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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
There's been a very long, ongoing discussion about the crossing at Traynor; it's well known that the need for a crossing here was missed by the design team, and a PUC was held to get feedback on possible future crossing locations, and type options (tunnel, at-grade, or bridge). I was simply pointing out that it appears as though GrandLinq has built a "suggested crossing location" by spreading ballast to make a more firm footbed to walk across, and a break in the fence - and that it looked to me like it might be the place where a future crossing could/should be located.

Obviously they'll have to either a) block it again or b) finish it off with proper crossing arms, before any trains move through here for testing at high speed (late fall/early winter).
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That's a maintenance access that they're leaving open for now to accommodate residents' needs (and let GrandLinq crews in) until it's no longer safe (presumably, when test trains start on this segment).

It is NOT the final location of the crossing, the City is still in consultation on that. It will likely be somewhere further east.
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Thanks for the clarification, Kevin.
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New Rules, New Signs for LRT - CTV Kitchener
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(04-24-2017, 09:38 PM)Canard Wrote: There's been a very long, ongoing discussion about the crossing at Traynor; it's well known that the need for a crossing here was missed by the design team, and a PUC was held to get feedback on possible future crossing locations, and type options (tunnel, at-grade, or bridge).  I was simply pointing out that it appears as though GrandLinq has built a "suggested crossing location" by spreading ballast to make a more firm footbed to walk across, and a break in the fence - and that it looked to me like it might be the place where a future crossing could/should be located.

Obviously they'll have to either a) block it again or b) finish it off with proper crossing arms, before any trains move through here for testing at high speed (late fall/early winter).

Except that due to safety paranoia, they probably won’t allow even walking-speed testing with the crossing open. Nice to see that it is open for now however. I hope the new location is opened before this one is closed off. Or, dare I hope that they decide to have two crossing locations? It’s a long enough run to make two crossings reasonable.
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(04-24-2017, 09:47 PM)Canard Wrote: New Rules, New Signs for LRT - CTV Kitchener

Thanks for the link. There aren’t really very many *new* signs however — really the only completely new thing I can think of is the LRT signals, which are for the LRT and can be pretty well ignored by motorists. Some signs will be much more common then they were in this area — like signs that show how the tracks cross the road at an intersection — but they’re not really new exactly.
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Yeah - I feel like the whole thing was staged a bit to try and trip people up as much as possible.

The whole thing with the aspect (tram) signals is... it doesn't really matter if you don't know what they are. That's kind of the point - they're unique, so you shouldn't really care about them. It's just a bonus to know what they are.

People not understanding the road/track interface ones scare me. I don't understand how that's not immediately obvious.
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They're used to a simple 'rail crossing' one; having the rails parallel to the road takes a bit of a shift in thought.

Once more people drive the route and get used to them, I'm sure it will be more second nature.
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I would think that the clearances around most railways, especially active ones, is such that you can't easily have a side-running railway. Most places, once you turn from parallel to a track to perpendicular-about-to-cross-it, there's a decent gap allowing for you to stop, be blocked by crossing arms, etc. Think of Victoria where you turn up Duke. It's interesting that there are so many crossing arms, which could make it confusing that trains going through some intersections (Erb and Caroline) get them, while others (Charles and Benton) don't.
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Why is it that some intersections have crossing arms and some don't? I kind of thought that it had to do with freight train usage, but that doesn't explain Blockline and Courtland.
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(04-25-2017, 12:22 PM)KevinL Wrote: Once more people drive the route and get used to them, I'm sure it will be more second nature.

That's what they said about roundabouts too and here we are a decade later and people still struggle with them.

I'm afraid this magnitude of change is a generational adjustment. It will take several cohorts of new drivers before the change becomes common knowledge/instinctual/second nature.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(04-25-2017, 01:09 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: I would think that the clearances around most railways, especially active ones, is such that you can't easily have a side-running railway. Most places, once you turn from parallel to a track to perpendicular-about-to-cross-it, there's a decent gap allowing for you to stop, be blocked by crossing arms, etc. Think of Victoria where you turn up Duke. It's interesting that there are so many crossing arms, which could make it confusing that trains going through some intersections (Erb and Caroline) get them, while others (Charles and Benton) don't.

I guess what I'm getting at is I didn't think it was such a great leap to go from understanding this (which appears everywhere in North America):

   

...to this:

   

I guess I put too much faith in humanity. Rolleyes
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(04-25-2017, 01:16 PM)timc Wrote: Why is it that some intersections have crossing arms and some don't? I kind of thought that it had to do with freight train usage, but that doesn't explain Blockline and Courtland.

All of the road crossings South of the Huron Spur have them - and I don't have an answer for you. It's curious, for sure. My initial thought was speed, but that can't be it, since the trains will be just crawling in and out of Fairway and Block Line stations at a couple of those points.
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It feels like, where possible, they tried to build to full railway specs. It was only in places where it was clearly not possible, that they built as a street-running LRT. And sure enough, on the Hydro Corridor, there was the opportunity to build to full spec.
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(04-25-2017, 02:59 PM)Markster Wrote: It feels like, where possible, they tried to build to full railway specs.  It was only in places where it was clearly not possible, that they built as a street-running LRT.  And sure enough, on the Hydro Corridor, there was the opportunity to build to full spec.

I assumed that there were simply difference in how the trains were being managed, e.g., train control vs. visual rules, which controlled whether there were gates or not.

As for roundabouts and this, if you look at things objectively, roundabouts are well on the receding edge of the learning curve.  Compared with 10 years ago, most people know how to and can use them safely and efficiently.  There's only a few holdouts.  Of course, there are plenty of holdouts refusing to understand how to change lanes or turn right safely.  At some point it's no longer a "new technology" problem, but a "bad drivers" problem.

Of course, I'm oversimplifying a little.  There are still some places in KW (and frankly, newcomers to the region) who are still at the beginning of the curve, but simply compared with what I saw 10 years ago when I got here, I do have some faith in most drivers.
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