Random Access

Somebody at the Erin Mills Auto Super Campus ("The Test Drive Capital of Canada") can't see the forest for the tease.
Over the past few weeks, what used to be a lovely little green space on the south side of Dundas St. W., from Glen Erin Dr. to west of Woodchester Dr. — opposite Woodchester Mall — has been transformed into an outdoor ad gallery that despoils what used to be a rather pleasant little break in the landscape from the various malls along the street.
The auto retailers are obviously not happy that a berm and a lovely line of trees planted along the south edge of the auto campus by some landscape architect who knew what he or she was doing, hid the hideous view of acres and acres of cars parked behind auto dealerships on Motorway Blvd.
After all, in Mississauga, we just can't have enough views of giant parking lots like the ones at Square One that signify our true civic values.
In any event — since the landscaping of the Auto Super Campus did its job in screening the miles of cars behind the berm — the campus members obviously worry that no one will know they are there. As if we couldn't get the jingle, and the ads that seem to run constantly on so many Toronto radio stations, out of our heads.
Several nice stands of shrubs have been removed over the past couple of weeks and a series of monuments to commerce, complete with giant logos, have replaced them as you can see in the photo by Fred Loek above.
There has been much burrowing and trenching on the berm, obviously to prepare to get electricity to the message boards to bombard drivers as they navigate the pending gauntlet of auto ads. Undoubtedly, some of the messages will include such public services messages as: "Don't read this. You should be paying attention to your driving."
It's only a matter of time until one of the message crawls advises us that we should drop into one of the dealerships and save the environment by buying a hybrid vehicle.
They compromised a nice little green strip, added some unnecessary plastic lumps to the streetscape and will spend a small fortune on power to add a few more intrusive messages to our lives. Then they'll try to appeal to our consciences by playing the environmental card.
Just another day in auto paradise.