ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[clasher]

[Bob_McBob]

It was a photo Ian (Canard) took showing security vehicles driving up the path at Traynor. It looked remarkably like photos from the Mexican border. Not sure why he deleted it.

[ijmorlan]

There are many that can ignore stop signs (like yourself) …

This is an incorrect and, frankly, libellous characterization of my behaviour.

No need to respond to the rest if you won’t make an attempt to understand what I’m saying.

[ijmorlan]

Sorry, what I meant was that there are plenty of crossings (more than "plenty") which are not gate-controlled.

Why must there be a gate blocking the sidewalk, particularly the small gate blocking only the sidewalk on the east side (I can't think of one of those used elsewhere on the line), and particularly when people are going to be on the track side of the gate disembarking the train? That makes no sense to me.

There are similar situations at several other stops, for example University of Waterloo. People get off the train, then I guess are supposed to wait in the middle between the tracks until the gates go up, even if they are crossing the track that the train is not on and which won’t see a train until the next train comes in the other direction. Of course sometimes it’s almost there and they actually do need to wait in order to be safe, while other times it is 10 minutes away.

Ideally, there should be two totally separate crossings, one for each track. So to cross right over both tracks, the order would be gate - track - gate - platform - gate - track - gate. But that might run into real estate problems; even if we allow the gates on the inside between the tracks to be much closer to the tracks than usual, they take up some space themselves and wouldn’t leave all that much space between them for walking to the platform.

On one level of course the answer to your question is “because it’s part of a gate-controlled intersection” but I’m not a designer of the system so I’m allowed to actually think about the situation and agree that it’s weird. On the other hand I don’t have to design something that is legal to construct so I have to have some sympathy for their position.

Maybe they should have done the LRT at Northfield as “on street” and used gates only for the freight line.

[ijmorlan]

So I met with region staff at Willis Way. They pointed out the design challenges there: putting in the crosswalk at the north end of the platform wouldn't work great because the cars will bunch up from Erb and Caroline. My recollection of that conversation is that their predicted car behaviour is that the cars would just block the crosswalk. The PXO at the south end of Willis Way is there for accessibility reasons, but they expect that most able-bodied people would jaywalk midblock on Caroline to get to/leave the station, which is the behaviour that I've observed.

That explanation makes no sense. The north end of the platform (supposedly too close to Erb and Caroline, would have problems with bunching) is much further from Erb and Caroline than the perfectly OK crossing immediately north of Father David Bauer Drive; and it’s also much further from Erb and Caroline than the perfectly OK crossing at the south end of the platform is from William St.

Also the crossings at both ends of the platform could have had pedestrian refuges if the street had been designed slightly differently. Indeed, even with the exact same right-of-way as existing, if the LRT had been put in the middle the platform itself could serve as the refuge — then crossing to the east would be a matter of crossing one lane of traffic, while crossing to the west would involve crossing one LRT track and one lane of traffic.

I wish I could cross-examine some of these people (not at all the same thing as having a meeting with them, as you did). I bet that out of all the times I’ve declared professionals’ work to be wrong, in about 10% of the cases I would realize that there really was a good reason that was hard to see, and in the other 90% of the cases they would be reduced to blubbering messes by the end. For intersection/traffic design, 3%/97%.

[trainspotter139]

[Spokes]

Fantastic to see positive results!

[tomh009]

Yes -- but would be nice to see the actual iON ridership numbers. Maybe we'll get those at the end of the month?

[Bob_McBob]

Today's Record has a somewhat bitter opinion piece by former Cambridge mayor Doug Craig, who still thinks the region should have gone with BRT. A reasonable point about the lack of GO service though.

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/...n-the-ion/

[KevinL]

Once again he ignores CP's obstinacy in allowing service through Milton. Unless unprecedented political pressure is brought to bear against a private company, that concept is literally going nowhere.

That said, the idea for a branch line to Guelph via Hespeler is reasonably viable, and I hope he can be convinced of its merits and brought on board in support.

[danbrotherston]

Once again he ignores CP's obstinacy in allowing service through Milton. Unless unprecedented political pressure is brought to bear against a private company, that concept is literally going nowhere.

That said, the idea for a branch line to Guelph via Hespeler is reasonably viable, and I hope he can be convinced of its merits and brought on board in support.

I don't think it's unprecedented, I mean, we have a government who is currently forcing private companies to display partisan advertising for free.

Still, frankly, I think our governments should be more heavy handed with some companies...I do also think that we should be building proper infrastructure *cough* missing link bypass *cough*...

Still, given the cancellation, maybe CP was proven right, not to work with the province...

[creative]

“I don't think it's unprecedented, I mean, we have a government who is currently forcing private companies to display partisan advertising for free.”

WHAT!

[Bob_McBob]

“I don't think it's unprecedented, I mean, we have a government who is currently forcing private companies to display partisan advertising for free.”

WHAT!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/a...-1.5170622

[ijmorlan]

Once again he ignores CP's obstinacy in allowing service through Milton. Unless unprecedented political pressure is brought to bear against a private company, that concept is literally going nowhere.

That said, the idea for a branch line to Guelph via Hespeler is reasonably viable, and I hope he can be convinced of its merits and brought on board in support.

Also I believe his characterization of the cost of BRT vs. LRT is misleading, possibly even shading into dishonest. He says the BRT plan from 2011 would have been half the cost of the LRT. Well, the original LRT plan was also less than half the cost of the actual LRT. I believe the initial estimates from early in the process were well under $400M. Once we seriously got into it, we got a better estimate which stayed amazingly close to constant as the project progressed through the RFP.

[jeffster]

Today's Record has a somewhat bitter opinion piece by former Cambridge mayor Doug Craig, who still thinks the region should have gone with BRT. A reasonable point about the lack of GO service though.

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/...n-the-ion/

Tartar sauce. While he makes a good point when saying that Cambridge is getting ripped off by paying for the LRT but not getting it, is valid. Everything else, really, isn't accurate. Would KW have had this construction boom with BRT? Nope, not at all. Would Cambridge been better suited for GO Train over KW? Hell to the no. You simply can't compare a community close to the GO Train in Kitchener to what Galt would have offered.

He for sure is bitter. I do hope that LRT comes to Cambridge sooner than later, and I think it will. And Cambridge will see the same growth that has happened in KW. But the LRT Phase 1 was the best option.