ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

They bought crappy trains and designed this LRT poorly. There's USSR era trams that can run year round in Russia but the slightest bit of ice cripples our system.

Except these trains operate in cities just as ice prone as ours.

These are operational issues.

[Bytor]

They bought crappy trains and designed this LRT poorly. There's USSR era trams that can run year round in Russia but the slightest bit of ice cripples our system.

Except these trains operate in cities just as ice prone as ours.

These are operational issues.

There are no other Flexity Freedoms in operation on any LRT system, other than ours, yet.

But, I agree, this is likely an operational issue as the Freedom is based on other Flexity family designs and parts, such as the Toronto streetcars and several systems in France, German, Austria and Switzerland.

But Keolis is a global company which runs many tram systems and can draw upon that experience rto run ION, so there has to be more to this story.

[JoeKW]

That's public private partnership for you. They probably can suspend service if whether conditions aren't favourable so why would they bother making an effort to keep running.

[Bob_McBob]

According to CTV, they ran trains with "ice scrapers" through the night, but the system couldn't handle the thin coating of ice this morning. A passenger they interviewed reported lights flickering in the back of the train, and shuddering and difficulty stopping and starting, along with sparking on the overhead wiring.

[trainspotter139]

They bought crappy trains and designed this LRT poorly. There's USSR era trams that can run year round in Russia but the slightest bit of ice cripples our system.

Those USSR trams also wouldn't pass an electrical safety inspection here

[ac3r]

They work, though, haha. It's like their cars. You could take an old Soviet era Lada and drive that thing up Highway 808 and beyond and it would run just fine.

[plam]

They work, though, haha. It's like their cars. You could take an old Soviet era Lada and drive that thing up Highway 808 and beyond and it would run just fine.

There are always Ukrainian tractors available to tow them if needed.

[KevinL]

Copper cables from LRT's traffic signal system stolen in Kitchener, police investigating

Police responded to the area where the LRT crossed Hayward Avenue in Kitchener.

The copper cabling is located alongside the LRT tracks. It took between two to three hours to find the problem, fix it and test the system to ensure it was operational before LRT service resumed in the area. In the meantime, buses were used to move people between the stops.

[jshamont]

June will mark three years since ION LRT opened! Have any recent reports to council(s) included an assessment of the new housing impact of LRT, or can anyone help me arrive at some numbers, like:
-How many new homes have been completed within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?
-How many new homes are currently under construction within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?
-How many new homes are proposed within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?

this old article indicated that there were 50 total projects as of the week LRT began operating, but not number of units, and surely that number has increased dramatically since then.
https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ities.html

[ac3r]

June will mark three years since ION LRT opened!  Have any recent reports to council(s) included an assessment of the new housing impact of LRT, or can anyone help me arrive at some numbers, like:
-How many new homes have been completed within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?
-How many new homes are currently under construction within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?
-How many new homes are proposed within 500-800m of an LRT stop since construction of the line started?

this old article indicated that there were 50 total projects as of the week LRT began operating, but not number of units, and surely that number has increased dramatically since then.
https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ities.html

I don't have an exact number for you, but there have definitely been thousands of new housing units built near the LRT stations (even more if you go slightly beyond 800 meters). And there are thousands upon thousands more planned. The Kraus Development (not the official name) has 2500 proposed near Northfield Station, The Metz (old Schniders site) has 2800 proposed near Mill Station, Virerra Village is proposing 1300, SmartCentres will likely have at least 3500-4000 or more near Pinebush Station - not to mention all the single towers that have gone up, awaiting construction or proposed.

I would be interested in knowing exactly how many have gone up. Maybe you can find a council report or send the planning department an email, though if not I think you'd have to go through these forums and other resources, make a list of every project that has been completed, awaiting construction or is in its proposal stages and then do some digging to get exact numbers.

[nms]

As a control, it would also useful to know how much construction has occurred outside the 800m LRT zones. If the construction has been higher to the LRT stations, well done everyone, now lets talk about affordable housing. If the levels of construction across the Region don't show much difference, then it might be said that the LRT didn't make as much of difference as other factors that have affected construction (eg pressure from the Toronto housing market, available land, local employment market etc)

[danbrotherston]

As a control, it would also useful to know how much construction has occurred outside the 800m LRT zones.  If the construction has been higher to the LRT stations, well done everyone, now lets talk about affordable housing.  If the levels of construction across the Region don't show much difference, then it might be said that the LRT didn't make as much of difference as other factors that have affected construction (eg pressure from the Toronto housing market, available land, local employment market etc)

This isn't a completely unbiased "control"...development is localized for many reasons...is the development near the LRT occurring because of the LRT or because Google (and other major employers) are located there? Is development away from the LRT occurring less because there is no LRT, or because there are more NIMBYs and countryside boundaries?

The LRT was intentionally put near nodes which were ripe for intensification, and then zoned that way. It's all well and good to look at data, but it's basically impossible to make it objective.

I used to work for Google and fully bought into the "metrics above all else" beliefs, but I'm over that now. We should build the future we want, and data should be used to support and refine a vision, it shouldn't be the vision. But I guess I'm just proselytizing now.

[ac3r]

I might be forgetting, but does anyone know if the original schedule for the LRT was supposed to be 5 minutes during the day, 7 at night? And if so, why did they change it to 10 and 15? I can't remember if it originally ran that schedule and they changed it due to lower ridership when the pandemic started

[neonjoe]

I believe that the highest frequency will be 8 minutes based on the design and the fact that its not fully traffic segregated. Additional capacity past that point will be achieved with double length trains.

[neonjoe]

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...7RFPV3.pdf