All Lights Are Green For
Brampton's Bus Rapid Transit Project

Brampton - With the announcement of federal funding, the City of Brampton is ready to launch its Bus Rapid Transit Project and will open the new AcceleRide Project Office on April 2.

On March 6, Prime Minister Steven Harper announced the federal government would contribute $95 million to AcceleRide in addition to $95 million previously committed by the province. The AcceleRide Bus Rapid Transit project is slated to begin operations in late 2010. AcceleRide will seamlessly link Brampton residents to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with fast, frequent, reliable and comfortable service.

"With federal and provincial funding now in place for AcceleRide, the City of Brampton can begin to enhance the community's transportation needs," said Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell. "AcceleRide is an integral piece to completing a seamless regional rapid transit network and is an important element of the City's Growth Management Plan and Transportation and Transit Master Plan."

The AcceleRide BRT Strategic Implementation Plan is now complete. The plan exercise was launched in mid-2005 to develop components needed to successfully launch the AcceleRide service, such as costing; capital works; intelligent transportation systems; operations; marketing; governance; and strategic partnerships.

The Strategic Implementation Plan will be used to guide the AcceleRide Project Delivery section and to create a signature piece of infrastructure that reinforces Brampton's growing reputation as a destination of choice to live, work and play.

"AcceleRide will provide higher order transit service for the City of Brampton with distinctive vehicles that are accessible, use innovative transit technologies and provide improved service and reliability connecting Bramptonians to the rest of the GTA," said Tom Mulligan, Commissioner of Works and Transportation.

New Project Director
The City of Brampton is pleased to announce the appointment of Dave Roberts as Project Director.  Roberts a professional engineer, comes to the City of Brampton from iTrans Consulting where he held the position of Vice-President, Transit.  Roberts has more than 32 years of broad experience in the transit industry, with many years in each of the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. He specializes in transit planning, transit service design and urban transportation policy

As a new section of Brampton Transit, the AcceleRide Project Office will be located in the Works and Transportation building at the Flower City Community Campus on McLaughlin Road.

Over the past two years, Brampton Transit has increased service levels by more than 25 per cent and moved to a new grid-based route system, which has set the foundation for the first phase of AcceleRide. The initial phase will introduce uniquely branded and enhanced services on Queen Street and Main Street. It will provide limited stop express service in mixed traffic with queue jump lanes and transit signal priority. Future phases incorporate dedicated lanes in the corridor medians.

AcceleRide promises a faster commute for residents resulting in fewer vehicle emissions, making Brampton an innovative green community. AcceleRide will ultimately result in savings because of fewer costs for road infrastructure. AcceleRide will link Brampton residents to the GTA, including York University and the York subway line into Toronto, the Vaughan business centre, Mississauga city centre and GO Transit to Toronto.

For more information about the City of Brampton's Transportation and Transit Master Plan and AcceleRide, please visit www.bramptontransit.com and click on the AcceleRide button.