ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

The aBRT stops are coming along nicely along Hwy 24/Hespeler, too.  I'm eager to see these come together, as they will be our first "preview" of what the LRT stop designs will actually look like, "in the flesh"!

   

[Section ThirtyOne]

A large portion of the parking lot at Fairview Mall behind Hudson's Bay is now blocked off for construction. There is a large sign for ION, so I presume it is to build the station, etc.

[neonjoe]

A large portion of the parking lot at Fairview Mall behind Hudson's Bay is now blocked off for construction. There is a large sign for ION, so I presume it is to build the station, etc.

I believe that it is still for the hydro corridor burial. The RideIon.ca website lists the work near Fairview Park as one of the last phases.

[BuildingScout]

I drove past the future rail yard near Northfield and construction pace was hectic. Lots of dirt being moved around, dump trucks coming in and out all while several crews were working on the rail tracks themselves.

[rangersfan]

Waterloo Spur line looking south from Northfield Dr
October 30, 2014

[Canard]

The first tracks will be laid along this corridor, in the summer of 2015. In many ways, the OSMF is the part of the project I'm most excited about. I hope they have an open house once it's complete.

[MacBerry]

A large portion of the parking lot at Fairview Mall behind Hudson's Bay is now blocked off for construction. There is a large sign for ION, so I presume it is to build the station, etc.

I believe that it is still for the hydro corridor burial. The RideIon.ca website lists the work near Fairview Park as one of the last phases.

November ION Newsletter

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...er2014.pdf


Hydro One construction update

"Hydro One is continuing work to relocate and bury a section of existing overhead 
transmission infrastructure along the Hydro right-of-way in Kitchener, between the Fairview Park Mall parking lot and Courtland Avenue East. This work is being completed to accommodate future construction for ION.

This summer, construction to install the duct bank system for underground cables along the corridor began. The duct bank system will be used to house the cables and allow them to be easily accessed for required repairs. A majority of the duct bank system west of Wilson Avenue has been completed and Hydro One crews have completed installing foundations to support the new steel tower structures in the west end near Courtland Avenue and in the Fairview Park Mall parking 
lot.

In the coming months, crews will continue installing the duct bank system along the corridor and will be installing the steel structures in the West end near Courtland Avenue and in the Fairview Park Mall Parking lot. 

Once this is complete, the next phase of construction is expected to begin in November and involves pulling the underground cables through the duct bank system. 

Access to Fairview Park Mall will remain open throughout construction."

[HAL8950]

Maintenance Facility Nov 02

[Canard]

Did you take that from the roof of Hammond?!

[KevinL]

Did you take that from the roof of Hammond?!

Probably just from the Weber embankment...

[Pheidippides]

I found Appendix D interesting, it details the baseline service from 2017 out to 2047 in very great detail (headways, cars in service, spares, rough schedules for weekend, peak period, holidays, etc., what type of train is running one-car train vs. two car train (expected in 2025).

[zanate]

I found Appendix D interesting, it details the baseline service from 2017 out to 2047 in very great detail (headways, cars in service, spares, rough schedules for weekend, peak period, holidays, etc., what type of train is running one-car train vs. two car train (expected in 2025).

I found it interesting as well, so much so that I wrote to the project team with some questions last month. This is what I got in response:

1.    Is this service plan a reliable representation of what will take place in 2017? 

·         It’s a close reflection. The service plan was created for bidding purposes so that each bidder would be approaching the project from a level playing field. It is the Region’s goal to get close to this service plan. The reliability of the service plan will be reflected after it’s built. Peak hours should match what has been given with off peak being more variable and dependent on demand. For example, we could see increases in evening weekend demand which is off peak or other off peak times of day. 
·         The focus is currently on construction and building the system. The service plan/delivery will be the focus in late-2015 and early-2016. 

2.    On the longer-term service plans, frequency doesn't appear to exceed 7 minutes. Instead, peak service will include double trains. This is contrary to the position expressed a couple of years ago, where the project team was planning on higher frequency before doubling up.
·         This has been based on the work we’ve done. The onus will be for GrandLinq to decide how they’ll manage the growth and demand to meet the service requirements. We will work with them to do this.

So, what I took out of this is that the service plans are representative only. I happen to think that the initial service plan as presented is pretty good (meets and/or exceeds 200 iXpress service with a lot more 15 minute service where 30 minutes is the norm today) and it will be important to make the point next year that we need to see good service frequency out of ION not just to satisfy demand, but to generate it.

It hits me, personally, on nights like tonight when I leave UW after a rehearsal. Buses are already down to 30 minute frequencies, and I know the 200 will be packed anyway from evening class students (and so I begged a ride home). We may not need 10 minute service in the shoulder hours, but 15 should be the minimum until very late.

[mpd618]

We may not need 10 minute service in the shoulder hours, but 15 should be the minimum until very late.

And we should probably not degrade service from 10 minute headways on Saturdays with iXpress to 15 minute headways with ION. Because really.

[nms]

Based on a quick look at the Base Service Plan it would appear that some of the trains will short-turned along the route. For instance, the regular weekday schedule (page 6), initially shows the trains following in numerical order from 1 to 12, but as the day progresses, the train numbers become jumbled.  This would presumably mean that rather than following each other in the Conestoga-Fairview-Constoga loop, some of the trains are either being bypassed, or are inserting themselves elsewhere into the sequence.

[Markster]

I'm hoping that we can eventually convince them to run better than 30 minute late evening service. At 11pm, the TTC could run the subways at 30-minute frequency too, and have capacity to spare. They don't, because the quality of that service is defined by the frequency, not the mere fact that it exists.

Based on a quick look at the Base Service Plan it would appear that some of the trains will short-turned along the route. For instance, the regular weekday schedule (page 6), initially shows the trains following in numerical order from 1 to 12, but as the day progresses, the train numbers become jumbled.  This would presumably mean that rather than following each other in the Conestoga-Fairview-Constoga loop, some of the trains are either being bypassed, or are inserting themselves elsewhere into the sequence.

I'm not seeing the trains being in order at all!
T-1
T-3
T-2
T-4
etc...

In any case, what you're likely seeing is the addition and removal of trains from service.  They don't start running every train in order, and have all 12 looping continuously all day.  They have the first few head out for early morning service, and then slip more into the schedule when needed until they're running peak service.  Trains will likely only be going out of service at the terminals.

Further, (and I don't think this is aimed at nms anymore) in practice, "T-1" won't correlate to an actual physical train (like, train #2001) as they will rotate which trains have long days and which have short.