ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinT]

Having a path on the east side would eliminate the desire to walk on the tracks here.
They value-engineered safety away.

I can't disagree with that.

[danbrotherston]

Having a path on the east side would eliminate the desire to walk on the tracks here.
They value-engineered safety away.

I can't disagree with that.  

Well, at some point value engineering should apply to safety, but I have my doubts if safety was a consideration here.   I'm sure they feel they can achieve adequate safety through a no doubt increasing level of fencing and angry signage, eventually forcing students who are running for the train to run on the rails instead of between them.  At least, that would be the route they took with Ring Rd. itself.

[Canard]

They’ve started painting the curb-starts yellow. About 1m long. I don’t know if that’s going to be enough.

[ijmorlan]

The problem with the green path is that there's no feasible way to make it safe.  Arriving trains are decelerating in this zone and carry a lot of energy into a pedestrian collision, as do departing trains accelerating out.  You'd have to spread the tracks even wider apart than they are at the platforms in order to fence in the path, with additional room (wider yet!) to squeeze in a post for the signals and crossing gate where the mid-track path tees into the red line crossing.

Not every desire line can be turned into a practical solution.

This doesn’t make sense. Part of the green path is already going to be in use — the short bit immediately south of the platform. It doesn’t make sense that being slightly further away from the station (not even far away at a location where LRVs are going full-speed) would be a problem.

I agree that crossing arms to control access from the middle path might require some cleverness to fit it but given the proximity to the station, the total lack of crossing arms in other parts of the system, and the design of Allen Station it is not believable that this couldn’t have been made to work one way or another. This is especially true if, instead of proposing a change now, we take my observation as a criticism of the design, including the exact location of the tracks, which could have maintained the spacing used in the station area, or even a wider spacing, further south until past the E5 crossing.

On top of all that, part of the criticism is that what was built is unsafe or will lead to unsafe behaviour. So criticizing a whole class of alternative detailed designs for being unsafe is really missing the point.

[Canard]

What may seem impossibly simple to us is likely impossibly impossible simply due to Transport Canada regulations and the fact that it's considered a "Railway" here, and those regulations trump any kind of logic we might come up with.

I'm saddened to read that it seems very little progress has been made on the idea of having a crossing on the Fairway Road Hydro Corridor:

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/761...ampaign=tm

I was by there a week and a half or so ago, and saw that there is an "official" break in the fence at one point, about 1/3 of the way between Courtland and Wilson... which I thought was a good sign.

[ijmorlan]

Along the tracks, or just crossing carelessly?

I’m just curious because I can’t think of a single trip where the “best” route (ignoring rail safety and the rough terrain) involves walking along the tracks through campus. The only future exception is going between the station platform and E5, where the shorter route (and the one that should have been implemented in the plan) involves walking between the two tracks from the platform to the crossing in front of E5.

The route from UW Station to the UW Plaza (going in front of E5) is missing a direct (and level) pedestrian link, and it is not surprising at all that people would walk on the tracks in that area.

Thanks, that makes sense. I hadn’t thought of the bit between E5 crossing and University Plaza.

Of course the solution there is to remove the useless pile of dirt in front of E5 and build a proper flat entrance to E5, and use some of the space to put a path on the east side of the tracks. I can’t believe they took a perfectly flat parking lot and built an entrance that requires wheelchair users (and everybody else) to climb an entire floor by stairs or ramp just to reach the entrance. Utterly, utterly incompetent, and shouldn’t even have been permitted under the AODA. Probably the drafters of the AODA didn’t anticipate that an architect would be so stupid as to build a huge barrier so didn’t explicitly forbid it.

[ijmorlan]

What may seem impossibly simple to us is likely impossibly impossible simply due to Transport Canada regulations and the fact that it's considered a "Railway" here, and those regulations trump any kind of logic we might come up with.

I'm saddened to read that it seems very little progress has been made on the idea of having a crossing on the Fairway Road Hydro Corridor:

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/761...ampaign=tm

I was by there a week and a half or so ago, and saw that there is an "official" break in the fence at one point, about 1/3 of the way between Courtland and Wilson... which I thought was a good sign.

Re: the UW stop issue, that is a good point, but it is still not credible that they could not have either (a) had a full crossing immediately south of the station (all the way across both tracks) connecting to an east-side pathway or (b) spread the tracks apart far enough to allow the path to go down between them to the E5 crossing. Given the amount of earthmoving they did to build what was actually built the terrain now existing (which I think makes the idea of adding an east side path north of the E5 crossing difficult) is irrelevant.

Re: Fairway, this is ridiculous. We know how to put in a crossing — pick a couple of locations, and install standard protection equipment. Interesting that there is an official break in the fence. If they don’t put in a proper crossing I’ll be interested to hear how much work they have to do to maintain the fence. Neighbourhood self-help action is likely to make the fence maintenance budget extremely high in that area.

[Canard]

I couldn't not share this. It's been great to see how they unload our LRV's here, but here's how they're doing it for the FLEXITY 2 LRV's from Vienna down in Gold Coast:

[tomh009]

I was by there a week and a half or so ago, and saw that there is an "official" break in the fence at one point, about 1/3 of the way between Courtland and Wilson... which I thought was a good sign.

Is it an official crossing or just an "official" one?

[Canard]

It's definitely official - the fence itself terminates properly at two posts. It's not like someone's just cut it or it's been rolled back temporarily. That's why I thought to myself "Oh, that's good - that's where the crossing will be going real soon" - not knowing that "real soon" wasn't a thing.

[mpd618]

Thinking about it, the headline of the article really irks me- the area has no "missing middle" in terms of density. It's almost entirely low-density now. Additionally, the planning area in question is small- outside of it, within a short walk or bike ride to the LRT, will continue to exist many single family homes for those who want them.

That's the problem - the only density increase is essentially right on King Street, in the form of towers. Meanwhile just a block away will be completely unaffordable low density single family houses, instead of the missing middle density that could go there.

[Canard]

It always irks me just a little when people talk about how bad an area is, and want to just wipe it away like they can click a button in SimCity. There are real people, with lives and families living in those homes, and you can’t just delete them and say “oh, they can move, because I don’t like the density.” /rant

[MidTowner]

That's the problem - the only density increase is essentially right on King Street, in the form of towers. Meanwhile just a block away will be completely unaffordable low density single family houses, instead of the missing middle density that could go there.

But that's not accurate. If you look at the plan, it's high density on King Street, scaling down to mid-rise behind King on either side. All density levels are included.

[timio]

It always irks me just a little when people talk about how bad an area is, and want to just wipe it away like they can click a button in SimCity. There are real people, with lives and families living in those homes, and you can’t just delete them and say “oh, they can move, because I don’t like the density.” /rant

That's nothing a space monster and tornado can't take care of...

[tomh009]

But that's not accurate. If you look at the plan, it's high density on King Street, scaling down to mid-rise behind King on either side. All density levels are included.

That's correct.  Although the amount of mid-rise is quite small.