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Getting You GOing
Life in the suburbs can be quite cozy, if you have a car; without one, a task as simple as going to the grocery store can take so long to complete that you question why you even bothered to start.
Despite living in these seemingly far-away, spaced-out lands, many suburbanites travel downtown every day via GO Train. For those with a car, getting to the train station isn’t a problem; their only worry is finding a parking spot. But for the suburban dwellers who don’t own a motorized vehicle, travelling to and from the station can be quite the journey, especially if more than one bus is required.
In an innovative attempt to help these people out, Mississauga Transit launched a GO Shuttle service in 2001. The plan was simple: survey GO riders to determine if they would use a shuttle bus that picked them up within two blocks of their front door and guaranteed a travel time of less than twenty minutes. A cheap $0.50 cost per ride was also included as an incentive. Ultimately, riders responded in favour of the proposal and a six-month trial soon emerged at the Cooksville stop near Square One shopping mall. Today, this service operates at three Mississauga GO stations—Cooksville, Lisgar, and Meadowvale.
To assess the program’s effectiveness, Transport Canada commissioned Cullbridge Marketing and Communications to compile a case study in 2004. This report highlighted a 3,000 person monthly ridership on the Cooksville shuttle and 4,300 monthly passenger trips on the Meadowvale service, as well as the elimination of 600 car trips and 67 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in the pilot project alone. Moreover, the report disclosed that Mississauga Transit intended to continue expanding its service to new locations. Sadly, there has been a multi-year pause on any new shuttles.
Recently, though, service expansion plans have re-surfaced: Lisgar GO opened in September of last year, prompting the creation of a shuttle service to the station, and GO riders at Clarkson, a heavily-used stop on the Lakeshore West GO line, were recently asked to fill out feasibility surveys. Unfortunately, the extent of the proposed growth cannot be determined, as Mississauga Transit has decided to remain quiet regarding these future plans. When contacted, Marketing Manager Terry Dubois deferred all questions to a date after the new survey results have been analyzed and shared with his commissioner and city council.
Regardless of this survey’s outcomes, kudos to Mississauga Transit for trying to make life easier for its riders. As the GTA’s population continues to increase, public transportation will become ever more important and parking at GO stations will be harder to find. While Metrolinx tackles these problems with large-scale ideas, these seemingly insignificant shuttles have proven capable of attracting car-loving suburbanites to the possibilities of public transportation.
Photo by Smedlipotski from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.