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Ridgeway Plaza has become a phenomenon, attracting people from across the GTA and North America to a series of strip malls that offer a variety of restaurants and shops primarily, but not exclusively, Middle Eastern and South Asian. It’s the multicultural Canadian dream at its most vibrant, but it’s clashing with another Canadian dream: car driving.

The strangest way to arrive is from the west, as I did last weekend. After a Bruce Trail hike around Kelso Conservation Area near Milton, we drove to Ridgeway for a well-deserved dinner through the odd rural enclave on the west side of the GTA. Odd because while it looks like many exurban areas near other Ontario cities, with farm fields and golf courses, the highrises of Milton, Burlington and Oakville are on the horizon and the pressure to develop this last huge parcel of non-Greenbelt land within the GTA is palpable.

For now, though, it’s all countryside until crossing Highway 407 and Ninth Line and arriving at Ridgeway. Coming from the north, east or south is equally strange as the plaza is surrounded by low density sprawl rather than multi-unit residential buildings befitting such a busy downtown-but-not-downtown place.

Each time I’ve been to Ridgeway an Iraqi street food restaurant has been the destination. It always has a lineup, so we end up going elsewhere. That’s the beauty of clusters: consumer choice that also creates a vibe with a bunch of hot spots altogether. It’s why cities are attractive and why tourists visit them. There’s a real desire for this.

The vibe felt different last weekend, knowing that in August Mississauga was granted injunctions on two occasions limiting large gatherings during Pakistan and Afghanistan independence days. There were police cruisers around and an abundance of “no loitering” and other bossy signs.

All this on top of what is, at its best, a hostile landscape of parking lots and roadways that are a bit too fast and chaotic to feel safe in. There are many collisions reported on surrounding streets.

Despite the hostile landscape, Ridgeway’s success happened quickly. Google’s satellite map view of the site still shows fields and yellow, bulldozed land. A strip mall heaving with life isn’t strange as the GTA is full of similar places where Main Street experiences are grafted onto places built primarily for cars. The irony is that cars carry people there, but little thought is given to the experience once people get out of them.

A main problem is that Ridgeway was created without much alternative to driving and it has reached its capacity for cars. While the plaza isn’t Highway 401, the proposed Highway 413, removing tolls on the 407, Doug Ford ripping out bike lanes or ɫɫ�� councillors watering down rapid transit corridors, it’s a symptom of the same disease: cars.

The only solution to the GTA’s traffic problems is fewer people in cars. Anything that increases their number will make the places we want to go harder to get to. It’s a kind of death spiral, and Ridgeway is a canary in our civic coal mine.

Ridgeway is a problem other cities with depressed economies wish they had, so everyone involved — especially civic officials — should take care not to kill what’s there, even if there are safety and other legitimate concerns to sort out. What’s happened at Ridgeway is quite special and the recent formation of a business association could help fix some of the litter and noise problems.

The association could also advocate for more permanent solutions, like expediting an extension of the Mississauga Transitway bus corridor. The Transitway currently ends at Winston Churchill Station, about a kilometre east of the plaza. Reaching Ridgeway would answer Transitway critics who have, rightfully, complained many of its stations are not at dense or busy locations. Extending it would be easy as there’s space and it could also connect to the planned , something the association could demand happens quicker too.

The association should also think about doing something with those hostile parking lots. Sure, they let some customers park, but capacity is quickly reached. Imagine if the space in between the restaurants and shops was something a little more downtown, more walkable and people friendly.

Parking garages could help, but they too become clogged: just look at the nearby ɫɫ�� Premium Outlets plaza by the 401 at Trafalgar Road, where the lineup of cars to get in routinely snakes out onto the highway.

Ridgeway should dream big, but avoid dreaming about the car because that quickly becomes a nightmare.