ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

...and hopefully you didn't actually post that while driving!

Which roads exactly are now open? Is Duke now open between Victoria and Water, and Francis between Duke and Joseph?

[JoeKW]

Spotted this dangling light today, literally hanging by a wire.  Is this something I should report?


Edit: I posted it here because I think this would be Grandlinq's issue

[Canard]

Yes; you can report it to:

Email: connect@rideion.ca
Twitter: @rideIONrt, @GrandLinq

(I'd be happy to email if you'd rather; just let me know.)

[JoeKW]

Yeah, I'll leave it to you if you don't mind. It was a few hours ago, the photos were taken at 3:13PM. Thanks

[Canard]

Done!

[tomh009]

Since Iain covered the last few days' progress on Charles and Ottawa, I'll just post the ones from this morning.

Future crossover on Charles, in front of Cameron Heights:
   

A view of Ottawa, from near Charles.  Pavement first, but the Schneider Creek bridge and beyond have no pavement.
   

Ottawa Creek?  It seems that there are a lot of new rivers in Kitchener ...
   

[KevinL]

Was along the line in Midtown today and had thoughts on a couple stations. The 'official' access points to the platform at Allen is from, well, Allen; and to GRH is from Pine. But both platforms are long enough that I hope they allow access from the adjacent streets:

Allen platform from John:


GRH platform from Mount Hope:

[notmyfriends]

People will access them from both sides, safely or not. They'd be amiss to not provide a safe option.

[Canard]

Not necessarily. As I've mentioned, just like in Toronto they may put a railing at the far end to discourage people crossing at unsafe locations.

[danbrotherston]

@canard. No fence is going to stop someone running up the track to catch their train. I saw someone hop the fence in a commuter rail station to catch a Caltrain.

Of course it being the smart and safe thing to do (provide safe access) in no way guarantees that it will be the thing done. @notmyfriends

[Pheidippides]

Not necessarily. As I've mentioned, just like in Toronto they may put a railing at the far end to discourage people crossing at unsafe locations.

As we have seen along the hydro corridor even a fence is not enough to discourage people from crossing at unsafe locations; I don't think a little railing will be enough to discourage accessing the platform from those locations - especially Allen when it is so tantalizingly close. People are going to do it, so make it as safe as possible to make no-smart decisions.

Interestingly, at KidsPark yesterday I was very surprised that there wasn't an LRT display of some sort given the number of other public service announcement type displays (police, fire, green bin, tap water, etc.). It was a perfect venue for teaching a lot of eager kids (and hopefully their parents) some basic safety skills for the soon to arrive trains.

This may seem like a silly question, and apologies if it has been answered in the previous 300+ pages, but are these platforms for the single length trains or the doubled up length ones? There just doesn't seem to be a lot of expansion room for some of the stations if they are the single length (i.e. Queen station).

[KevinL]

All stations being built now are for double length trains, even Queen. Canopies and benches, etc. are only being built for single length to start, but will be easily installed double length once necessary.

[Viewfromthe42]

Francis is open end-to-end, Duke only from Francis to Victoria. Using it as a detour will be slow, because King/Francis has a signal change, and heading eastbound you'll have to wait for the Duke/Francis light to turn left.

Hopefully this will alleviate some of the bad driving. Nearly got clipped twice yesterday when drivers waiting at Duke southbound turned left onto Victoria on a red light, once when I was crossing north side, the other when my dog was walking wider than he should have been on the south side and the left-on-red turn was also wide enough to nearly clip him. Marked three near hits for me as a pedestrian (Victoria and Weber) by illegal driver moves in only a few days.

For those with an eye for detail, can anyone make sense of the post at King and Francis on the TD Bank corner? If you look at the green-corner pole on the other side of Francis, holding up cantilevered traffic signals, it's still a pretty small base where it is mounted into the sidewalk. If you look across to the LRT tracks, the catenary support poles are of a different colour and much larger diameter. The pole at the TD corner is not for catenary wire, and doesn't have any signals cantilevered off of it needing support, but it's the largest diameter post in the entire intersection. Are support wires of some kind likely to run from the top of this over to the catenary curve from Francis to King, to support the turn?

[tomh009]

Not necessarily. As I've mentioned, just like in Toronto they may put a railing at the far end to discourage people crossing at unsafe locations.

As we have seen along the hydro corridor even a fence is not enough to discourage people from crossing at unsafe locations

A fence or railing will discourage people but it will not prevent people from unsafe crossing.  A railing might drop unsafe crossings from 10% to 1%; in that case, it would be well worth while.  (The numbers are purely hypothetical.)

This may seem like a silly question, and apologies if it has been answered in the previous 300+ pages, but are these platforms for the single length trains or the doubled up length ones? There just doesn't seem to be a lot of expansion room for some of the stations if they are the single length (i.e. Queen station).

Single-length only.  If we reach capacity, they will add frequency rather than extending the train sets, which really makes sense to me, at least for the next few decades.

[danbrotherston]

A fence or railing will discourage people but it will not prevent people from unsafe crossing.  A railing might drop unsafe crossings from 10% to 1%; in that case, it would be well worth while.  (The numbers are purely hypothetical.)
...
Single-length only.  If we reach capacity, they will add frequency rather than extending the train sets, which really makes sense to me, at least for the next few decades.

"Well worth the money" would be to install the proper access that provides the most convenient path (where the desire line is likely to be) for people to access the train.  It is never a good idea to try to block people from the most convenient path, when it can instead be reasonably accommodated, which it can be in this case.

Also, I'd argue it won't stop the most unsafe crossings, when people are late, and running for the train, when they might be willing to take more chances, and aren't looking as carefully.
"Single-length only", this is not exactly correct, as the previous poster noted, the platforms as constructed accommodate double length trains, but benches and shelters will only be installed for single-length trains.  But no additional concrete will be needed to expand to double length trains.

"add frequency rather than extending".  Do you have a source for this.  While I think we might all hope for this, I was lead to believe that train sets would be extended rather than increasing frequency.  Certainly operationally, this is likely the cheaper course of action.