Its hard to keep up with Mississauga's growth as it is Canada's sixth largest city. With industries growing and more people coming in, its no wonder Mississauga is developing fast as a urban city. More job opportunities and a better lifestyle is what Mississauga has to offer. But are these changes done in a sustainable way to control the growth of the city? As cities grow, they come upon issues that the Urban Planning Committee will address to make sure that Mississauga grows as a safe and sustainable city.

By: Rawan Alakhras

SMART GROWTH COORDINATOR

By: Rawan Alakhras

Mississauga is recognized as Canada’s 6th largest and fastest growing city. As a Smart Growth Coordinator, it is my job to make sure Mississauga continues to grow as a sustainable city without any major issues. Mississauga is known to be a residential and industrial city as residents live there because of Toronto’s lack of residential land uses. Mississauga is having difficulties in trying to bring social (customers and workers) and economic (industries/companies) factors closer together. For example, if you look at the map below, you will see that the residential areas (yellow) which is mostly in the center and the industrial areas (dark blue) which is mostly scattered at the outside of Mississauga. These low density homes are far away from work because of urban sprawl which brings you to the other issue which is transportation. A commuter that spends more time traveling to work and back has spent more time in the car than walking because of the distance. With urban sprawl occurring, this causes land use to become a problem with Mississauga’s increase in growth.

The two main land uses in Mississauga are residential and industrial. Both are very important factors for Mississauga’s growth. With both being far apart, this causes Mississauga to rebuild residential areas closer to industrial leaving the previous land unsuitable to use. This is because of poor planning and now that the land is not suitable anymore, there is more stress put into a small land. Not only that but the further they are apart, the more carbon dioxide released in the air causing environmental damage. This is because people that live in sprawling suburbs spend less time walking and have become more car dependent. Both factors, transportation and land use cannot be maintained because residents must drive to work since it is far from their homes and with an area full of low density houses, it is harder installing public transit because if a low density house area that is far from the industrial area has installed a transit service, then the cost of the houses would increase. Once they rebuild another area for residents, the previous one is left unused also making it harder to use the land for farming after it has been developed. If this issue is not resolved, Mississauga is left to be an unsustainable city.

As a Smart Growth Coordinator, my committee and I have looked at the issues Mississauga is facing with becoming a sustainable city and have agreed to a solution that could benefit the growth of the city. In order to solve the land use conflict, we decided to combine transportation and land use that would help workers with driving less and help reduce the amount of land destroyed. We have come up with a new transportation plan where we build a street network from the residential area and it would take you to the industrial area. The street network will be the easier route for getting to an area without any congestion. In order for this to work, we plan to extend the Erindale Go Station to get from point A to point B as it is the most visited since it is near the city center. Instead of destroying land to build the railway, my committee and I will come up with a route from the Go Station to the industrial area thus making it sustainable since trains produce less carbon emissions, reduces the amount of driving, reduces the amount of stress commuters get from driving and it is faster since it is on a railroad instead of highways. Although trains cannot dethrone automobiles since it is preferred and Earth is home to more than 1 billion automobiles, our goal is to build a transportation system that encourages public transit. It is a better alternative for Mississauga to grow as a sustainable city without destroying land or having to travel for a long period of time to get to your destination.

TRANSPORTATION

By:Jordan Lin

There are a variety of issues and problems that exist in Mississauga’s transportation. Firstly, as a city we are a car(Motor vehicle) based community due to the fact that everything we need is far away from each other so we need to drive. For example, the grocery stores are far apart from a lot of houses, it could take 5 minutes in a car but walking could take 20 minutes. Mississauga, like most suburban cities, did not plan for transportation as the city was growing, so little public transit was established resulting in fewer transportation options. Additionally, cities prefer to build larger roads than switching their road style. Moreover, factories have switched to using cargo trucks rather than trains as they are slower but much more fuel efficient. To sum up, there is no realistic, sustainable method of transit.

To have sustainable transport, the negative effects of using that option of transport is low, very low but our current planning of transport is unsustainable since we are so dependent on cars. By doing this a large amount of greenhouse gases are released. In relation, with a large amount of cars comes traffic. When people see traffic they get stressed and are in the fight or flight mode .When this happens your body releases more fat into your system and if you don’t use up that energy your body just reabsorbs the fat that will be used for latter resulting in more people becoming obese. Next unsustainable thing, loss of time. Let us say you are a working parent. You work from 8am-6pm and then by the time you get home its 7pm. After work you are too tired to cook so you go out for dinner which makes you drive again. By the time you get home its 9pm. That isn’t a lot of time that can be spent with family. In this process, you add on to your stress from driving, emission of greenhouse gases and loss of time that could have been used to spend time with your family.

My proposal to make our transportation more sustainable is similar to other ideas said, become more urban. Firstly, change roads to me more grid like style of roads like Toronto or New York City. Secondly, reduce the amount of cars in the city by adding more public transportation, this would reduce the traffic on the streets. We could make a partnership with neighboring cities to build a faster train, similar to the bullet train in Japan, that can take you to other cities very quickly and the train will be powered by electricity via wires. This point ties in with urban sprawl but have stores close to homes, 5 min walks, so the need of motor vehicles are less.

WASTE MANGEMENT

By: Obaidullah Khan

Most of Canada's landfills are filled, although some products may get recycled or composted. Our landfills are reaching their maximum capacity and is becoming difficult to find new locations to make them. Landfills produce 25% of Canada's emissions. This causes many problems in different communities and can be a risk factor to many that live in the area. Recycling can reduce the percentage of our emissions as well as reduce the amount of waste transported to landfills creating an eco-friendly effect.

In 2003, the City of Toronto closed their landfill and started shipping all its trash to Michigan. Michigan citizens were furious that their great State had become Canada's dumping ground. In affect this poses serious health and safety threats to the Michigan community. In 2006 Canadian Senators had a agreement to stop by the end of 2010 the dumping of trash into Michigan landfills, Michigan landfills accepted 44.9 million cubic yards of waste as of 2010.

One of the best known programs in Mississauga is their ''Blue box'' program in which serves more than 2.2 million households in the province. Householders that are participating in the program are given a blue plastic box in which they collect their newspaper, glass, metal containers and, plastic soft drinks. Every week, a special recycling crews collect these recyclable materials from the blue boxes placed out at the curb. Waste management and recycling is a high priority for many municipalities in Canada, as each city takes part in its own recycling programs and green achievements. The Ontario waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment program is a program that targets products such as Desktop computers; portable computers; computer peripherals; such as keyboards, mice, modems, printing devices, telephones, cameras and etc. Home depot Canada also provides free battery, paint and expired fluorescent bulb recycling to customer’s at all home depot stores across Canada free of charge.

Putting garbage into landfills is not always a bad thing because after the landfill is full and cannot hold anymore garbage the landfill can be turned to a golf course, playground, or parks. John f. Kenny airport was built on top of a landfill which shows we can build almost anything on top of a landfill. In Mississauga we have the 2 bag standard so that means on your garbage collection day once a week you can only put out 2 or less bags out on the curb of your driveway to be disposed of. This can influence residents of Mississauga to create less garbage or think twice of what they put in their garbage because now they have a limit of how much garbage they create.

WATER AND ENERGY

By:Abdalla Omar

We need to look for all vulnerable places for water contamination to avoid any sicknesses or deaths from the tap water. For example, the Walkerton e-coli tragedy was probably Canada’s worst ever outbreak of e coli contamination.

Of a small town of 5000, 2300 people fell sick and 7 died because the population wasn’t warned about this. The city of Mississauga facilities and locations use over 200 million equivalent kilowatt hours per year in both electricity and natural gas. Also, the largest user of electricity for the City was street lighting and traffic signals - 35% in total.

Recreation type facilities like community centres, arenas and the Hershey Sports Zone are accounted for 30% of the electricity used by City facilities.

Ways to reduce water and energy use

Use ceiling fans, use clothes lines, get a new fridge and when looking for it, look for an ENERGY STAR symbol. This means it uses 15% less energy than a normal fridge. Keep your freezer at -18°C, take a shower, not a bath. Remember to use an electric stove instead of an oven and don’t leave the water on when you’re not using it (eg; brushing your teeth, washing dishes).

Energy types

There are two ways to make energy. Renewable and non-renewable.

Renewable: Solar energy wind energy and hydro energy

Non-renewable:

nuclear power plants and fossil fuels .

We should preserve the wetlands instead of cutting them down and collect water from there which will allow natural cleaning for our drinking water. We need to understand that the health and lives of our people are more important than money and profit.

To conclude, the Urban Planning Committee will help Mississauga grow more sustainable as a urban city. We hope the city of Mississauga will take into consideration about our ideas/plans to help benefit the development of the city.