ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Bob_McBob]

In this case I have no hesitation in calling out the planning process as incompetent because the existence of “desire lines” was evident in aerial photography available to everybody, from politicians to designers to every armchair critic in the world, by just taking a look at Google Maps. If the people responsible for planning major infrastructure can’t be bothered to take a quick look at the aerial photography before proceeding with detailed design, then they are negligent in their duty to the public.

Theoretically I always knew it would be obvious, but looking at the aerial imagery just makes me that much more pissed off about how this situation was created. I count well over a dozen desire paths leading to businesses in the plazas, as well as an actual trail crossing the hydro corridor. The icing on the cake is the access point behind the Shoppers, which had an groomed trail, ramp, and pedestrian crossing marked in the parking lot, but now leads to a fence. I don't believe any planner looked at this area and thought moving the trail to the other side of the hydro corridor and completely cutting off access to the businesses was an acceptable solution. They just didn't care.

[jeffster]

For what it's worth, this is apparently from staff involved in setting up the walkway:

This was a requirement of the purchase of property.  From a liability perspective, Canadian Tire (ed. likely referring to Part Source) wanted to minimize pedestrian traffic through their parking lot and loading area.  Without the fencing requirement, we wouldn’t have been in a position to acquire the land and would likely have needed to conduct an expropriation process.  Had the expropriation process been necessary, there’s very little chance that the walkway would be established at this time.

Ok, so you wonder why those chose that style -- they could have choses a different type of fencing, something more like a railing that is 30-40" high or was CTC against that? It seems like this style of fencing is the cheapest route -- as is the decking leading up to the crossing.

[jeffster]

In this case I have no hesitation in calling out the planning process as incompetent because the existence of “desire lines” was evident in aerial photography available to everybody, from politicians to designers to every armchair critic in the world, by just taking a look at Google Maps. If the people responsible for planning major infrastructure can’t be bothered to take a quick look at the aerial photography before proceeding with detailed design, then they are negligent in their duty to the public.

Theoretically I always knew it would be obvious, but looking at the aerial imagery just makes me that much more pissed off about how this situation was created. I count well over a dozen desire paths leading to businesses in the plazas, as well as an actual trail crossing the hydro corridor. The icing on the cake is the access point behind the Shoppers, which had an groomed trail, ramp, and pedestrian crossing marked in the parking lot, but now leads to a fence. I don't believe any planner looked at this area and thought moving the trail to the other side of the hydro corridor and completely cutting off access to the businesses was an acceptable solution. They just didn't care.

Not sure if I understand you correctly, but I believe the spot they choose was ideal because it was close to low-cost groceries with Food Basic -- they also have a pharmacy, close to the LCBO, Dollarama and PetSmart. These are the places that most of the people would use who need to require. Those by the two large apartments can still walk to Shoppers quickly if they want to, and the walking distance to the other shops are unchanged.

You can argue they should have had two crossings though.

[tomh009]

I would argue that the LRT planning process was generally conducted in a competent fashion, especially given the political and financial constraints. They were not perfect and missed some things (such as this one) and we may disagree with some of their decisions, but I think calling the entire planning process incompetent is a bit much.

I might agree with calling the entire process incompetent, they have managed to get a train running reliably relatively on time and on budget, something Ottawa has not achieved.

But when it comes to ped and cycling infra, it's a lot worse than "not perfect", they missed more than a few things.

But you hit the nail on the head when you say it's within the political constraints...this is why I won't take any of these excuses, if pedestrians were a priority, the crossing would have been built years ago. The existence of the fence today only shows that we haven't changed our priorities.

Yes, I do agree that they did not do well with bicycling infra; pedestrian was better but they did miss the Traynor crossing, and some of the platform layouts are not conducive to legal pedestrian usage.

But the reality is that (particularly) the cities' and (to a lesser extent) the region's priorities were to minimize vehicular impact: witness the contortions, for example, to protect parking on King St. But this is the reality of municipal politics in North America, and we really shouldn't blame the LRT planning team for those priorities.

[tomh009]

Theoretically I always knew it would be obvious, but looking at the aerial imagery just makes me that much more pissed off about how this situation was created. I count well over a dozen desire paths leading to businesses in the plazas, as well as an actual trail crossing the hydro corridor. The icing on the cake is the access point behind the Shoppers, which had an groomed trail, ramp, and pedestrian crossing marked in the parking lot, but now leads to a fence. I don't believe any planner looked at this area and thought moving the trail to the other side of the hydro corridor and completely cutting off access to the businesses was an acceptable solution. They just didn't care.

My question is, who determined what crossings were needed? Whose responsibility was it? Were these given to the planning team as requirements, or was the planning team just told to figure out what crossings were necessary?

This is an honest question, I have no idea what the planning team's terms of reference were.

[ijmorlan]

If the LRT planning process had been conducted in a competent fashion, the need for crossings (multiple) in that stretch would have been identified during the environmental assessment process, and appropriate crossings included in the final design for construction.

I would argue that the LRT planning process was generally conducted in a competent fashion, especially given the political and financial constraints. They were not perfect and missed some things (such as this one) and we may disagree with some of their decisions, but I think calling the entire planning process incompetent is a bit much.

I actually agree that overall the process was mostly OK. But certain screw-ups are big enough to deserve being called out.

Note too that in this particular case, they had several years after construction began to fix it before the LRT opened, so even after screwing up in the first place, it should have been fixed; if that had happened, I would be much more forgiving, because anybody can make a mistake, even a really dumb one (I’ve made some humdingers myself). This is what convinces me that the relevant people did not care. A related example is how long the trail beside the tracks between University and Seagram was closed — many months, even though the effect of the LRT work on the route only lasted a few weeks. If they cared about bicyclists, they would have minimized the closure, just as they routinely did for road work.

[plam]

Yes, I do agree that they did not do well with bicycling infra; pedestrian was better but they did miss the Traynor crossing, and some of the platform layouts are not conducive to legal pedestrian usage.

But the reality is that (particularly) the cities' and (to a lesser extent) the region's priorities were to minimize vehicular impact: witness the contortions, for example, to protect parking on King St. But this is the reality of municipal politics in North America, and we really shouldn't blame the LRT planning team for those priorities.

If I recall my conversation with the Regional staff correctly, they were actually pushing for no-split through Uptown Waterloo and got overruled by council(s). But they are going to take that experience and use it as ammunition in the Cambridge extension.

We can all collaborate together to make things that are not optimal...

[danbrotherston]

Theoretically I always knew it would be obvious, but looking at the aerial imagery just makes me that much more pissed off about how this situation was created. I count well over a dozen desire paths leading to businesses in the plazas, as well as an actual trail crossing the hydro corridor. The icing on the cake is the access point behind the Shoppers, which had an groomed trail, ramp, and pedestrian crossing marked in the parking lot, but now leads to a fence. I don't believe any planner looked at this area and thought moving the trail to the other side of the hydro corridor and completely cutting off access to the businesses was an acceptable solution. They just didn't care.

My question is, who determined what crossings were needed? Whose responsibility was it? Were these given to the planning team as requirements, or was the planning team just told to figure out what crossings were necessary?

This is an honest question, I have no idea what the planning team's terms of reference were.

"Who determined"...it doesn't matter who determined...if someone gives you requirements, and you can see that they are wrong, you should tell them about it...even if it isn't your job.  As Bob_McBob said, apathy is the problem.

What really bugs me at a regional level is they release all these planning and vision documents that have nice platitudes like the goal should be choice of transportation options, and limiting climate change is essential. And today, at council they received a report about the ~100 million dollars to be spent on road widenings in the next two years. That isn't a choice policy, that's a car policy.

[tomh009]

My question is, who determined what crossings were needed? Whose responsibility was it? Were these given to the planning team as requirements, or was the planning team just told to figure out what crossings were necessary?

This is an honest question, I have no idea what the planning team's terms of reference were.

"Who determined"...it doesn't matter who determined...if someone gives you requirements, and you can see that they are wrong, you should tell them about it...even if it isn't your job.  As Bob_McBob said, apathy is the problem.

Of course you can tell people about that. But if you have no authority to set the requirements, you can't change them. Same in my job, maybe also in yours.

I am not saying this was not a problem. I am simply asking whether it was the LRT planners at fault, or someone else. It's easy to blame the planning team, but were they the actual decision-makers?

[danbrotherston]

"Who determined"...it doesn't matter who determined...if someone gives you requirements, and you can see that they are wrong, you should tell them about it...even if it isn't your job.  As Bob_McBob said, apathy is the problem.

Of course you can tell people about that. But if you have no authority to set the requirements, you can't change them. Same in my job, maybe also in yours.

I am not saying this was not a problem. I am simply asking whether it was the LRT planners at fault, or someone else. It's easy to blame the planning team, but were they the actual decision-makers?

I know that people like the idea of an ultimate authority is appealing to people, but in my experience it isn't usually reflective of actual decision making, at the scale our region operates (and the scale my company operates), virtually every decision is collaborative, there's not usually one person, there's dozens, or hundreds, or thousands, and I don't mean people working together, everyone is pulling just a little bit in their own direction. An organization functions better or worse depending on how much those folks are in sync, pulling in the same direction, and that's not a constant, it can be different for every decision. For cars, the region is all pulling in sync. For other infra, not so much.

You can even see it in our council, which is, intentionally not an authoritarian dictatorship, you have different councillors all with their own values trying to pull things a bit. Then listen to staff, the same thing is happening there.

So yeah, everyone has a little bit of power--some more than others, but most staff and most councillors are not pulling towards walkability or cycleability.

[KevinL]

One part about the consultation is that it basically stopped once a private contractor (GrandLinq) was selected. At that point the design was still relatively abstract; finer details like pedestrian crossings and bike lanes weren't factored in. Had they continued to get public input while GL was finalizing the designs, oversights like this could have been avoided. But it seems they wrote the contract to avoid having the private partner deal with all that.

[tomh009]

Probably those details should have been worked out before locking in the contractor, the schedule and the price. But political imperatives may have dictated the speed at which the consortium was selected.

Happens way too often in software, too. And you pay for it afterward.

[robdrimmie]

Happens way too often in software, too. And you pay for it afterward.

See also http://www.grteasygofarecard.ca

[tomh009]

Oh, yes, a great example. There were some implementation issues to be sure, but I think the fundamental problem was that the use cases were not well thought out and the requirements not well written.

[danbrotherston]

Oh, yes, a great example. There were some implementation issues to be sure, but I think the fundamental problem was that the use cases were not well thought out and the requirements not well written.

Requirements are a difficult thing, the requirements were probably in many ways overspecified, and in other ways under specified, and nobody was interested in the end solution or the user experience, they were merely focused on the requirements.

It's also clear the vendor has not met the requirements.