ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Pheidippides]

Not necessarily. As I've mentioned, just like in Toronto they may put a railing at the far end to discourage people crossing at unsafe locations.

As we have seen along the hydro corridor even a fence is not enough to discourage people from crossing at unsafe locations; I don't think a little railing will be enough to discourage accessing the platform from those locations - especially Allen when it is so tantalizingly close. People are going to do it, so make it as safe as possible to make no-smart decisions.

Interestingly, at KidsPark yesterday I was very surprised that there wasn't an LRT display of some sort given the number of other public service announcement type displays (police, fire, green bin, tap water, etc.). It was a perfect venue for teaching a lot of eager kids (and hopefully their parents) some basic safety skills for the soon to arrive trains.

This may seem like a silly question, and apologies if it has been answered in the previous 300+ pages, but are these platforms for the single length trains or the doubled up length ones? There just doesn't seem to be a lot of expansion room for some of the stations if they are the single length (i.e. Queen station).

[KevinL]

All stations being built now are for double length trains, even Queen. Canopies and benches, etc. are only being built for single length to start, but will be easily installed double length once necessary.

[Viewfromthe42]

Francis is open end-to-end, Duke only from Francis to Victoria. Using it as a detour will be slow, because King/Francis has a signal change, and heading eastbound you'll have to wait for the Duke/Francis light to turn left.

Hopefully this will alleviate some of the bad driving. Nearly got clipped twice yesterday when drivers waiting at Duke southbound turned left onto Victoria on a red light, once when I was crossing north side, the other when my dog was walking wider than he should have been on the south side and the left-on-red turn was also wide enough to nearly clip him. Marked three near hits for me as a pedestrian (Victoria and Weber) by illegal driver moves in only a few days.

For those with an eye for detail, can anyone make sense of the post at King and Francis on the TD Bank corner? If you look at the green-corner pole on the other side of Francis, holding up cantilevered traffic signals, it's still a pretty small base where it is mounted into the sidewalk. If you look across to the LRT tracks, the catenary support poles are of a different colour and much larger diameter. The pole at the TD corner is not for catenary wire, and doesn't have any signals cantilevered off of it needing support, but it's the largest diameter post in the entire intersection. Are support wires of some kind likely to run from the top of this over to the catenary curve from Francis to King, to support the turn?

[tomh009]

Not necessarily. As I've mentioned, just like in Toronto they may put a railing at the far end to discourage people crossing at unsafe locations.

As we have seen along the hydro corridor even a fence is not enough to discourage people from crossing at unsafe locations

A fence or railing will discourage people but it will not prevent people from unsafe crossing.  A railing might drop unsafe crossings from 10% to 1%; in that case, it would be well worth while.  (The numbers are purely hypothetical.)

This may seem like a silly question, and apologies if it has been answered in the previous 300+ pages, but are these platforms for the single length trains or the doubled up length ones? There just doesn't seem to be a lot of expansion room for some of the stations if they are the single length (i.e. Queen station).

Single-length only.  If we reach capacity, they will add frequency rather than extending the train sets, which really makes sense to me, at least for the next few decades.

[danbrotherston]

A fence or railing will discourage people but it will not prevent people from unsafe crossing.  A railing might drop unsafe crossings from 10% to 1%; in that case, it would be well worth while.  (The numbers are purely hypothetical.)
...
Single-length only.  If we reach capacity, they will add frequency rather than extending the train sets, which really makes sense to me, at least for the next few decades.

"Well worth the money" would be to install the proper access that provides the most convenient path (where the desire line is likely to be) for people to access the train.  It is never a good idea to try to block people from the most convenient path, when it can instead be reasonably accommodated, which it can be in this case.

Also, I'd argue it won't stop the most unsafe crossings, when people are late, and running for the train, when they might be willing to take more chances, and aren't looking as carefully.
"Single-length only", this is not exactly correct, as the previous poster noted, the platforms as constructed accommodate double length trains, but benches and shelters will only be installed for single-length trains.  But no additional concrete will be needed to expand to double length trains.

"add frequency rather than extending".  Do you have a source for this.  While I think we might all hope for this, I was lead to believe that train sets would be extended rather than increasing frequency.  Certainly operationally, this is likely the cheaper course of action.

[MidTowner]

"add frequency rather than extending".  Do you have a source for this.  While I think we might all hope for this, I was lead to believe that train sets would be extended rather than increasing frequency.  Certainly operationally, this is likely the cheaper course of action.

I know it’s not written in stone, but the Baseline Service Plans in the agreement shows the peak frequency improving before an extra car is added (in 2025). I’m inclined to agree with you that there will be a temptation to add extra cars rather than trains when ridership requires more capacity: labour savings are one of the big arguments for LRT. But the service plans do call for increasing frequency first.

[Markster]

Not to mention, adding a 2-pack train doesn't solve crowding issues as well as increasing frequency.

Imagine that service is every 10 minutes, and we've got such wonderful ridership growth that we find that for the entirety of rush hour every train is absolutely crammed, at, let's say, 110% of comfortable capacity.  (for the sticklers out there, that's probably %70 of design capacity, which are usually very... "optimistic" packings)

6 trains over an hour, each at 110% capacity

Say you have an extra LRV, and want to add it in.  You can either (A) tack it on to one of the existing runs, or (B) add a new run. The latter requires a new driver, the former does not.  Let's consider the options:

(A) You get 5 runs of 1 LRV, and 1 run of 2 LRVs
That means 5 runs are still 110% packed, and the remaining is a glorious 55%.  1/6th of your riders are super happy, and the others are very unhappy.

(B) 7 runs of 1 LRV, every 8.5 minutes
That means 7 runs that are 94% packed.  Everyone can now breathe.

You may rebut that rush hour isn't so spread out, and that you could just put the 2-pack on the busiest time, but keep in mind that the 2-pack can't be everywhere at the peak.  At best, they can try to aim it at one specific bottleneck, but our LRT will have multiple major destinations on it, and so it will arrive at other destinations at the wrong time to serve peak there.  At worst, the LRT will have unpredictable running time at rush hour, and the 2-pack will get delayed and miss the peak point crunch entirely.  

It's just much more effective and reliable to increase frequency.

[Canard]

Ahh, service frequency...



...mmmmmmm...

Bonus: read about Toronto's "saviour" train sometime. Really interesting.

[Markster]

Ahh, service frequency...
...mmmmmmm...

Bonus: read about Toronto's "saviour" train sometime. Really interesting.

wow, averaging 66.5 seconds door-opening to door-opening.

[tomh009]

Getting below two minutes is really hard, unless you have low ridership, as people need time to get on and off the trains, too. Tokyo's Yamanote line runs every 2.5 minutes, and there really isn't very much gap between one train leaving the station and the next one arriving.

Anyway, 66 seconds or 2.5 minutes is super cool. But I'd be very happy with a consistent ten-minute interval for ION, for an average wait of just five minutes.

[ert86]

I don't think this has been posted GRT-Business-Plan-2017-21

These are proposed changes, so luckily not final, and I'm not happy about some of them.  Mainly 7 UW (if the new 92 runs early enough and connection are timed properly then I it's fine,) and the 201 Which was shown in the ION planning maps to extended to Fairview park mall, not down Manitou on to Connestoga College (203 would covers this if they stick to the ION maps.)  Extending the 201 all the way there will only cause more delays just like the 200 has had since adding a Sportsworld stop (good stop, but poorly implemented.)

On Page 25, i think they mean revised Route 8 in top corner, not 12.

Personally, I think they should wait until they have a full year of data from the new Presto style cards.  That should allow them to better understand how people are using the transit, and what connection they make.

[Markster]

I don't think this has been posted GRT-Business-Plan-2017-21

These are proposed changes, so luckily not final, and I'm not happy about some of them.  Mainly 7 UW (if the new 92 runs early enough and connection are timed properly then I it's fine,) and the 201 Which was shown in the ION planning maps to extended to Fairview park mall, not down Manitou on to Connestoga College (203 would covers this if they stick to the ION maps.)  Extending the 201 all the way there will only cause more delays just like the 200 has had since adding a Sportsworld stop (good stop, but poorly implemented.)

On Page 25, i think they mean revised Route 8 in top corner, not 12.

Personally, I think they should wait until they have a full year of data from the new Presto style cards.  That should allow them to better understand how people are using the transit, and what connection they make.

You'll find a few pages of discussion about it in the GRT thread!

[danbrotherston]

You may rebut that rush hour isn't so spread out, and that you could just put the 2-pack on the busiest time, but keep in mind that the 2-pack can't be everywhere at the peak.  At best, they can try to aim it at one specific bottleneck, but our LRT will have multiple major destinations on it, and so it will arrive at other destinations at the wrong time to serve peak there.  At worst, the LRT will have unpredictable running time at rush hour, and the 2-pack will get delayed and miss the peak point crunch entirely.  

It's just much more effective and reliable to increase frequency.

You're not going to get any argument from me that more frequent service is better, both in the regard you messaged, but also because more frequent service is better on face value.

But I don't necessarily think that argument will compel a private company to forego the additional savings of two more operators, especially if those trains are only needed at peak hours, which would mean more expensive shifts.  Seems like rarely in our society is quality preferred over...lets call it quantity--which I think is a serious, but rather more general, problem in society.

Regardless, I'm glad that there is a good argument that the agreement requires frequency first, like I said, I had only *heard* from unqualified sources that trains may be doubled first, I hope that that individual is wrong.

[Markster]

But I don't necessarily think that argument will compel a private company to forego the additional savings of two more operators, especially if those trains are only needed at peak hours, which would mean more expensive shifts.  Seems like rarely in our society is quality preferred over...lets call it quantity--which I think is a serious, but rather more general, problem in society.

Regardless, I'm glad that there is a good argument that the agreement requires frequency first, like I said, I had only *heard* from unqualified sources that trains may be doubled first, I hope that that individual is wrong.

It's only 1 more operator.
But, yeah, I have doubts that the best choice for customer service will be chosen over the best choice for operating cost.

I'm pretty sure the idea that trains would be doubled first was in the concept service plan in the project agreement.

[Viewfromthe42]

The issue with operators is that while a rush-hour service-level might only be needed for 2-3h, operators tend to need to work shifts of at least 6-7h, so you wind up paying for many hours of unspent work. Rush hour service times are also often far enough apart that you need separate operators for each one. I'd go into the issues that came up with Ottawa's system, operators, hours worked vs paid, and the ensuing strikes, but it's out there should you be curious.