ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ac3r]

I managed to get an answer: https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/...#pid103267

What was the answer?

I was joking. I figured they'll just give some nonsense reply that they had to do it for ___________. A "trust us bro it had to be done" statement. Them reducing services but without providing a reason says all they had planed to ever say.

[Acitta]

Everybody should be flooding Redman and Galloway's emails asking why LRT service cuts were done.

I hardly ever take the ION since I mostly ebike everywhere. When I do use transit, it is more convenient for me to take the #16 to uptown or the #6 back home if I am at Fairway Station.

[plam]

Everybody should be flooding Redman and Galloway's emails asking why LRT service cuts were done.

I hardly ever take the ION since I mostly ebike everywhere. When I do use transit, it is more convenient for me to take the #16 to uptown or the #6 back home if I am at Fairway Station.

Indeed. Things aren't really that far apart for me in the region. But, from my selfish perspective, it is still useful as a backup I guess.

[Bytor]

So I got email from Neil Malcolm, Peter Zinck's replacement, saying the following:

Hi Cory – we always reduce GRT services (bus and ION since it’s inception in 2019 as part of the original approved ION service plans) in the summer months due to lower demand (school is out, more people are on vacation, etc.).  This practice overall has long been in place and this is a standard practice across the transit industry.



More frequent services will resume in September and Regional Council has approved the restoration of additional services (reduced during Covid) that will added back into place in stages in fall and winter to manage increasing ridership and improve service frequency.



I hope this helps,

Neil

Of course that's BS. In 2019 they kept 10 minute headways all summer, and 2020 and 2021 were covid-19 anomalies where service was reduce outside of summer time.

I pointed out that lack of summer service reduction in 2019 but I have yet to get a response to that.

[neonjoe]

The higher summer 2019 service could have been due to iON having just launched. There were likely a lot of additional riders using it just for the novelty.

[danbrotherston]

The higher summer 2019 service could have been due to iON having just launched. There were likely a lot of additional riders using it just for the novelty.

I'm sure there were lots of novelty riders at the beginning, during the free period, but I don't think anyone is going to pay and board daily for the novelty of it, without riding it somewhere.

[Bob_McBob]

I'm actually starting to wonder if regional councillors even understand what "normal" ION service is anymore. In the ION update report staff prepared for council in May 2021, they described the level of service they planned to deliver from April to August as "92% of normal service levels" and only a minimal reduction of what had been delivered in Q4 2020.

[bravado]

I know I'm preaching to the choir but imagine if we had a government that saw a new expensive road only getting 75% of its capacity, would they close a lane or plan to make it smaller in the next upgrade cycle? Hell no.

[ijmorlan]

The higher summer 2019 service could have been due to iON having just launched. There were likely a lot of additional riders using it just for the novelty.

I'm sure there were lots of novelty riders at the beginning, during the free period, but I don't think anyone is going to pay and board daily for the novelty of it, without riding it somewhere.

During the free period I rode the entire system almost daily. Since then, only occasionally (I’m within biking/walking distance of my work, and for most of the time I haven’t been going in to the office anyway).

[ijmorlan]

I know I'm preaching to the choir but imagine if we had a government that saw a new expensive road only getting 75% of its capacity, would they close a lane or plan to make it smaller in the next upgrade cycle? Hell no.

There are 4-lane roads all over the city that have sat there for decades, never even coming close to needing all their lanes, even under the assumption that vehicular demand for free roads must be satisfied.

So yeah, you’re right.

[sevenman]

I know I'm preaching to the choir but imagine if we had a government that saw a new expensive road only getting 75% of its capacity, would they close a lane or plan to make it smaller in the next upgrade cycle? Hell no.

Block Line, King St. Waterloo, Davenport, Westheights are just a few off the top of my head that had lane reductions.  If the ION was even close to 75% capacity, I think we'd all be happier.

[sevenman]

I know I'm preaching to the choir but imagine if we had a government that saw a new expensive road only getting 75% of its capacity, would they close a lane or plan to make it smaller in the next upgrade cycle? Hell no.

There are 4-lane roads all over the city that have sat there for decades, never even coming close to needing all their lanes, even under the assumption that vehicular demand for free roads must be satisfied.

So yeah, you’re right.

Can you name some of these roads?...that have sat for decades.  Just curious.

[danbrotherston]

There are 4-lane roads all over the city that have sat there for decades, never even coming close to needing all their lanes, even under the assumption that vehicular demand for free roads must be satisfied.

So yeah, you’re right.

Can you name some of these roads?...that have sat for decades.  Just curious.

You named those roads...Westheights, Davenport, King St., Block Line are examples that sat for decades and were only road dieted in recent times.

There are many more: Westmount Rd., University Ave., Weber St., Highland Rd., the roads in the R&T Park Almost every four lane road in the region is overbuilt for at least some sections.

They're even widening Highland Rd. as we speak, without any traffic justification. The engineers admitted such when the project was presented, they said that traffic volumes wouldn't justify four lanes within the 30 year time frame, but argued four lanes would help transit operations.

It's insane how easily road expansion is rubber stamped. And it's not like there aren't operational costs either, it costs more to plow, etc. etc.

And it's not like the cities are innocent either. Waterloo swears they aren't planning any more road expansions, which is pretty easy to say after they just finished a major round of expansions including Columbia St., which is...gasp...also overbuilt for the traffic it carries.

But regional engineers are definitely the worst offenders here. It is their policy to build 4-5 lane roads regardless of traffic wherever possible. Part of this is because they got burned on Ira Needles by saving money building it as two lanes. But part of it is just their car brain blindness.

And I'm not even counting the roads which are built to four lanes but only striped with two....like University Ave. "west" of Erb St. or Erbsville Rd.

[jamincan]

River Road, Frederick, Benton

[ijmorlan]

Sounds like I don’t need to provide additional examples.

I would just point out that we need to be careful about what we mean by 75% of capacity. The Ion has already been close to capacity during busy times. Of course its capacity can be significantly expanded by running more trips and using 2-car trains, so it’s nowhere near ultimate capacity. But it isn’t some underutilized white elephant.

Now imagine how popular it would be if it were operated at a more reasonable speed and with better frequency.