ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

The widths of our roads are as much a planning exercise as an engineering exercise. The planners have a large impact on whether the road can suffice as a two lane road or needs to be four lanes. One decision like allowing a Costco at the edge of town an impact traffic significantly. One recent memory of a new road that was built with the right capacity but quickly was overwhelmed was Ira Needles. It started as a two lane roadway and in less than 5 years was rebuilt as a 4 lane road.

"Planning exercise"....

You mean land use planning? The thing is, that's not how it's planned. At least at a regional level--I don't think the cities do any better. The region's transportation plan was developed in isolation. They took what they believed would be the development pattern, and used that as gospel. Engineers were very explicit, the scope of work did not include asking about the land use plan. Which is insane, because now we are developing a regional plan that...god willing...will not align with the transportation plan that they are implementing.

The Ira Needles incident was...unfortunate. I think an overreaction, or rather, reaction to complaints. They widened a road without widening the intersections. This does not increase the road capacity, all it does is permit impatient drivers to recklessly filter around slower drivers. The road was built as four lanes, but was only paved 2 wide to save money. That's why widening it was so easy. They claim development happened faster than expected but realistically I think the novelty of the roundabouts, the unusual traffic patterns they general (slow down at every intersection) was foreign to people, they perceived it as "excessive congestion" and complained to council, who then demanded that staff "fix" the non-problem, which they did by spending money widening pavements for no value, and then were angry and bitter about it after that.

I have no doubt that this kind of thing is what leads them to have a "preference" for four lanes, because unlike building unsafe, deadly infrastructure which kills people, the environment, and our city, this kind of apparent "blunder" is the thing that makes heads roll in the city.

[neonjoe]

The widths of our roads are as much a planning exercise as an engineering exercise. The planners have a large impact on whether the road can suffice as a two lane road or needs to be four lanes. One decision like allowing a Costco at the edge of town an impact traffic significantly. One recent memory of a new road that was built with the right capacity but quickly was overwhelmed was Ira Needles. It started as a two lane roadway and in less than 5 years was rebuilt as a 4 lane road.

"Planning exercise"....

You mean land use planning? The thing is, that's not how it's planned. At least at a regional level--I don't think the cities do any better. The region's transportation plan was developed in isolation. They took what they believed would be the development pattern, and used that as gospel. Engineers were very explicit, the scope of work did not include asking about the land use plan. Which is insane, because now we are developing a regional plan that...god willing...will not align with the transportation plan that they are implementing.

The Ira Needles incident was...unfortunate. I think an overreaction, or rather, reaction to complaints. They widened a road without widening the intersections. This does not increase the road capacity, all it does is permit impatient drivers to recklessly filter around slower drivers. The road was built as four lanes, but was only paved 2 wide to save money. That's why widening it was so easy. They claim development happened faster than expected but realistically I think the novelty of the roundabouts, the unusual traffic patterns they general (slow down at every intersection) was foreign to people, they perceived it as "excessive congestion" and complained to council, who then demanded that staff "fix" the non-problem, which they did by spending money widening pavements for no value, and then were angry and bitter about it after that.

I have no doubt that this kind of thing is what leads them to have a "preference" for four lanes, because unlike building unsafe, deadly infrastructure which kills people, the environment, and our city, this kind of apparent "blunder" is the thing that makes heads roll in the city.

You're not wrong. I do believe though that this is another one of the cases where having separate tiers of government causes more miscommunication where the planning doesn't match the transportation etc. Normally I would say the region does a slightly better job building more realistic roads and widening when the 'demand' comes. A road that come to mind include Fisher Hallman between Ottawa and Bleams, it opened in 2000 as a two lane road and was only widened in 2016. On the other hand the city rebuilt Huron Road with four lanes during the same era and it still never seems busy.

[plam]

 The choice to build four lanes is a policy choice from engineers who like building four lane roads.

I'm definitely not an engineer or involved in this at all but I am curious about this:

Do engineers just design things with outdated doctrine and pass that on to politicians?

or: 

Do politicians make lazy demands for wide roads that engineers just go along with, and leave the costs to future politicians/generations?

If it is option 2, what's the point of having professionals that we are supposed to respect for their expertise? A politician might personally like a wasteful left-turn lane (or whatever), but I expect professionals to explain why it is a bad idea and for that to be adopted over the whims of a councillor.

Speaking of option 2, sometimes a municipal council says they want the thing that's not good enough, the engineer doesn't push back, and then the engineer gets a disciplinary hearing and charges.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatche...-1.6450110

[danbrotherston]

"Planning exercise"....

You mean land use planning? The thing is, that's not how it's planned. At least at a regional level--I don't think the cities do any better. The region's transportation plan was developed in isolation. They took what they believed would be the development pattern, and used that as gospel. Engineers were very explicit, the scope of work did not include asking about the land use plan. Which is insane, because now we are developing a regional plan that...god willing...will not align with the transportation plan that they are implementing.

The Ira Needles incident was...unfortunate. I think an overreaction, or rather, reaction to complaints. They widened a road without widening the intersections. This does not increase the road capacity, all it does is permit impatient drivers to recklessly filter around slower drivers. The road was built as four lanes, but was only paved 2 wide to save money. That's why widening it was so easy. They claim development happened faster than expected but realistically I think the novelty of the roundabouts, the unusual traffic patterns they general (slow down at every intersection) was foreign to people, they perceived it as "excessive congestion" and complained to council, who then demanded that staff "fix" the non-problem, which they did by spending money widening pavements for no value, and then were angry and bitter about it after that.

I have no doubt that this kind of thing is what leads them to have a "preference" for four lanes, because unlike building unsafe, deadly infrastructure which kills people, the environment, and our city, this kind of apparent "blunder" is the thing that makes heads roll in the city.

You're not wrong. I do believe though that this is another one of the cases where having separate tiers of government causes more miscommunication where the planning doesn't match the transportation etc. Normally I would say the region does a slightly better job building more realistic roads and widening when the 'demand' comes. A road that come to mind include Fisher Hallman between Ottawa and Bleams, it opened in 2000 as a two lane road and was only widened in 2016. On the other hand the city rebuilt Huron Road with four lanes during the same era and it still never seems busy.

I mean, roads like Highland Rd., Ottawa St. are the counter examples so maybe things have changed.

On the other hand, there's also Weber, Westmount, Erb, and others which are older, but also were built originally to be 4 lanes entirely unnecessarily.

More, roads like F-H, University (West of Erb), were built only 2 lanes, but clearly with an intention to be four lanes later.

I don't know, the cities have a bad track record as well--I can think of a dozen if you want, but has a much better track record with road diets. Seems like the cities have acknowledged that four lane roads are not necessary, or worth while, or even a net positive everywhere.

The region is not at that place yet.

[Bytor]

I understand the differentiation that you are trying to make, but the source is still the same—adherence to manuals and standards that are out of date, through either being required to adhere by the employer or by pencil pushers unable to think independently. Whether that is "An AADT of 20,000 requires 4 lanes" (overbuilt) or "a residential road needs to be 50k/h and thus 13m from curb to curb with 2x3.5m travel lanes and 2x3m parking lanes" (over-engineered), the cause is the same.

But this simply isn't true.

There are no manuals no standards at the region, at the province, at a national level that require a road like Highland Rd. to have four lanes. This was fully acknowledged by regional staff. They said they prefer four lanes without any justification beyond a preference for four lane roads.

Really? When did they say that there are no standards in the Region? Citation, please.

[danbrotherston]

But this simply isn't true.

There are no manuals no standards at the region, at the province, at a national level that require a road like Highland Rd. to have four lanes. This was fully acknowledged by regional staff. They said they prefer four lanes without any justification beyond a preference for four lane roads.

Really? When did they say that there are no standards in the Region? Citation, please.

Please read the whole sentence.

There are no standards at the region, at the province, at a national level that require a road like Highland Rd. to have four lanes. And if you want a citation, go read the minutes of the meetings where staff presented the Highland Rd. project to ATAC. They were very explicit with this. Traffic projections within the 30 year planning horizon do not show that 4 lanes would be required. They 'prefer' four lanes for 'additional operational flexibility'.

I asked in that meeting why we were building 4 lanes when it wasn't necessary and I was told that we were ATAC and we shouldn't be questioning car infra....which is ridiculous because cars are the main obstacle to AT. It was probably the beginning of the end of my tenure on ATAC.

[ijmorlan]

I asked in that meeting why we were building 4 lanes when it wasn't necessary and I was told that we were ATAC and we shouldn't be questioning car infra....which is ridiculous because cars are the main obstacle to AT. It was probably the beginning of the end of my tenure on ATAC.

Right, the money wasted on those extra lanes could probably pay for every bicycle project ever seriously discussed on this board.

Or just build the road at 4 lanes but put planter boxes on the dashed white lines all the way along to make the curb lanes high-quality bicycle lanes.

[neonjoe]

Looks like a cement truck has hit an iON train in front of GRH causing heavy damage and knocking it off its tracks.
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/police-bea...1jv_pNK4Bc

Edit: Pic on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comme...ing_tally/

[danbrotherston]

This is the first professional driver to hit an LRV right?

I can't tell if that's good or bad...certainly you'd expect it to happen less frequently, but do professional drivers make up >1% of the drivers in the city?

[bravado]

Send their insurance company the bill for the track inspection and every cost from extra buses for the day.

I wonder if our leaders ever make the link between crap like this and deciding to cheap out on the Ion infrastructure?

[panamaniac]

Looks like a cement truck has hit an iON train in front of GRH causing heavy damage and knocking it off its tracks.
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/police-bea...1jv_pNK4Bc

Edit: Pic on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comme...ing_tally/

Oooh, that's a good one!

[ac3r]

I wonder if our leaders ever make the link between crap like this and deciding to cheap out on the Ion infrastructure?

Something something we had to settle for mediocrity something something or we wouldn't have got all 19 km built at once.

Anyway, it must be something about this intersection. This is like the 3rd or 4th crash at the same location. I can see the entire LRT being down for a day or so while they inspect the tracks...when a train derails, there is a lot of investigating to do. I imagine the repairs on the LRV itself will take a while and cost a lot too.

[ijmorlan]

No left turn from King, clearly marked. No-left signs next to both signal heads. I will nitpick that the no-U-turn should be repeated at the second signal head: When there are duplicate signal heads, each copy should always have exactly the same signage associated with it; furthermore, the signage should be placed in a standard position relative to the signal head (I would go with immediately to the right, with no gap between the signal head and the signs).

But that’s just nitpicking. Really the signage is clear.

I do notice that the curbs are built as if left turns were permitted. The curb on King could extend significantly further (even slightly past the pedestrian crossing) without getting in the way of left turns from Agnes onto King. This might have given the driver a better visual cue.

Or they could have just used their side mirror, assuming they were going to turn.

Does anybody have suggestions for more expensive ways to make this intersection safer? Somebody mentioned cheaping out on ION, but I’m not sure if everybody understands that going underground is almost certainly not feasible.

[danbrotherston]

Send their insurance company the bill for the track inspection and every cost from extra buses for the day.

I wonder if our leaders ever make the link between crap like this and deciding to cheap out on the Ion infrastructure?

I don't see how "cheaping out" on the ION infra is related to this. This is a fully signalized intersection here, there was no cost cutting at play here.

[plam]

Anyway, it must be something about this intersection. This is like the 3rd or 4th crash at the same location. I can see the entire LRT being down for a day or so while they inspect the tracks...when a train derails, there is a lot of investigating to do. I imagine the repairs on the LRV itself will take a while and cost a lot too.

Dunno if it's running in Kitchener but I definitely saw a train this afternoon at the University of Waterloo.