ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Hmm? No, you said “won’t they need more than 14 for their planned top frequency”. The PDF shows exactly how peak headway will be accommodated with 12 trains.

[KevinL]

Got a closer look at the Hans Haus work this morning. Surprisingly, the armour stone is not directly along the Charles sidewalk, but is a bit offset.

[Canard]

What is the nature of the work here, Kevin? I have never heard of Armour Stone before.

[KevinL]

Those squared-off boulders that look natural are actually specially quarried to be easily installed in these sorts of landscaped settings. The name 'armour' comes from their ability to hold back both large slopes of ground, and heavy vehicles if used as bollards.

I'm presuming they chose to landscape the new strip between the stones and the sidewalk here, but obviously we're still early in this work.

[panamaniac]

To have the stone directly beside the sidewalk would have looked odd and created a potential walking/plowing hazard, istm. I can see why it's set back, although why it's needed at all is another issue (seating?).

[KevinL]

Well, the open area used to be level with the sidewalk, but the re-grading with the road rebuild added that vertical offset. They had to find some way to keep a flat open area but not have a tripping hazard at the sidewalk edge.

[ijmorlan]

ert86: Please see the Project Agreement for the explanation of the allocation of LRV’s for service:

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...7RFPV3.pdf

Is there confusion about timeline? My recollection is that 12 LRVs (+ 2 spare) is sufficient for opening-day schedules, but there are projected future schedules showing more service that involve additional vehicles.

Personally I don’t think they should be running two-vehicle trains until the service is running at least once every 5 minutes, and even that isn’t really very frequent for mass transit. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to reserve the two-vehicle running for 3 minute service.

[Sports-Live]

Your best bet is to contact Kim Moser; Manager, Community Relations at mass rapid transit at Region of Waterloo. additionally, TriTAG would possible have an interest in any issues you've got and thru its membership could also be ready to answer a number of queries you will have and relay any issues.

[Pheidippides]

Kim has moved on. There is a new person in that role now.

[jeffster]

ert86: Please see the Project Agreement for the explanation of the allocation of LRV’s for service:

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...7RFPV3.pdf

Is there confusion about timeline? My recollection is that 12 LRVs (+ 2 spare) is sufficient for opening-day schedules, but there are projected future schedules showing more service that involve additional vehicles.

Personally I don’t think they should be running two-vehicle trains until the service is running at least once every 5 minutes, and even that isn’t really very frequent for mass transit. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to reserve the two-vehicle running for 3 minute service.

I think the issue with every 5 minutes or 3 minutes is disruption of traffic. If you think of the Courtland(Fairway) rail crossing, you'd basically see a train every 90 seconds (1 in either direction every 3 minutes). I think 7 minutes is good for our region.

I believe in Toronto the headway for the subways is 140 seconds during peak time, for reference.

[danbrotherston]

Is there confusion about timeline? My recollection is that 12 LRVs (+ 2 spare) is sufficient for opening-day schedules, but there are projected future schedules showing more service that involve additional vehicles.

Personally I don’t think they should be running two-vehicle trains until the service is running at least once every 5 minutes, and even that isn’t really very frequent for mass transit. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to reserve the two-vehicle running for 3 minute service.

I think the issue with every 5 minutes or 3 minutes is disruption of traffic.  If you think of the Courtland(Fairway) rail crossing, you'd basically see a train every 90 seconds (1 in either direction every 3 minutes).  I think 7 minutes is good for our region.

I believe in Toronto the headway for the subways is 140 seconds during peak time, for reference.

I really hate that argument.  If there's justification for running a train every 3 minutes, then those people *should* have priority over traffic.  If those people were instead in cars, then you'd really see traffic disruption.

When framed this way, I go buy a car.

[Markster]

I think the issue with every 5 minutes or 3 minutes is disruption of traffic.  If you think of the Courtland(Fairway) rail crossing, you'd basically see a train every 90 seconds (1 in either direction every 3 minutes).  I think 7 minutes is good for our region.

I really hate that argument.  If there's justification for running a train every 3 minutes, then those people *should* have priority over traffic.  If those people were instead in cars, then you'd really see traffic disruption.

When framed this way, I go buy a car.

Keep in mind that buses still need to use those intersecting roads. And line management becomes quite difficult at 3-minute headways without full separation. I don't want to see LRV bunches.

Personally, I'm fine with frequency topping out at 5-7 minutes, and the vehicles doubling up after that.
It's the prospect of doubled-up trains justifying 30 minute frequency in the evenings that grinds my gears.

[danbrotherston]

I really hate that argument.  If there's justification for running a train every 3 minutes, then those people *should* have priority over traffic.  If those people were instead in cars, then you'd really see traffic disruption.

When framed this way, I go buy a car.

Keep in mind that buses still need to use those intersecting roads. And line management becomes quite difficult at 3-minute headways without full separation. I don't want to see LRV bunches.

Personally, I'm fine with frequency topping out at 5-7 minutes, and the vehicles doubling up after that.
It's the prospect of doubled-up trains justifying 30 minute frequency in the evenings that grinds my gears.

Between 3 and 5 minutes I suppose I don't really care much.  Certainly doubled up every 30 minutes is much more terrible.

But regardless, if there are other good reasons for less frequent trains, that's fine.  Even cost I think is more credible than blocking traffic. Trains, with a 150 people on them should get priority over cars.  If buses are in congestion, they should *also* get priority over cars.

But I guess we're still a long way off from that.

[Canard]

It's the prospect of doubled-up trains justifying 30 minute frequency in the evenings that grinds my gears.

Thisssssssssssssss s s s s s!

I will always say that, given an equal hourly capacity, little trains at high frequency > big trains at low frequency.

This is at the core of VAL and ICTS (and tramways, too, which can operate trains close together), and part of why I love them so much.

(I went to go insert a video I think I've shared before, showing sub-minute headways on the Lille VAL, but I think it's been removed from YouTube.)

[ijmorlan]

I really hate that argument.  If there's justification for running a train every 3 minutes, then those people *should* have priority over traffic.  If those people were instead in cars, then you'd really see traffic disruption.

When framed this way, I go buy a car.

Keep in mind that buses still need to use those intersecting roads. And line management becomes quite difficult at 3-minute headways without full separation. I don't want to see LRV bunches.

Personally, I'm fine with frequency topping out at 5-7 minutes, and the vehicles doubling up after that.
It's the prospect of doubled-up trains justifying 30 minute frequency in the evenings that grinds my gears.

My understanding is that our LRT will have full priority, i.e., will not normally encounter a stop signal. If this is true, then line management is not a problem — it’s the same as with full isolation. Given that, 3 minute service just means the traffic light must give a green to the LRT every 3 minutes in each direction, meaning the LRT significantly constrains the overall traffic light cycle. Because an LRV doesn’t take very long to clear the intersection, even 3 minute service will still leave lots of time for the cross street. If some extra traffic congestion results, that is really irrelevant, as pointed out — 3 minute service would be provided because 3600 people per hour are taking the LRT. It would be absurd to make those 3600 people wait for a few people in private cars. How many cars can fit through Erb and Caroline in an hour anyway? And in a situation where we had that level of transit ridership, I think having reserved lanes for buses on the cross streets should be achievable.

Having said all that, I’m OK with 5 minute frequency. But it really would be absurd to use 2-car trains to allow 30 minute instead of 15 minute service. It doesn’t make sense to spend as much on capital as it takes to build an LRT and then not fund operations properly.

I wonder when automatic driving will be considered reliable enough to run an LRV in or near traffic? It’s a way easier problem than the general automatic driving problem. That would allow higher frequency without increasing labour costs.