Toronto: On the metropolitan edge, Erin Mills Mississauga

[miketoronto]

Last night I went my friends condo out in the north western part of the Toronto suburb of Mississauga. The area my friend lives in is called Erin Mills.

Erin Mills was orginically started in the 1970's as a master planned suburban new town. The centre of the community has a shopping mall, with housing surrounding it, and then industry.

Newer housing has joined the older neighbourhoods.

Almost all the housing you will see in these photos is newer.

This area is about 40 minutes north west of downtown Toronto.


The view from my friends condo, looking towards downtown Toronto.


Erin Mills Town Centre, the centre of the area. All basic stores can be found here. As well as express bus stop, that will get you downtown in about 45 minutes.





Newer housing. Is this sprawl??????? You decide.






The large buildings in the background are the dreaded Meadowvale Business Park, which is home to almost 30,000 workers. This is the famous business park which is responsible for thousands of jobs being lost in downtown Toronto, and transferred to Meadowvale. The two blue glass buildings are the Royal Bank of Canada office buildings. Royal Bank moved thousands of workers out of downtown into these buildings.




Looking north east towards Brampton

[llamaorama]

The housing may be rather dense by suburban standards but what makes it sprawl is that mall mess.

It is fair to say though that Toronto's suburbs seem really built up, to an extent that is unusual. There's a skyline of mid-rise apartment buildings scattered across the metropolitan area you don't see in most North American cities.

[goodthings]

Meadowvale Business Park is looking pretty impressive! Looks like the effect of the new Official Plan is shaping pretty nicely.

Nice shot of Winston Churchill and Thomas! Churchill Meadows is pretty dense, and has an almost grid street pattern, which allows more effective transit service.

The area surrounding Erin Mills Town Centre is zoned as a "major node", with building heights up to 25 storeys around the mall. But with the current pressures for higher density, future development might as well disobey the zoning.

[tdawg]

30,000 people work in that small looking office park? is there more to it than the picture shows? Re: the housing, that is sprawl, rather dense sprawl, but they look like single family homes nonetheless.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by tdawg

30,000 people work in that small looking office park? is there more to it than the picture shows? Re: the housing, that is sprawl, rather dense sprawl, but they look like single family homes nonetheless.

There are more buildings behind.

[goodthings]

Originally Posted by Doady

BTW, this thread should be moved to the My City Photos - A - M section because Mississauga starts with the letter M

I totally agree. This thread (and the discussion) talks about western Mississauga. Adding "Toronto" to the title and putting it to N-Z category is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by tdawg

30,000 people work in that small looking office park?

It's 30,000 in the red area below (Meadowvale Business Park). The one mike shot was the orange area surrounding Highway 401/Mississuga Rd. interchange. This area has been zoned as a "corporate centre" by the new Official Plan, so expect more mid-rise office buildings to set up here.

[niwell]

Honestly the only disheartening thing I find in these pictures is the fact the Indigo right up to the corner faces the parking lots. It's a weird way to conform to policy while completely missing the intent. The economics that allow for highrise condos next to big-box stores is pretty baffling as well (well, ideologically at least), but it's a start. These areas are what will form new nodes in Toronto and I'm all for that.

I do take some affront to the comments about Meadowvale, since downtown didn't actually lose jobs in the the larger scheme of things. They were simply replaced by those that could command the higher rents of downtown office towers (but should they have gone to inner-suburbs in the 416 - TAXES).

[Doady]

This area was first developed in the 90s, not the 70s. The original Erin Mills community is actually located to the south, around South Common. These photos should Central Erin Mills, which is a different neighbourhood than Erin Mills...

Central Erin Mills is poorly designed, even by Mississauga's standards. Notice the high rise condos in the second and third photos and their HUGE setbacks from the street. Dozens of high-rise apartment buildings have been built all over Mississauga in the past 15 years, and towers-in-a-park were a thing of the past in Mississauga until these towers were built.

Even worse thing about these huge setbacks is that the street (Eglinton Ave) is one of the three corridors designated by the City of Mississauga as a Major Transit Corridor and a possible candidate for future BRT or LRT. Eglinton has 4 different dedicated bus routes with combined 7 to 13 minute frequency throughout most of the day, and around 10,000 riders per weekday, so it is very busy. But huge setbacks don't exactly encourage more people to walk and take transit. Fortunately, all of the other apartment buildings along Eglinton were built (or are being built) much closer to the sidewalk. But you'd think that apartment buildings in a major node would have been too.

Edit: BTW, this thread should be moved to the My City Photos - A - M section because Mississauga starts with the letter M

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by Doady

Edit: BTW, this thread should be moved to the My City Photos - A - M section because Mississauga starts with the letter M

Depends how you classify Mississauga.

I consider Mississauga a part of Toronto, as in just being a suburb. So that is why I put it under Toronto.
I do not hold the notion that Mississauga is this separate metropolitan city, just because it has it's own city council.

So that is why it is under "T"

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by Doady

Major Transit Corridor and a possible candidate for future BRT or LRT. Eglinton has 4 different dedicated bus routes with combined 7 to 13 minute frequency throughout most of the day, and around 10,000 riders per weekday, so it is very busy.

Doady, I know you love the combined service on Eglinton and other areas of Mississauga. But I am going to be honest in my view, that it is not as great as it sounds.
MT does a vary bad job of staggering the buses. I was standing on Eglinton for over 30 minutes, because my GO bus was late. And the service on Eglinton was dismal. The service was hardly frequent at all.

At 9 pm at night, one should not be standing on Eglinton for a half hour and not see a bus go by.

[J. Will]

My parent's live right near there. In fact the first picture appears to be looking over their neighbourhood. One thing that Erin Mills does an excellent job of is being pedestrian and bicycle-friendly. Not only do some of the main roads have separate paved bike paths (separate from the sidewalks), but there is an awesome network of paved bike/pedestrian pathways that run in behind houses connecting parks, schools, community centres, major streets (sometimes they actually run underneath arterial streets), and minor streets. If you go on Google Maps or Mapquest, and zoom in as far as you can, you can make out some of these paths. I just went for a long walk on them yesterday in fact.

[J. Will]

Here's an example of the paths. Here they actually cross under a major road (the "Rd" in "Burnhamthorpe Rd W"). They run for miles, crossing multiple major roads, and even connecting to non-paved paths that run alongside streams and rivers in places.

[goodthings]

Read this:

My City Photos - A - M
• For urban related photos & videos taken by the *thread starter* from locations that start from A - M.

The City of Mississauga falls in A - M. Simple as that.

If the city is called "Tississauga", which starts at "T", then this is a legal ground to use N - Z.

Being a suburb of Toronto is totally irrelevant as the discussion talks about Mississauga's western side (in this thread, Erin Mills and Meadowvale). There is nothing that screams "Toronto" about this thread.

Also, Mississauga is NOT a neighbourhood of Toronto.
Agincourt, a neighbourhood of Toronto, falls in N - Z, but Ajax doesn't.
(The) Beaches, a neighbourhood of Toronto, falls in N - Z, but Brampton and Burlington don't.
Etobicoke, a former city amalgamated to Toronto, will fall to N - Z. Markham, which is a separate municipality that is not amalgamated to Toronto will not.

Google streetview Eglinton Avenue and Glen Erin Drive. If the location shows the location says "Toronto, ON" instead of "Mississauga, ON", please post the screenshot. Based on your photos, I am 100% sure that the middle building is where these photos are taken, which is clearly in Mississauga, 13.4 km away from Etobicoke Creek (Toronto border).

There is too much evidence that this thread is about Mississauga, not Toronto. Long story short, this thread must be moved to My City Photos - A - M.



Now commenting on your original post...

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Last night I went my friends condo out in the north western part of the Toronto suburb of Mississauga. The area my friend lives in is called Erin Mills.

It's actually western part . Northwestern part of Mississauga will mean Meadowvale, Lisgar, and probably Streetsville.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Newer housing. Is this sprawl??????? You decide.

Yes, but much smarter sprawl than what they used to do.

[Expat]

Love the rooftop views.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by goodthings

Being a suburb of Toronto is totally irrelevant as the discussion talks about Mississauga's western side (in this thread, Erin Mills and Meadowvale). There is nothing that screams "Toronto" about this thread.

Also, Mississauga is NOT a neighbourhood of Toronto.

Depends how you look at it. Separate city councils in metropolitan areas of Australia are still considered part of the core city. So if Mississauga was in Sydney, it would just be known as Western Sydney, and Mississauga would just be it's community name, and also the name of the city council.

I decided to display Mississauga the way I did, because we have to stop thinking of the GTA as a segregated area of separate cities. It is all one big Toronto.

[goodthings]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Depends how you look at it. Separate city councils in metropolitan areas of Australia are still considered part of the core city. So if Mississauga was in Sydney, it would just be known as Western Sydney, and Mississauga would just be it's community name, and also the name of the city council.

I decided to display Mississauga the way I did, because we have to stop thinking of the GTA as a segregated area of separate cities. It is all one big Toronto.

If Mississauga was in Australia... but this is Canada. Very different from Australia's system. Unless Mississauga has been swallowed by Toronto, it is legitimately A - M.

Does Rob Ford have influence in Erin Mills? None at all.
Does Toronto Police provide policing in Erin Mills, let alone the airport? No
Does the development / sprawl of Erin Mills decided by Toronto city council? Not at all.
Does Toronto benefit from the job flight that it is suffering from? No. It's Mississauga that benefits, but not Toronto.

Clearly Mississauga =/= Toronto. It's denying the obvious.

Now, if Mississauga is equal to Toronto, then:
- In ALL skyscraper forums (SSC, SSP, SSL, etc.), why are Absolute World and Parkside Village in Mississauga and NOT in Toronto?
- Why all photothreads about Mississauga (except this) is A - M?

Please post the proof that the City of Mississauga has been amalgamated to the City of Toronto, or when "Mississauga" has been renamed as "Tississauga".

Again:

My City Photos - A - M
• For urban related photos & videos taken by the *thread starter* from locations that start from A - M.

The City of Mississauga falls in A - M. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I almost mistook Tississauga for Paris, France.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Doady, I know you love the combined service on Eglinton and other areas of Mississauga. But I am going to be honest in my view, that it is not as great as it sounds.
MT does a vary bad job of staggering the buses. I was standing on Eglinton for over 30 minutes, because my GO bus was late. And the service on Eglinton was dismal. The service was hardly frequent at all.

At 9 pm at night, one should not be standing on Eglinton for a half hour and not see a bus go by.

One of the two bus routes has a frequency of 25 minutes at 9pm, and you'd have us believe you were standing there waiting for 30 minutes without seeing a single bus pass by? Right......

Considering almost all your threads lately were designed to bash Mississauga's transit, why should anyone believe what you say?

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Depends how you look at it. Separate city councils in metropolitan areas of Australia are still considered part of the core city. So if Mississauga was in Sydney, it would just be known as Western Sydney, and Mississauga would just be it's community name, and also the name of the city council.

Right.... Mississauga should just be considered a "community" name, for a "community" of Toronto with just 700,000+ people, outside of the boundary of Toronto, with its own separate government, transit, etc. Just a community of Toronto.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

I decided to display Mississauga the way I did, because we have to stop thinking of the GTA as a segregated area of separate cities. It is all one big Toronto.

If it was all one big Toronto, I guess that would explain why Toronto bans Mississauga Transit, GO Transit, York Region Transit, etc from providing transit service within Toronto.

[MolsonExport]

I almost mistook Tississauga for Paris, France.

[SpongeG]

hideous place

[samne]

Those rooftops are mesmerizing. Definitely need the trees to grow in.

Thanks for the pics Mike.

BTW, I m in the M for Mississauga crowd.