(10-29-2021, 06:30 PM)tomh009 Wrote: A subway may be possible in the future. But the point is that it would have never been approved 10 years ago when the LRT/BRT options were being considered. What we have is not the ideal system, but it's very close to being the best that was possible to get approved at that point in time.
I'm not really even for subways in particular here, at least by the traditional heavy rail definition. Those are leagues more expensive for many reasons and our population doesn't warrant it. Something like Ottawa's Confederation Line or the Stadtbahn Köln would have been better, as these are both light rail networks that simply tunnel underground where it makes sense to (not sure how Ottawa was built, but I know many sections in Köln used simple cut-and-cover construction which lowers costs). It gives you the perfect way to balance rapid transit in a city with existing buildings/roads+car/pedestrian/bike/etc infrastructure above ground. Because, ideally, you want rail transport to basically exist in its own plane of existence where one can only access it by descending an elevator. It lets it move faster and not have to disrupt what already exists.
Though yeah I concede that the government basically handed us two options: an empty hand, and the ION as it is now. So it was better to take the latter, even if it was not ideal. I'm sure as the region grows in the coming decades and the need for more lines is there, we'll have more money and willpower to make future LRT lines properly grade separated where necessary. Time will tell. The pandemic really threw a wrench into this too. It opened up and then roughly 8 months later, the world shut down. Extremely bad timing for a new rapid transit system.
Nonetheless, back to this building project!