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Mr. Williams works on City Centre Drive across from city hall. It seems a lonely job: he is the only person assigned full-time to bring light rail to Mississauga. Even so, he is upbeat.

“I live in Port Credit,” he says. “I love my community. It’s walkable. How do you replicate that in other parts of Mississauga? It would be nice to live in these condos, take the train down to Port Credit, and go bar-hopping or go to the beach.”

Mr. Williams, 46, joined transportation planning here in 1990. He remains philosophical about the challenges of this LRT effort. After all, Mississauga worked since the 1980s on a bus-only Transitway adjoining Highway 403. That $250-million project opens next year.

“We can decide to be a suburban city, or we can look at places within the city where we can provide those urban elements that some people like,” he says.

Planning an LRT costs big bucks. Both Mississauga and Brampton councils this fall approved an environmental assessment for the LRT. When they complete the work next June, the two cities will have spent $15-million to $20-million on the LRT, with Mississauga paying 75% and Brampton 25%.

It’s a quiet effort, however. Along Hurontario, nobody is even aware of the LRT scheme.

“What’s the purpose?” asks Angelo Mazaris, owner of the busy Orchard restaurant at Hurontario and Dundas streets for 47 years. “I have never heard of it.”

A server at Wally’s Restaurant, where I stopped for a burger, greeted an LRT brochure with surprise. “Right now there are too many cars on Hurontario. It will create more problems for traffic.” Mississauga needs a subway to Toronto, she says, not a north-south train.