The next time Hazel McCallion tells you it’s MiWay or the highway, it’ll be a boast, not a warning. And why not? The city over which she presided for so many years has just opened phase one of its $460-million bus corridor, the Transitway, that eventually will bisect Mississauga east to west, from Winston Churchill Blvd. to Renforth Dr.

While traffic crawls, the buses on the new dedicated lanes zip along, unconstrained by red lights, stop signs and all those cars and trucks that get in the way. Of the 12 stations that will dot the 18-kilometre route, four are now in use.

Architecturally, they are some of the most exciting structures in Canada’s sixth-largest city, right up there with Mississauga City Hall and the famous Marilyn Monroe towers. Not that they resemble either, the esthetic here is more modernist, but clean, crisp and appropriate without being merely utilitarian.

The lanes themselves feel rather forlorn and hidden away; they are separate, even segregated, from their surroundings. But maybe that’s the point. The message here is that public transit in Mississauga will be a distinct infrastructure kept well apart from the grid of roads and highways that defines the city.

It is curious, though, that these endless kilometres of asphalt could not have accommodated a few dedicated bus lanes. The argument for the Transitway is that the best way to bring a measure of mobility to Mississauga is to create an alternate system. And thanks to a planning regime that left the 40-year-old city awash in empty space, there’s plenty of room to do that.

Still, as much as the Transitway will make getting around easier, the lack of integration underscores an an essentially suburban approach to transit, one that sees the city as a series of disconnected parts, not the sum of its parts.

Some Mississaugans get nervous at the prospect of finding themselves living on a bus route, but surely that’s the point. As it is, many MiWay passengers, especially students and young people, will still need a ride to the bus stop.

As ambitious as the new system may be, is it enough? Mississauga clearly wants to have transit but not if the automobile is the cost. Though this have-your-car-and-drive-it-too school of planning offers the best of both worlds, it could well deliver the worst. On the other hand, running half-empty buses down Highway 427 is absurd.

The aim may be integration, but that’s easier said than done in a place like Mississauga, where the habit of sprawl persists. Building a parallel transit network is a project all levels of government can support. It maintains the appearance of progress and doesn’t interfere with drivers.

Easier to do that than revisit the basics. Besides, it’s probably too late for the sort of intervention that would make Mississauga even passably sustainable.

In the meantime, construction lurches along. The Transitway won’t be completed until 2017, already a year behind schedule. But who’s in a rush — except for the kids waiting at the station?

Compared to, say, a second-rung Brazilian city such as Curitiba, MiWay has a long way to go. According to MiWay officials, riders will use the Transitway two million times next year. When the route is done, that will grow to five million. But success isn’t just about numbers. If it works, the new MiWay will enable more urban life and opportunities for a more fine-grained approach to the city.

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This won’t happen quickly, and so far the urbanizing pressures have been resisted. That will change; we are reaching the point where for cities everywhere density is destiny. Mississauga is no exception; and despite what the locals might say, that’s the good news.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca

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