Bus rapid transit

Bus rapid transit (BRT, BRTS, busway) is a bus-based mass transit system. A true BRT system generally has specialized design, services and infrastructure to improve system quality and remove the typical causes of delay. Sometimes described as a "surface subway", BRT aims to combine the capacity and speed of light rail or metro with the flexibility, lower cost and simplicity of a bus system.

To be considered BRT, buses should operate for a significant part of their journey within a fully dedicated right of way (busway) to avoid traffic congestion. In addition, a true BRT system has most of the following elements:

The first BRT system was the Rede Integrada de Transporte ('Integrated Transportation Network') in Curitiba, Brazil, which entered service in 1974. This inspired many similar systems around Brazil and the world, such as TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia, which opened in 2000. As of October 2014, 186 cities in all continents have implemented BRT systems, accounting for 4,757 km (2,956 mi) of BRT lanes. It is estimated that about 31.7 million passengers use BRT worldwide everyday, of which about 19.7 million passengers ride daily in Latin America, which has the most cities with BRT systems, with 60, led by Brazil with 33 cities.

Mississauga Transitway

The Mississauga Transitway is a bus rapid transit system (BRT) under construction in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, spanning most of the city from Winston Churchill Boulevard to the junction of Highways 401 and 427 in the city of Toronto. Proposed in the 1970s, the plan has evolved over time. In the 1990s, a serious proposal intended to build a transitway from Ridgeway Drive at the very western edge of the city, to the westernmost station of Toronto's proposed Eglinton West subway. After the subway line was cancelled, the proposal was revised to its current state. Construction started in November 2010; the first stretch of the transitway between Hurontario Street and Dixie Road opened on November 17, 2014, with the rest of the project targeted for opening in 2016. The transitway will be shared between MiWay (formerly known as Mississauga Transit) and GO Transit.

Routes and Operations

The plan calls for a dedicated transitway from Winston Churchill Boulevard to Erin Mills Parkway, where buses would then use dedicated shoulder lanes on Highway 403 to reach the City Centre terminal. From there, a dedicated transitway parallels Highway 403 to Cawthra Road and then follow Eastgate Parkway to Eglinton Avenue East, and Eglinton to just west of Renforth Drive.

Tunney's Pasture

Tunney's Pasture is a 49-hectare (121-acre) area within the City of Ottawa, Ontario, that is exclusively developed for Canadian federal government buildings. It is bordered by Scott Street to the south, Parkdale Avenue to the east, the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway to the north, and Northwestern Avenue to the west. While strictly speaking it is confined to this area, people living in the vicinity of it will often call the wider neighbourhood Tunney's Pasture.

The complex, home to some 10,000 employees, is served by Tunney's Pasture Station on the transitway.

History

Before development in the early 1950s, this area was officially known as Lot 35, Concession A, Township of Nepean, and, as the name still indicates, it was used as a farmer’s pasture and named after Anthony Tunney who pastured his cows on the empty land.

As a young man, Anthony Tunney emigrated from Ireland to Ottawa in 1867 and married and built a house at 201 Parkdale Avenue. The owner of the pasture, the Ottawa Lumber Merchants' Association, hired Tunney to be the caretaker of the land and allowed him to graze his cattle in the field. Although Tunney was able to claim ownership because he had been paying the taxes on the property, he never did so and the land was eventually sold by the association to the government.

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.

At the forefront of politics for fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of Asquith's Liberal government. During the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active army service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwin's Conservative government of 1924–1929, controversially returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy.

OC Transpo

Coordinates: 45°24′44.5″N 75°37′55.5″W / 45.412361°N 75.632083°W / 45.412361; -75.632083

OC Transpo is the urban transit service of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. An integrated hub-and-spoke system of services is available consisting of:

In December 2012, Ottawa City Council approved a major infrastructure project to build a 12.5 km east-west LRT line, the Confederation Line through the downtown to replace the existing BRT by 2018.