ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Acitta]

When I ride the ION, it is always crowded. I don't know why you say it sucked. There are European cities comparable in size to Waterloo Region that have tram systems. I don't know why you think that it can't work in Cambridge. We spend billions of dollars on roads that become clogged with traffic because we don't provide more efficient alternatives.

Have you ever lived in a European country? There is nothing to compare between Canadian cities and European cities. The ION sucks because it's slow and designed to cost as little money as possible because it was the only way people were going to let the region go ahead with it.

It just makes zero sense to expand it into Cambridge. Most people in that city do not want it. The city government does not want it. The majority of tax payers in the region don't want it. Increasingly, the people that did want it no longer want it. The people that do want it seem to be aware of the fact that it's a total ripoff, so now they're proposing building it in even smaller phases because six 1 billion dollar invoices is psychologically more palatable than one 6 billion dollar invoice. Or more hilariously, building an LRT in Cambridge that isn't even connected to the existing LRT...lmao.

I can only hope sanity prevails and they bin this terrible idea. But if there is one thing this region excels at, it's making terrible choices. I fully expect them to spend years debating, burning through millions of dollars on studies and consultants, approve the project, then spend 15+ years dragging out the construction and inflating the bill far beyond what we can afford.

No, I have not lived in a European country. I know that they take their public transit much more seriously than car-centric Canadian cities. However, the only people who complain about better public transit are the car-brained idiots who never use it. The ION is well-used, even if it is not as well-designed as it could have been. Public transit, in general, is well-used in the Region. I know, I ride the buses and the ION. If the ION to Cambridge already existed, I would be using it regularly. Going from downtown Kitchener to downtown Cambridge is a much longer trip than going between Kitchener and Waterloo, so extending the ION really makes sense, especially with the booming population numbers in the region. Sadly, at the rate things are progressing, there is a good chance that I will be dead before it goes into operation.