ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

Maybe they need to put up one of those big electronic text signs at the side of the road there, have it flash 'NO LEFT TURNS / EXCEPT BUSES'. Leave it there for a week or two, hopefully get the message across.

[ijmorlan]

Maybe they need to put up one of those big electronic text signs at the side of the road there, have it flash 'NO LEFT TURNS / EXCEPT BUSES'. Leave it there for a week or two, hopefully get the message across.

Are buses even using that routing yet? If not, they could just barricade it entirely with a huge “no left turns” sign.

[Pheidippides]

Hard to believe the expropriation proceedings are still on-going for phase 1, but it looks like SCHERER HOLDINGS INC. and J & J SCHERER PROPERTIES INC. of 1225 Courtland Avenue E., Kitchener and the adjacent vacant parcel are still holding out and have forced the region to take additional step of, "requesting approval to Expropriate the Permanent and Temporary Easements" based on this report.

Meanwhile a few slivers of surplus land are being returned in the Northfield area.

[Bob_McBob]

I didn't realize the LRT land acquisition budget was separate from the DBFOM.

[GtwoK]

Hard to believe the expropriation proceedings are still on-going for phase 1, but it looks like SCHERER HOLDINGS INC. and J & J SCHERER PROPERTIES INC. of 1225 Courtland Avenue E., Kitchener and the adjacent vacant parcel are still holding out and have forced the region to take additional step of, "requesting approval to Expropriate the Permanent and Temporary Easements" based on this report.

Looking at the sketches of the land they need.... its amounts to nothing, for the property owner. Appears that it is probably just to add a sidewalk. They aren't even USING the land, nor does it seem like they would be able to do anything with it - it's a small sliver abutting the road, on a property that is used to store excess cars for a car dealership, in a dirt lot.

The fact that the owner refuses to sell the land to the city in order to build a sidewalk IN EXCHANGE for fair compensation, and would rather the city forcefully take it from them WITHOUT compensation, chalks that owner up to being a real jackass, if you ask me.

What the hell do they have against sidewalks?

[JoeKW]

Looks like they need some people going in to buy cars and backing out at the last minute (and letting them know why)

[MacBerry]

I’m pretty sure there is one for FDB. Next time I’m in that area I’ll check the location and wording.

You’re right! It’s not very big, but it’s there:



...and within 2 seconds of me taking that photo:

This is a frustrating situation as is William Street/Caroline ... On Saturday I had to turn right and go on to Albert and turn at the Library just to travel west on Erb Street. I get it but perhaps a three phase light system linked to LRT and traffic at intersection?

[Canard]

Re: Erb/Caroline - I guess a curious question might be: Why are left turns actually prohibited on NB Caroline to WB Erb?  There's a separate lane there for queueing, so stopping there doesn't hold anyone up.  The only thing I can think of is it would deny a bus the ability to bypass everyone else and get it's own left turn... but this is the only place on the entire LRT line that I can think of where they've done that.  So, why did they do that, here?

Re: Expropriation - Look at this map here for the chunk of land at Courtland/Siebert:

   

This is exactly where the stoplights still are bagged and haven't been activated, and where additional railway crossing signals haven't been installed, and the land is still dirt around where they've installed foundations for where lights might eventually go. I wonder if this proceeding actually stalled construction in this area?

[ijmorlan]

Hard to believe the expropriation proceedings are still on-going for phase 1, but it looks like SCHERER HOLDINGS INC. and J & J SCHERER PROPERTIES INC. of 1225 Courtland Avenue E., Kitchener and the adjacent vacant parcel are still holding out and have forced the region to take additional step of, "requesting approval to Expropriate the Permanent and Temporary Easements" based on this report.

Looking at the sketches of the land they need.... its amounts to nothing, for the property owner. Appears that it is probably just to add a sidewalk. They aren't even USING the land, nor does it seem like they would be able to do anything with it - it's a small sliver abutting the road, on a property that is used to store excess cars for a car dealership, in a dirt lot.

The fact that the owner refuses to sell the land to the city in order to build a sidewalk IN EXCHANGE for fair compensation, and would rather the city forcefully take it from them WITHOUT compensation, chalks that owner up to being a real jackass, if you ask me.

What the hell do they have against sidewalks?

Expropriation involves compensation, so one way or the other the owner will be compensated. In fact, in most cases I suspect landlords and business owners who lose a small strip of land consider it free money. I remember when Columbia St. was widened a number of small rental properties lost a strip of front yard. They would have been compensated, but the effect on the property was just that they had less grass to mow. The student renters wouldn’t have cared how much lawn there was out front, and the resale value of the rental house would similarly have been unaffected.

I agree that it’s perplexing why this case is so troublesome. Especially the temporary easements for construction. I’m also having trouble imagining what the content of the negotiations could possibly be. I understand it more for what I will for want of a better term call “caring” owners, meaning, for example, owner-occupants who garden. I could imagine them bargaining over something like a favourite tree, or asking for the Region to move their plants or something.

[ijmorlan]

Re: Erb/Caroline - I guess a curious question might be: Why are left turns actually prohibited on NB Caroline to WB Erb?  There's a separate lane there for queueing, so stopping there doesn't hold anyone up.  The only thing I can think of is it would deny a bus the ability to bypass everyone else and get it's own left turn... but this is the only place on the entire LRT line that I can think of where they've done that.  So, why did they do that, here?

Somebody else suggested there isn’t space for a long-enough left turn lane. I’m not sure I buy that explanation however as I don’t see any particular shortage of space. One thing I do recall from before is that the presence of the tracks messes up how people use the intersection — they tend to stop on the tracks to wait to turn, then they don’t proceed when the light turns red and end up on the tracks. Not an issue before, but definitely an issue with LRT.

Actually, upon consideration, I’ll bet that is why. The stop line has to be back of the tracks, meaning the effective size of the intersection is huge. So either people drive correctly, meaning only one vehicle in the intersection at a time waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, leading to very slow advancing of the line, or, in real life, they drive wrong, and end up stopped on the tracks when the light turns red.

Not a problem with one bus every few minutes, but an issue with constant traffic.

Weird that they realized the rules for the intersection should change but didn’t realize what the signals should actually be.

[Canard]

Re: Expropriation - I could totally imagine that someone who was against the LRT would just dig their heels in and say "No, I don't care - this is my land and I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for you. I'm actually surprised a certain local fencing company isn't listed in that document as one of the "holdouts"!

As a very minor aside - I noticed that the header images on this thread no longer work:

   

(Just putting it out there; you're (forum team) more than welcome to use anything I've posted to the thread as header images, if you like.)

[tomh009]

As a very minor aside - I noticed that the header images on this thread no longer work:

(Just putting it out there; you're (forum team) more than welcome to use anything I've posted to the thread as header images, if you like.)

I'm guessing that rangersfan's imgur account has expired, the same is true in many other threads that had his photos.

[ijmorlan]

Re: Expropriation - I could totally imagine that someone who was against the LRT would just dig their heels in and say "No, I don't care - this is my land and I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for you.  I'm actually surprised a certain local fencing company isn't listed in that document as one of the "holdouts"!

Well he has moved out of town anyway … or at least I assume he has because he said he would … and he never lies!

[trainspotter139]

The Scherer property already had a fairly large utilities easement before the LRT. I can understand why they would be opposed to a further easement as less property means less vehicles they can have on the lot. However this easement doesn't really affect that much of the lot.

[jamincan]

If they were concerned about left turning vehicles being stuck on the track, they could just have an advance green with no turns on red so that no one pulls into the intersection and waits for their turn.