ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

You've hit it right on the head. Notice how all the Spur Line trail signs say something to the effect of "Trail is closed between the hours of X and X, until 2018" or something like that? I seem to recall reading somewhere that there were fences coming to the entire spur line after that date. So, it's "officially closed" during the hours in the evening when that one freight train moves through there, because the current setup with the trail so close to the tracks isn't kosher.

I guess with that argument, though, you could just put up a sign at the gap between Regina and King. Huh. I dunno anymore.

I really wish we had an "in" at Transport Canada who read WRConnected!

[darts]

What did the poles look like? What diameter? Was there a mounting flange on top?

Only got a brief glance at them while walking past.
 Looked to be maybe 8" across. The inner diameter was much smaller, maybe 3 or 4". Don't remember if there was  flange on top, but looked like they may have been connecting them , possibly with pipe or wire of some sort?

Here's a crude drawing

Cambridge put some in last year by their city hall. They haven't used them in August for the event they had down there, just had pylons in the same area on the cross walk.

[darts]

I'm also a bit surprised that Doug Craig seems to think that we'll have a hard time convincing senior levels of government to fund expansion. They're practically throwing money at transit expansion right now.

Maybe the province hasn't expressed any interest after they funded the transit hub. I can't imagine people in Cambridge will be too impressed since they are paying for the LRT with promises of it being extended to Cambridge.

[Canard]

Fences/Walls are going up around the various Traction Power Substations. So far, all of the ones I've seen just have big black poles around them - no actual fencing or walking-in material yet.

[kitborn]

These bollards keep vehicles other than transit buses out. Are the bollards at Frances Street there to keep traffic out during festivals?

[Viewfromthe42]

There's never been much in the way of events large enough to need to close off *THAT* much of King Street, aside from perhaps an expanded version of the two weeks (?) they had it closed 1 or 2 summers back for event-a-day car-free-ness.

Assuming that's King & Francis (and I do think it is), King St has been closed that far at least twice this summer.  Once was some kind of food truck festival (?) early in the summer, the second might have the multicultural festival. 

The Blues Festival is further east on King, closing from Frederick/Benton up to City Hall, probably because that makes sense with the locations of the YNC (at City Hall) and BIA (between Queen and Frederick) stages book-ending the stretch of King St that's closed.

The closure you refer to was at King and Water for the food truck festival that I attended, which is a very common closure point. King and Francis hasn't had much closure because construction has seen that area of King fenced off as far south as the end of McCabe's. If I recall, there may have been an event in the parking lot bound by 305 King and the TD building, but I was out of town for that.

[Pheidippides]

Removal of a strip of the Waterloo public square along the tracks is currently underway.

[nms]

The impression I get from previous discussion is that things are "ok" with Transport Canada until you go and make any changes to the track. So all the new spur line track being put in for ION has all the bells and whistles (literally!), but the spur line trail is allowed to co-exist with the track with no fences at all. Am I wrong about this? And if the spur line were to be reconstructed, would it need fencing to separate it from the trail? If this is so, would it even be possible to have an informal trail running between King and Regina if the track were moved, or would additional safeguards need to be installed?

Speed and frequency was also an issue. As far as I know, there is standing go-slow order for the track south of King Street due to the track condition and the types of crossings involved. Since the track north of King Street to Northfield is being built to allow much faster and more frequent movement, the fences and other safeguards were needed.

[jamincan]

Won't they still have to go fairly slow to negotiate the gauntlet tracks at the LRT stations?

[ijmorlan]

Won't they still have to go fairly slow to negotiate the gauntlet tracks at the LRT stations?

I don’t know the actual speeds involved, but switches can be taken at a variety of speeds depending on their design. My guess would be that the maximum speed for the gauntlet track switches is higher than the former maximum speed along this particular line, because the track was in such terrible shape.

Having said that, this in no way justifies the fences in the park. Two trains a night at moderate speeds (60km/h? I don’t know exactly) don’t need fences, and it’s already established from all the street-running sections that the LRT doesn’t need fences. Note, I’m not saying the Region had a choice; if Transport Canada is going to be unreasonable, there isn’t much we can do. But as a matter of safety, the fences are not needed.

[ijmorlan]

This is a problem that can be solved technically fairly easily, with some creativity.

I don't think anyone doubts that.  From an infrastructure standpoint, it's dead easy.  The point I'm making is that what seems easy to us, isn't, because of all the red tape and rules and regulations on the "other side" that forbids things like this for reasons that are not apparent to us, as armchair civil engineers and city planners.

In the event bureaucrats (Transport Canada) get in the way, officially have the trail detour to the path immediately north of the parking garage from King to the laneway. In any case, install an excellent crossing of King St. right at the tracks.

I can't imagine that the Region would actually undertake any form of construction or upgrading of the path here to turn it into a "non-official trail" and somehow try to lie to Transport Canada that "No no, it's not really a trail!  Honest!".

[....]

Think of it this way:  Look at all the fencing along the Waterloo Spur.  It's there because of the same one freight train at night that goes through that gap in the buildings between Regina and King.  So, if it was ok to have people walking along the tracks there, why on Earth would TC require all these fences along the spur?  It doesn't add up.

I agree that it doesn’t add up. That’s what is annoying about this: why can’t safety decisions be made using the same sort of reasonable thoughtful procedure that is (at best) used to decide things like where the doors, windows, and walls of a building will go? Instead there are arbitrary rules that nobody seems to understand that are enforced strictly, even when they aren’t just a little off, but have no connection at all to their supposed purpose.

Re: the King-to-Regina segment, a crossing where the tracks cross King is a natural choice, whether or not the trail continues between the buildings. Detouring minimally to just north of the parking garage, and only for half a block, is also natural. And finally, paving the space between the buildings is natural to keep dust down in a downtown location. The fact that people won’t stay out of there is just nature.

I agree that any thought of embedding the tracks or even gap fillers does indeed rely on approval.

[Canard]

Pretty much agree with everything you said. It is incredibly frustrating.

New speed for freight along the spur is 40 km/h, up from 10 km/h.

[mgregorasz]

Only got a brief glance at them while walking past.
 Looked to be maybe 8" across. The inner diameter was much smaller, maybe 3 or 4". Don't remember if there was  flange on top, but looked like they may have been connecting them , possibly with pipe or wire of some sort?

Here's a crude drawing

Cambridge put some in last year by their city hall. They haven't used them in August for the event they had down there, just had pylons in the same area on the cross walk.

The automatic bollards on Dickson street have been a problem since they were installed. The first and last time I had deploy them, I had three of four rise up. A second attempt to try to raise all four resulted in the same three rising up about 6 inches and then going back into the ground. There are also bollards at the end of Petty Place, but those are manually operated.

[jamincan]

I notice that Google Maps seems to be showing some of the ION tracks now.

[C Plus]

Just saw coloured panels up at the station on Caroline