ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Markster]

Can we argue about the monorail some more?

As long as it’s not from Bombardier, I’m all for a discussion ;-)

Too bad, since Bombardier makes the best monorail system!

I would have thought you would argued Disney.

Hey take it outside you folks.

[Canard]

Too bad, since Bombardier makes the best monorail system!

I would have thought you would argued Disney.

Bombardier built the MK VI's at WDW.

Back to Waterloo Region... I'm sad that there isn't really much going on now.  I knew this day would come, with construction wrapping up, and a huge delay until the first train arrives.  

I can't believe it's still going to be more than a year before opening.

Here are some fun pictures of the Bombardier FLEXITY 2 trams arriving in Gold Coast, Australia.  And you thought the trip from Thunder Bay was rough!

   

   

   

[KevinL]

Forgot to post these yesterday! Midday structure work at Queen station, in the cold.

[timc]

I saw crews working this morning at King/Fredrick.  It was around -10, even cooler with the wind chill.  I hope they are being compensated fairly for working in that weather.   I wouldn't want to stay out more than 10 mins in that weather.

There was a group out this morning filling the trail gaps near the Davis Centre station this morning! I wouldn't have expected them to be applying asphalt at -11°C, but there they were.

[KevinL]

Track welding happening on Frederick this morning!

[Pheidippides]

Interesting what is happening in uptown today. Snow has not been removed from the rapidway on the east side of king and only partiially removed from new parking spots along the west side of king from William to willis. As a result cars cannot get in to the spots completely and are instead now parking so they straddle the parking spot and travel lane. Which means, when wider vehicles need to pass each other on king in this stretch they need to slow to a stop and one has creep in to the snow bank and up and on to the rapidway. It is not causing huge delays, but is slowing GRT and other larger vehicles a bit.

[Canard]

Given the enormity of today's snowfall I guess it's not unexpected that there would be some hiccups here and there. Sounds like they just need to figure out how to plough the spots, just like they do everywhere else.

[Viewfromthe42]

They do and don't do this successfully. Parallel parking in UpTown is always hideous in winter. I can remember last winter sitting in Princess Cafe, watching a pickup truck (whether the "farm" plate was an indicator of what would transpire, I don't know) try to jump the 3-4' plowrow, getting stuck, and winding up hitting both the vehicle in front and behind it enough times to move each of them visibly, before eventually unstranding themselves and running off.

On the plowing vein, you can check the streets perpendicular to King near UpTown and find ones where a single car can barely fit, and if you wind up halfway down the street with an oncoming car, someone either has to get into a driveway or back all the way out.

[Canard]

Oopsie

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just a friendly reminder that there is No pickup window at this pizza place. Please park on the street and get your nails done. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/uptownopen?src=hash">#uptownopen</a> <a href="https://t.co/Qb1Bwuh0L3">pic.twitter.com/Qb1Bwuh0L3</a></p>&mdash; All My Nails Salon (@AllMyNailsSalon) <a href="https://twitter.com/AllMyNailsSalon/status/809190958634041348">December 15, 2016</a></blockquote>

[KevinL]

Ah, I love the 'Pizzer' from Famoso.

[Canard]

Not an unforgivable error, either - probably someone who finally returned to UpTown after 10 months of construction, just thought the entrance was unploughed and went through it.

[goggolor]

In Toronto during winter it's not unusual for streetcars to be forced to stop due to parked cars being so far out from the curb (thanks to snow) that they block the lane. I think they eventually tow the cars but it can cause serious delays. Is there any risk of that happening here?

[KevinL]

In Toronto during winter it's not unusual for streetcars to be forced to stop due to parked cars being so far out from the curb (thanks to snow) that they block the lane. I think they eventually tow the cars but it can cause serious delays. Is there any risk of that happening here?

I can't think of any places where the ROW neighbours a parking lane, so I doubt it.

[Canard]

Yeah, Kevin's right - not an issue here, but a lot of the recently-installed US "Streetcars" are struggling with this, due to their designs - KC, Cinci, Atlanta, DC... - there are all lots of news articles like these floating around about hem:

[Canard]

etc...