA Rail Station itself) and Toronto (Union Station Bus Terminal) as the train. Red Arrow does well in Alberta, where there is no useful passenger rail service (Pacific Western also offers a no-frills coach bus service on the same Calgary-Edmonton route).

    The latest version of my interactive intercity transit map is below:

    Link to the newest version of my map of Ontario’s Intercity bus and rail connections

  • The end of another Eaton Centre

    The end of another Eaton Centre

    Main entrance to Hamilton City Centre, on James Street North. Note the awkward spacing of “City” over the entrance; it originally read “Eaton.”

    On December 26, 2022, Hamilton’s former Eaton Centre, opened just 32 years ago, will close for good. Early in the new year, demolition will begin on the failed downtown mall, making way for a new residential development.

    Hamilton Eaton Centre, fully opened in October 1990, was one of several downtown malls built in Ontario through a partnership between Eaton’s and commercial developer Cadillac Fairview, hoping to replicate the success of the Toronto Eaton Centre, which opened in phases between 1977 and 1979. It was the second major shopping centre to open in Downtown Hamilton; it followed the construction of the massive city-led Jackson Square development in the 1970s and 1980s in which entire city blocks were cleared to make way for urban renewal.

    With support from the Ontario and municipal governments, the T. Eaton Company and Cadillac Fairview built new malls in Ottawa, Peterborough, Brantford, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Sarnia, Hamilton, and expanded London’s existing Wellington Square. These private-public partnerships seemed to be beneficial; smaller cities worried about the decline of their downtowns would get an attractive new shopping centre after expropriating and demolishing existing buildings and/or providing municipal lands for the project. The municipality would finance new parking garages to support the new development. Meanwhile, Eaton’s would help finance the construction and provide a lead anchor for the new development. Cadillac Fairview, which specialized in retail and office development, would arrange the construction and the leasing for the mall stores. (There were a few downtown shopping centre projects in Ontario that did not have Eaton’s involvement, including malls in Chatham, Cornwall, Tillsonburg, and Waterloo.)

    The old Eaton’s Hamilton Store in the 1920s, looking southwest from James Street North and (now disappeared) Merrick Street (Hamilton Public Library)

    Unlike malls in Kitchener, Sarnia, Brantford, or Guelph, the Hamilton Eaton Centre was mostly built upon lands already acquired by Eaton’s itself, much like the larger and more successful Toronto Eaton Centre (the city of Hamilton assisted by closing Merrick Street between York Boulevard and James Street and transferring the right-of-way for the new development). The first phase of the project, built on the site of the Merrick Street parking garage and the old Hamilton Farmers Market, became the home of a new four-storey Eaton’s store to replace the dilapidated building on James Street. When the new store opened in April 1989, the old store was quickly demolished to make way for the mall itself, which opened just 18 months later.

    The new Eaton’s Hamilton store on York Boulevard soon after opening in 1989. The store had exits to both Jackson Square and once completed, the new Eaton Centre mall. (Hamilton Public Library)

    At first, Hamilton’s Eaton Centre was able to attract prestigious tenants such as HMV and Eddie Bauer thanks to Cadillac Fairview’s expertise and new office development in Downtown Hamilton, including a new CIBC office complex. The new mall was also able to attract existing downtown businesses out of storefront retail and the older Jackson Square mall.

    YouTube video showing the exterior and interior of the old Downtown Hamilton Eaton’s store prior to closing, as well as its demolition in 1989 to make way for the new Hamilton Eaton Centre (via Hamilton Sight & Sound YouTube channel)

    However, as I discussed previously on this website, the malls developed by Eaton’s and Cadillac Fairview did not do well in most markets. New, full-line Eaton’s stores were a poor fit for smaller, industrial cities like Peterborough, Brantford, and Sarnia. The malls themselves were more difficult to get to by car, and shoppers usually had to pay for parking. The established suburban malls were typically larger, and they offered ample free parking. By 1990, the old, large industries were in decline due to free trade and industrial automation, and in the 1990s, a new retail format — the big box “power centre” — emerged as serious competition during a major recession. And in 1994, Walmart entered the Canadian market.

    The former Hamilton Eaton Centre (known as Hamilton City Centre since 2000) from the corner of James Street North and York Boulevard. The clocktower on the corner is an homage to the old Hamilton City Hall, which was demolished in 1960. The clocks themselves were originally installed in the old city hall and will be preserved when the current building is demolished.

    With low traffic and many national retailers unwilling to renew their leases, Cadillac Fairview divested itself of most of its downtown malls. It sold its half-stake of Hamilton’s Eaton Centre to the T. Eaton Company in 1995 (Of its downtown malls, Cadillac Fairview would only hold onto the flagship Toronto Eaton Centre, and the Rideau Centre in Ottawa). According to a Hamilton Spectator article from that year, one of the mall’s three floors was already closed, just five years after its grand opening.1 Among the tenants that left the mall early was upscale men’s clothier Harry Rosen. By 1996, only 50 of the 120 stores outside the Eaton’s department store were still occupied, with another six stores closing early that year.2 A McMaster University business school lecturer predicted that one of the two downtown malls — Eaton Centre or Jackson Square — would close within 10 years. (He was only 15 years off the mark.)2

    In February 1997 — after years of mismanagement and neglect by the fourth generation of the Eaton family — Eaton’s entered bankruptcy protection, allowing it to settle debts and restructure. Though stores in other downtown malls in Brantford, Sarnia, and Kitchener were among the first to go, the Downtown Hamilton store was left off the closure lists, as Eaton’s itself owned the property – losing the department store anchor would not help the mall in case of a property sale. In the meantime, Metrus Developments — which purchased the neighbouring Lister Block in 1989 — evicted its remaining tenants and boarded up the six-storey commercial building, hastening Downtown Hamilton’s visual and commercial decline.

    In 1998, the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth (dissolved in 2001 after amalgamation) began leasing space on the formerly vacant third floor of Hamilton Eaton Centre, partly to help maintain the department store’s presence and support Eaton’s, which still owned the property. The City of Hamilton agreed to provide two hours of free parking at the attached York Boulevard garage and planned for the construction of a new store entrance to the Hamilton Farmers’ Market. This was just enough to keep the department store open until the company collapsed in 1999; the store closed for good in October of that year. The mall was rebranded Hamilton City Centre the year after, sold to a private real estate firm.

    View from the third floor in Hamilton City Centre; the conversion of retail space to offices on the top level is apparent
    The central atrium. All remaining stores must close by December 26, 2022.
    The connection between Hamilton City Centre and Jackson Square. This was originally the main route between the old Eaton’s store and the first phase of the 1970s-era mall. The larger Jackson Square will undoubtedly benefit from the residential re-development of the Eaton’s site.

    After Eaton’s closed, part of the massive retail space was renovated and turned into a fitness club. The City of Hamilton leased additional space in the old Eaton’s store, especially as it undertook renovations to its modernist 1960s-era city hall. New windows were punched into the brick facade to provide natural light to the new occupants. But the remaining national retailers like HMV, Fairweather, and Eddie Bauer left the mall, while a few small, independent retailers came in, attracted by cheap rents.

    A fresh labelscar on the south-facing roof of the Eaton’s store, as seen from the patio on top of Jackson Square. Until 2021, a forgotten and unmaintained Eaton’s sign was left alone, hidden from street level.

    The new development will have 1,940 residential apartments, along with street-level retail and office spaces, constructed in three phases. Walkways will allow the public to cut through the property, with one of those roughly following the old Merrick Street alignment. Unfortunately, it is being developed and planned independently of the rest of the Jackson Square superblock bound by James, King, and Bay Streets, and York Boulevard, and which also contains the farmers market, the central library, and Copps Coliseum, the sports venue built for an NHL franchise that never arrived.

    But with the influx of new residents, Jackson Square — which, despite is retail vacancies, holds its own due to the attached office, hotel, and civic functions, as well as the full-service Nations supermarket — will only benefit from the demise of its newer downtown competitor.

    Rendering for the new development on the Eaton Centre site by SRM Architects.
    1. “Eaton eyes the future after buying centre” Hamilton Spectator 13 July 1995: D12.
    2. John Burman. “A tough sell: Struggling Eaton Centre looks for new direction” Hamilton Spectator  13 Feb 1996: A1

  • Neither here, nor there: the folly of transit naming rights

    On Tuesday, October 4, Metrolinx announced a new name for Oshawa GO Station, the eastern terminus of its busy Lakeshore Corridor. In a ten-year agreement with Durham College, a publicly funded post-secondary institution, the station will now be known as “Durham College Oshawa GO.” This was announced on Metrolinx’s Twitter account, Durham College’s social media, and on the GO Transit Lakeshore East Twitter account, which usually advises passengers of train delays and cancellations.

    GO Transit Lakeshore East Train tweet on October 4
    “Allow us to reintroduce ourselves” – promotional poster at Oshawa Station proclaiming the new “Durham College Oshawa GO” name

    Metrolinx, the regional transit agency that operates GO Transit, claims that “the partnership allows us to better serve Durham Region and the GTHA” in its communications, including an informational poster in front of the station building.

    The news did not go over well with GO Transit customers and transit users across the Greater Toronto Area; Metrolinx later deleted its tweet after it was “ratioed” — meaning that negative comments and quote-tweets outnumbered the number of positive responses by a large margin. It is easy to understand why the station renaming was not popular.

    Firstly, though “Oshawa” remains in the station name, Durham College comes first with the new moniker. Schedules, signs, and maps will be updated to reflect the new name, while announcements by on-board staff and digital schedule information already reflect the new name. VIA Rail, which shares the station with GO Transit, is not a party to the agreement, and will likely continue referring to the station as “Oshawa.”

    Specific details of the agreement, such as how much Durham College is paying for the branding agreement, remain confidential.

    On GO Transit schedule boards, Oshawa Station now appears as “DC Oshawa GO”

    The new policy of naming rights agreements goes against years of Metrolinx policy for naming stations. When planning the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT, it developed five standards for naming stations and stops:

    1. Simple. Simple names are easier to remember

    2. Logical. Logical names provide a mental link when trip planning: they should be relevant to the area they reside

    3. Durable. Names should be relevant as long as the station exists

    4. Self-Locating. Names should allow users to mentally locate themselves within the region

    5. Unique. A unique name is one that cannot be confused with any other.

    Metrolinx principles for determining new names

    “Durham College Oshawa GO” violates most of the above principles. The name is now a mouthful, much like “Vaughan Metropolitan Centre” (another controversial station name that the TTC objected to, but was overruled due to political considerations), and is no longer simple. The agreement only lasts ten years, so it is not durable. As I will explain further, the name is also neither logical, self-locating, nor unique.

    Durham College has three campuses. Its main campus is located in the north end of Oshawa, on a site shared with Ontario Tech University. GO Transit has a bus stop there called “Ontario Tech/Durham College” that is served by GO Transit Route 56 on weekdays, and Route 52 on weekends and holidays. The main Oshawa campus is a two hour walk from the GO station, a 25-35 minute GO bus ride, or a 20 minute drive from the station. This was the main reason why transit users were ridiculing the new station name on Twitter.

    Durham College’s Whitby Campus is much closer to Oshawa GO Station, in fact, it is less than 500 metres from the Oshawa GO Station parking lot as the crow flies. Oshawa Station is actually right on the border of Oshawa and Whitby, with the “Welcome to Oshawa” signs next to the main GO Transit parking lot. The overflow lot for Oshawa GO is actually in the Town of Whitby.

    The “Oshawa: Prepare To Be Amazed” sign marking the city limit sits next to the GO Station parking lot.

    However, the Whitby campus is even harder to get to from Oshawa GO than the main Oshawa campus because it is separated by Highway 401. It is a 41 minute walk between the station and the Whitby college campus along Victoria Street (which has no sidewalks along most of its length), Thickson Road, Stellar Drive, and Champlain Avenue, though a footbridge over the highway would reduce the walking time to a more comfortable 15 minutes.

    Google Maps directions from Oshawa Station to Durham College Whitby Campus
    Looking northwest from the Oshawa GO parking lot towards Durham College Whitby Campus, the large grey building above and to the right of the green Thickson Road exit sign
    Looking east on Champlain Boulevard in front of the Whitby campus across Highway 401 towards Oshawa GO Station, which is marked by the tall digital billboard towering over the roadway

    The irony is that both major Durham College campuses are better reached from Whitby Station than the newly named “Durham College Oshawa GO.” There are no direct buses to the Whitby Campus from Oshawa Station, but Durham Region Transit (DRT) Route 917 provides regular service from Whitby Station. Furthermore, DRT operates more frequent service on Route 905 between Whitby Station and the Oshawa Campus than GO Transit does from Oshawa Station. Google Transit itself recommends transferring at Whitby to DRT, rather than at Oshawa, because the connections are more convenient. GO Route 56 operates only every hour on weekdays, and Route 52 runs every two hours on weekends and holidays. Meanwhile Route 905 stops in front of the Oshawa campus every 15-30 minutes, 7 days a week.

    The connection at Oshawa Station to Durham College’s main Oshawa Campus makes sense only when transferring from a VIA Train, or from GO Transit Route 88 from Peterborough and Clarington.

    Excerpt from Durham Region Transit system map, with Oshawa and Whitby stations and both Durham College campus locations highlighted

    Therefore, at this point, renaming Oshawa Station to “Durham College Oshawa GO” makes no sense. The new name violates basic wayfinding standards, while Durham College itself is better accessed from a different GO Station. Perhaps Durham College could operate a shuttle service to its campuses from the station, making the co-branding a more plausible.

    More concerning is that future renamings are in the work. In February, I noted that Metrolinx was looking for expressions of interest for station naming opportunities, specifically four Lakeshore Corridor stations: Whitby GO Station, Exhibition GO Station, Clarkson GO Station and Oakville GO Station, but noted that they would be willing to consider other proposals as well.

    Though I am critical of the process, I am sympathetic to Metrolinx’s position. I do not believe they were supportive of the province’s decision to rename a major LRT project for a political ally and paid advisor to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives. I strongly believe there are many within the organization who are not happy about the station renaming agreements either. They must work with a very “hands on” government that is eager to promote new transit projects and benefit their supporters.

    Such is the state of things in Ontario.