(09-20-2022, 10:54 AM)Votemac Wrote: "...It would just become a very glorified bus station for the homeless to wreck ..."
While you make good points, you really need to cool it with this.
With what? The Charles Street bus terminal was a complete dump and that was back in the early 2000s mostly due to homeless, drug addicts, drug dealers and other people who have anti-social behaviours always being there. Now we've got hundreds of homeless people and drug addicts all over the downtown that dwarfs any period in our local history. If you don't think they'd be taking advantage of a public space (which should be their right) yet causing not only damage but safety issues to the general public I don't know what to tell you. You can't deny that if suddenly this train station materialized tomorrow (with or without all day GO service), it would be crawling with destitute people causing problems.
I was recently in Frankfurt to teach a lecture. There's an area there that called Bahnhofsviertel (train station quarter). It has long been their red light district, so the area has always been a bit wild (in the best way, IMO, as it's really interesting). But the authorities in Frankfurt recently tried to push as much of the homeless, drug addicts, sex workers, criminals etc into this area - exactly how the Region of Waterloo let them settle around where ours are now. It's easier to police and handle and then they can say "well we're trying". Anyways, over the last few months to a year the entire area has turned into an absolute madhouse as a result of this. Public and private spaces have been ruined due to the chaotic behaviour there. Here's a good article if you're curious: https://www-hessenschau-de.translate.goo...x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
As danbrotherston pointed out, the entire thing isn't even that necessary for our region. This isn't going to be something like Union Station where you've got subways, commuter and long distance trains, intercity and regular city buses, taxis, offices, shops, service/maintenance things and so on that will keep it busy and justify its existence...at least not at this point in our history. Unlike Union Station, our LRT stops on King Street so there wouldn't even be much connecting traffic with that. VIA and GO trains (even with all day service) are only going to stop there every...hour? I can't remember, but it's not like it'd see consistent train traffic. The handful of buses that stop around Central Station as well also don't attract all that many people at any given time either. So I think the entire project risks becoming an excessive waste of money that will get minor practical use but also see a lot of abuse from people, in particular those who don't have much of a reason to care about it. Even Ottawa, which is a city a lot larger than ours, has a train station that is pretty barren most of the time. If they had a homeless encampment next to it, you know for a fact they'd be in there making a mess of things.
I'm not disparaging the homeless or anything. The issue isn't them or those on drugs - I've got no problem with that, it's the sad reality of the world - it's the inaction of our governments to do anything to lift such people out of those situation as well as the fact that this is an extremely expensive vanity project. Yeah I'd love to see a nice modern, clean train/transit hub in this region but we're not anywhere near the point where we really need it (especially at this price tag) and it'll definitely see a ton of abuse so long as we both a) sanction these informal homeless encampments, and b) don't do anything to actually help these people.