Downtown project directory

[DK519]

Yes Perimeter owns about 3.5 acres there. 

They're currently doing some environmental study on the old gas station site and master planning work for the whole site. That picture I posted was published February of this year year. Just thought it was interesting to see something other than the original napkin drawing they had on their website. Who knows when this will turn into something though...

Do they still own it? The thread for this project was posted in January last year, but by December it was discovered that the property was sold.

Yep, they still own it. I think the reason there was some confusion was because the signs were either poorly placed or damaged then fixed.

[danbrotherston]

I see "The Junction" was removed from the directory.

I found this in Perimeter's "look book" today. A little updated from what we saw initially I think.

Man, that's an excellent development, at least as proposed...almost all space is for people, with fairly limited vehicle area.

I do love how a big development there would utterly expose the as typical, poor pedestrian access to LRT stations though.

[ac3r]

I do love how a big development there would utterly expose the as typical, poor pedestrian access to LRT stations though.

Truly. While the LRT is obviously a success story in terms of encouraging development, as a rapid transit system it's mediocre at best. The image posted really illustrates that well: the system is not rider friendly (poor access to stations, it's slow as hell for 90% of the trip) but it sure gives developers a reason to redevelop vacant lots and industrial spaces.

[tomh009]

Most of the stations (I think) are on the sidewalk and do not suffer from access issues. Some do, obviously.

How does the image illustrate that the LRT is "slow as hell", though?

[Acitta]

Why are the buildings only 6 storeys when almost every other development is tall buildings?

[ac3r]

How does the image illustrate that the LRT is "slow as hell", though?

Look at the turn it has to make here. The LRT wastes so much time doing these extremely tight turns (something like 20+ of them) because they didn't tunnel or elevate any section of the network since they wanted to cheap out in order to guarantee it got built. The region knew the LRT would be a huge driver of economic progress through new development projects and they really wanted it to get constructed, but they tried to spend as little money as they possible could so they public would agree to pay for it. This resulted in this hybrid LRT-streetcar that moves extremely slow for a large part of the trip.

I've made the argument on here before that it was a stupid decision (and within the architecture and city planning community, I'm not alone). If they had tunneled or elevated it where it made sense to do so, it could actually manage to run at speeds close to 50-70 km/h and more people would use it. Why bother taking the LRT from say around Northfield Station to Mill Station if it's going to take you half an hour, when you could hop on the express way and do the same trip in 10 minutes? People going to work don't care about how good it is for the environment or whatever, they just want to get where they need to go as fast as they can possibly get there. Ideally, they could have started work on a smaller project to start with that did not in any way impede traffic, then expanded it as time went on.

Why are the buildings only 6 storeys when almost every other development is tall buildings?

Not all projects need to be towering condo buildings. A nice mid rise project with lots of open space for residents is good as it provides a more human friendly environment.

[danbrotherston]

Most of the stations (I think) are on the sidewalk and do not suffer from access issues. Some do, obviously.

How does the image illustrate that the LRT is "slow as hell", though?

Most stations are on the sidewalk?

I can only think of Queen, Vic Park, City Hall, and Central. Possibly you would include Waterloo Town Square, it's not exactly a sidewalk, but I'd count it. The majority are not "on the sidewalk" by any definition I would use.

Those stations do indeed not suffer from access issues, but pretty much every other station (with the possible exception of Laurier/Waterloo Park) does. That is by far the majority.

[tomh009]

How does the image illustrate that the LRT is "slow as hell", though?

I've made the argument on here before that it was a stupid decision (and within the architecture and city planning community, I'm not alone). If they had tunneled or elevated it where it made sense to do so, it could actually manage to run at speeds close to 50-70 km/h and more people would use it.

They could run the trains substantially faster without changing the turn radii, let alone elevating or tunneling. This was discussed at length, numerous times, during the LRT construction. And hopefully it will happen yet.

And, as you implied, it likely would not have been built if it had to be elevated or tunneled.

[danbrotherston]

I've made the argument on here before that it was a stupid decision (and within the architecture and city planning community, I'm not alone). If they had tunneled or elevated it where it made sense to do so, it could actually manage to run at speeds close to 50-70 km/h and more people would use it.

They could run the trains substantially faster without changing the turn radii, let alone elevating or tunneling. This was discussed at length, numerous times, during the LRT construction. And hopefully it will happen yet.

And, as you implied, it likely would not have been built if it had to be elevated or tunneled.

This is on point. It seems like a large number of people...even certain YouTube personalities, have a strong dislike for LRT, for reasons of policy, rather than technology.

While I am sympathetic to the point, (after all, I argue one of the advantages of LRT over BRT is that the technology is harder to compromise with), I really do think surface LRT hits a usability sweet spot of access with speed...provided your engineers are willing to enable access and speed, rather than arbitrarily limit those things for no reason.

[ac3r]

That all means nothing when the LRT makes turns at a snails pace. There's almost no point along the network that it manages to make it 800 meters before it has to slow down for something - a pedestrian crossing, a street, a turn or stop at a red light like it's a car (lol). It was a great project if you're a developer looking to cash in on selling condos "near the LRT" but that's about it. It takes me more time to use the LRT than the route 8 bus to get from Fairway Sation/Hidden Valley to downtown. It's rapid transit in concept, but in execution it's a joke.

[danbrotherston]

That all means nothing when the LRT makes turns at a snails pace. There's almost no point along the network that it manages to make it 800 meters before it has to slow down for something - a pedestrian crossing, a street, a turn or stop at a red light like it's a car (lol). It was a great project if you're a developer looking to cash in on selling condos "near the LRT" but that's about it. It takes me more time to use the LRT than the route 8 bus to get from Fairway Sation/Hidden Valley to downtown. It's rapid transit in concept, but in execution it's a joke.

This seems like a very strange metric. Within the urban area...where the LRT is street running, there are few stations that are more than 800 m apart. Central and GRH are...and that's a straight shot...the only reason for it to slow down is because the policy in place does not always give it priority at intersections (a choice, not a limitation of LRT).

Almost every other station is closer than 800 meters or is in the perifery of the city and is accessed by higher speed sections of track anyway.

[tomh009]

That all means nothing when the LRT makes turns at a snails pace. There's almost no point along the network that it manages to make it 800 meters before it has to slow down for something - a pedestrian crossing, a street, a turn or stop at a red light like it's a car (lol). It was a great project if you're a developer looking to cash in on selling condos "near the LRT" but that's about it. It takes me more time to use the LRT than the route 8 bus to get from Fairway Sation/Hidden Valley to downtown. It's rapid transit in concept, but in execution it's a joke.

The point is you can speed it up by adjusting the rules, or by tunneling, or by elevating it. Two of those three will cost hundreds of millions. The third one does not.

[ac3r]

That all means nothing when the LRT makes turns at a snails pace. There's almost no point along the network that it manages to make it 800 meters before it has to slow down for something - a pedestrian crossing, a street, a turn or stop at a red light like it's a car (lol). It was a great project if you're a developer looking to cash in on selling condos "near the LRT" but that's about it. It takes me more time to use the LRT than the route 8 bus to get from Fairway Sation/Hidden Valley to downtown. It's rapid transit in concept, but in execution it's a joke.

The point is you can speed it up by adjusting the rules, or by tunneling, or by elevating it. Two of those three will cost hundreds of millions. The third one does not.

Yeah, exactly. But a baby can crawl faster than the LRT takes to move most of the route. It was built to make developers and the region rich, not actually move people around at rapid speeds, lessen traffic congestion, benefit the environment etc...lol. They are selling the naming rights to the main train station for our region ffs because they don't have the money to justify this shit to the greater public. It's got to be the worst rapid transit system in all of North America built in the last 20 years, all things considered, unless you're a condo developer. I know most of this forum disagrees with me since you like to see big buildings, bike lanes and such stuff, but that's really the anthesis of urban planning.

[tomh009]

The worst LRT system in the last 20 years ... uh huh.

[ijmorlan]

Yeah, exactly. But a baby can crawl faster than the LRT takes to move most of the route. It was built to make developers and the region rich, not actually move people around at rapid speeds, lessen traffic congestion, benefit the environment etc...lol. They are selling the naming rights to the main train station for our region ffs because they don't have the money to justify this shit to the greater public. It's got to be the worst rapid transit system in all of North America built in the last 20 years, all things considered, unless you're a condo developer. I know most of this forum disagrees with me since you like to see big buildings, bike lanes and such stuff, but that's really the anthesis of urban planning.

There are plenty of US LRT and streetcar projects that are less well-conceived than ours. Closer to home, the Sheppard subway and the Vaughan subway extension in and near Toronto (already built), not to mention the upcoming Scarborough subway extension and burial of the west extension of the Eglinton LRT, are all much worse value for the money and more poorly considered than Ion.

It is true that the LRT does not move as fast as it should. In particular, it is slower than one would expect given the design as built. I don’t know what can be done about this: are they following some inflexible rules/regulations, or do they just need to get rid of somebody paranoid from management, or something else?

i don’t know what liking big buildings and bike lanes has to do with this. Good urban planning can involve big buildings, small buildings, and everything in between; and good urban planning definitely involves good bike infrastructure. Maybe you could say that good urban planning involves well planned transit? But Ion for the most part is that, with some exceptions; the big issue of excessively slow speeds is primarily an operational problem.