ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[jamincan]

For people who don't live in KW, or who have only come here recently, it's tempting to look at ION in isolation - that is commonly how transit is planned elsewhere, after all. The thing with ION, though, is that it was a ground up comprehensive urban planning process. In brief, the justification grew out of transportation models that predicted unsustainable levels of investment in road construction in order to support projected growth. The plan was the creation of the so-called central transit corridor and the development of a comprehensive strategy involving economic development, zoning changes, and transit changes that all worked together to support more growth in that core area. ION is the most visible result in that process, but it is only one part of it. Looking solely at ION without understanding any of that broader context is like looking only at the engine of a car and pronouncing it a failure or success solely on its power without considering its purpose.

[Bytor]

It is true that it is not built to carry existing demand, which is still well within the range that can be handled by buses.

No it wasn't. A thousand times no. Between the 200 and 7 there were busses an average of every 3 minutes in rush hour before ION took over, and they were still overcrowded and frequently late. That is not "well within the range that can be handled by busses".

[Bytor]

It is definitely able to handle the demand. The thing is empty half of the time, even before SARS-CoV-2 disrupted everything. According to Keolis the LRT only carries 25'000 people per day on average. 

Except it wasn't "empty half the time". It couldn't have been carrying 25,000 riders a day—20% more than what the 7+200 carried together before—if it were empty.

Did you think that ION was going to jump to 100% capacity right away? That's just ridiculous, because if it did that means we waited far too long to put it in place. Of course it's going to start off on the lower end and grow from there, like if you had promoted a busPlus route to a full route and switched the short bus of 20 passengers to a regular bus of 80 passengers.

Even with only 30 people aboard, 1/8th capacity, ION is probably still going to be cheaper to operate per ride than a bus route carrying 20,000 people a day. In fact, I bet you that an analysis of IONs operational cost carrying 25,000 per day on average will show that it costs less per ride to operate than the old iXpress 200 cost at 7,000 riders per day.

In terms of a rapid transit system (and specifically one that is serving a region of over 600'000+ people! - Nürnberg, Germany for example, is roughly the same size as us even even denser yet it has 3 subway lines, 5 streetcar/LRT lines, 4 S-bahn lines and a million bus routes) it's so far an absolute failure in terms of ridership. Even that number is quite ambiguous since they only announced that in a recent press release in regards to the ION winning a national award. Will ridership go up? I have no doubt, but it's reaching veeeeeeerrryyy far to paint the ION as an astounding success.

It is an astounding success. GRT boardings all across the system were up 17%. Central Transit Corridor boardings were up 40%. The IO, if it has 25,000/day, carries more than three times as many people per day, on average, as the iXpress 200 did.

[KevinL]

Indeed, on labour cost alone the savings are dramatic - far fewer operators and maintenance staff are needed for the LRVs compared to equivalent capacity in the bus fleet. Then you get into savings on fuel cost, vehicle depreciation, and tons of other factors.

[Bytor]

Targets set by who, though? Targets don't mean much when they're made by the same business owners and politicians hoping to sell you a product. I could care less if the region and GranLinq set a random target and keep moving the goal post to make it sound like it was a resounding success.

I'm suspecting that you don't know what the ridership of the 7 + 200 was before, and that you also didn't know what ridership of is now, until somebody mentioned it in this thread.

Now, I'm not hating on the ION in any way, I am very glad it was built

Yes, you are, because so much of what you say about it is just incorrect.

But it was under construction for years

Three years. How long did you think a big infrastructure project would take?

and yet the ridership isn't all that much more significant than it was when we only had the 7 and various iXpress routes doing more or less the exact same route.

That's why I said above that you probably didn't know the ridership before and after.

7 + 200 2018 July-December: 2,528,000
7 + ION 2019 July-December: 3,668,000

That's a 45% increase, year over year. Pretty significant, no?

It's as slow as a worm trying to crawl across a sidewalk on a sunny day in July

How fast did you think it was going to be? It was never going to have a top speed better than a bus, thanks to not getting caught in traffic and the wider stop spacing it still ends up being a little faster than the 200 was.

and it only covers a very very specific corridor of the city

So what? Each bus route only covers a "very very specific corridor of the city", too.

But guess what? The corridor that ION goes through happens to be the one where two-thirds of of all trips in Waterloo Region start or end (or both) every day.

and is ultimately not that much faster than the bus routes it replaced - for me, it takes me less time to take the 8 downtown as it does the LRT and the route is almost virtually the same in terms of distance.

I've never compared ION to the 8, though I suspect that it's similar to comparing the ION to the 7. People claim the 7 is faster than the ION, but that's true over the distances where the ION's track deviates from the 7's route (i.e. around Mill and R&T stations) and only after 7pm in the evening when traffic congestion disappears.

Most importantly, it has yet to do anything meaningful in regards to developing affordable housing and access to employers.

Most jobs in K-W lay along the the K-W portion of the Central Transit Corridor that Stage 1 ION runs. It's reliability over the 7 and 200 and added capacity means it is easier to get to employers along that corridor by transit. For example, the old route 22 use to go from Williamsburg northeast to the old Charles Terminal. The new 22 now goes from Williamsburg to Block Line Station, and anybody taking it and transferring to ION to go to work in DTK now has a 5 minute shorter trip, just by the schedules. If the person worked in Uptown and had to transfer to the 200 or 7 from the 2 before, this new trip is about 10 minute quicker. Plus, the new 20 isn't getting stuck in traffic congestion like the old 20 did as it wound its way to DTK. That traffic congestion also meant that a lot of people doing the old 20→200/7 to work in Uptown and the the reverse to get home missed the 20 when the 200 or 7 was late and they would have to wait another 30 minutes before the next one.

That is clearly a meaningful development in access to employers.

Yeah it's easy to say "well don't worry, it's still new, the poor will love it one day" but people who live pay cheque to pay cheque don't give a shit how easy it might be to get to work in 5-10 years.

As described above, It became easier right away.

[Momo26]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I talked and overheard people from day one on the ground...it took longer in morning commute for those coming from Cambridge that usually had the iExpress - Cambridge Centre to Charles St. Terminal and beyond? Vs Cambridge bus --> Fairway station switch to LRT --> downtown or beyond ie. Waterloo Conestoga Station. Plus no switching. Sit in your seat close your eyes and forget it.

I had to switch at the mall from the 110 or 10 to the 22 or the 7 (discovered this a bit later - lots of stops oof) so switching to LRT instead wasn't as big a deal. I liked the LRT more - smooth, almost guaranteed a seat, not stinky and felt cooler as it's on a track. But generally this was +8 to 10 mins total commute for me if I wasn't fortunate enough to make a train earlier + walk time slightly longer to workplace from LRT station on other end.

Now, I figured out another route to drop off at Block Line station, but it was more nip and tuck - lucky if we beat the train coming from Fairway And didn't get trapped at a crossing, or otherwise a brutal 9 minute wait in the cold as the one just left...no coordination whatsoever and the 10 mins intervals b.w. trai s are not the target 8 originally set out...

[Momo26]

Well sounds like folks have proved ridership overall was up when LRT started and in the first year (for GRT as a whole?) That's good if true.

That being said, I've said it before, I'll say it again - the city needs to make it easier to get aboard the LRT from some of the more suburban, And yet relatively dense areas, if the city, seamlessly and without needing to take 2 bloody busses to do so...your Conestoga College a s Pioneer areas, your Forest Glen areas, your Ira Needles, your Beechwoods and Laurelwoods, Stanley Parks and Bingemons...at least 8 to 12 tentacle lines would be ideal for the LRT...or short busses, a fleet of which run through neighborhoods every 15 mins connecting to a LRT that runs every 5 to 6 mins...you'll see an uptick...give an incentive to leave the car behind [Now mind you Sars-COVID probably threw a wrench into it all]

[neonjoe]

Of the above I really only know the Forest Glen (Cointry Hills/Laurentides Hills) area well enough. Local routes 3, 16, 22, 33 all meander or through the area and connect to either Mill or Block Line Station. It seems like a lot of choice. Routes 12 and 26 also skirt the area and connect to iON.
The routes may not go down every local street but definitely within Country Hills they are easily walkable.

[Momo26]

Country Hills perhaps not the best example - I'm actually thinking a bit further out like in some examples I gave even so, more frequency is key - they can be smaller busses (smaller costs) and relatively seamless ...

[neonjoe]

Country Hills perhaps not the best example - I'm actually thinking a bit further out like in some examples I gave  even so, more frequency is key - they can be smaller busses (smaller costs) and relatively seamless ...

They may be on track to do this. The region had an Tender out for 30' transit coaches. It looks like it was awarded.
https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....f58c3a6250

[danbrotherston]

Country Hills perhaps not the best example - I'm actually thinking a bit further out like in some examples I gave  even so, more frequency is key - they can be smaller busses (smaller costs) and relatively seamless ...

They may be on track to do this. The region had an Tender out for 30' transit coaches. It looks like it was awarded.
https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....f58c3a6250

I completely agree that frequency is key, but I don't think that smaller buses help that much, it would be nice to have a specific number on operating costs, but given that driver and maintenance will be about the same, and fuel will be a large fraction of a full size bus, I cannot imagine the savings is much, and the operation cost of having to manage a fleet with more than one type of bus isn't free either, it could literally come out negative.

I'm really of the opinion that we should focus strongly on last high frequency fixed route services from density nodes, while strongly facilitating last mile connections through things like bike lanes and bike and scooter shares.

[tomh009]

They may be on track to do this. The region had an Tender out for 30' transit coaches. It looks like it was awarded.
https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....f58c3a6250

I completely agree that frequency is key, but I don't think that smaller buses help that much, it would be nice to have a specific number on operating costs, but given that driver and maintenance will be about the same, and fuel will be a large fraction of a full size bus, I cannot imagine the savings is much, and the operation cost of having to manage a fleet with more than one type of bus isn't free either, it could literally come out negative.

GRT currently already runs a mixed fleet of New Flyer and Nova buses. And the BusPlus fleet has Chevrolet, Ford and GMC chassis with five (!) different coach bodies and three different engines. So, I don't think adding four Grande West buses to the fleet will have that big an impact.

The fuel economy is likely about 20% better -- and the buses will also be less expensive than full-sized ones. I do assume that they are capable of doing a financial analysis on this.

[plam]

They may be on track to do this. The region had an Tender out for 30' transit coaches. It looks like it was awarded.
https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....f58c3a6250

I completely agree that frequency is key, but I don't think that smaller buses help that much, it would be nice to have a specific number on operating costs, but given that driver and maintenance will be about the same, and fuel will be a large fraction of a full size bus, I cannot imagine the savings is much, and the operation cost of having to manage a fleet with more than one type of bus isn't free either, it could literally come out negative.

I'm really of the opinion that we should focus strongly on last high frequency fixed route services from density nodes, while strongly facilitating last mile connections through things like bike lanes and bike and scooter shares.

I think short buses are often not the win for the reasons you say. The only thing is the perceived wastefulness of an empty bus. But perceived wastefulness of a single-occupant car is somehow fine. There must be some studies about this.

[taylortbb]

I completely agree that frequency is key, but I don't think that smaller buses help that much, it would be nice to have a specific number on operating costs, but given that driver and maintenance will be about the same, and fuel will be a large fraction of a full size bus, I cannot imagine the savings is much, and the operation cost of having to manage a fleet with more than one type of bus isn't free either, it could literally come out negative.

GRT currently already runs a mixed fleet of New Flyer and Nova buses. And the BusPlus fleet has Chevrolet, Ford and GMC chassis with five (!) different coach bodies and three different engines. So, I don't think adding four Grande West buses to the fleet will have that big an impact.

The fuel economy is likely about 20% better -- and the buses will also be less expensive than full-sized ones. I do assume that they are capable of doing a financial analysis on this.

The BusPlus fleet isn't owned/operated by GRT. It's entirely contracted out to private operators. So GRT really only has the two bus types, and lots of the equipment (e.g. engines, HVAC units) are shared between them. I believe they also keep the Cambridge garage (as it's smaller) all single-type to further reduce the amount of complexity.

I do believe that GRT has done the analysis and concluded it was positive or they wouldn't have ordered the buses. But it's also true that GRT tries really hard to standardize, and small buses don't represent nearly the savings that many expect. They're starting with a small pilot and will see how it goes, which I think is a pretty responsible way to look at small buses. It's still important to push back on the persistent myth of large savings to be found just by ordering smaller buses.

[danbrotherston]

I completely agree that frequency is key, but I don't think that smaller buses help that much, it would be nice to have a specific number on operating costs, but given that driver and maintenance will be about the same, and fuel will be a large fraction of a full size bus, I cannot imagine the savings is much, and the operation cost of having to manage a fleet with more than one type of bus isn't free either, it could literally come out negative.

GRT currently already runs a mixed fleet of New Flyer and Nova buses. And the BusPlus fleet has Chevrolet, Ford and GMC chassis with five (!) different coach bodies and three different engines. So, I don't think adding four Grande West buses to the fleet will have that big an impact.

The fuel economy is likely about 20% better -- and the buses will also be less expensive than full-sized ones. I do assume that they are capable of doing a financial analysis on this.

There is an operational complexity as well...right now any bus can go run any route, you only need one type of hot standby, if you start running smaller buses on some routes at some times, the operational complexity increases. They had this challenge with iXpress (and actually also ION BRT buses), and its why ixpress buses started getting run on other routes.

I am sure they are doing a cost analysis, but I'm saying the improvement is probably not much, if fuel economy is 20% better, and the buses were half as much, it's still possible we're saying less than 10% of the cost of those routes.

I often hear of smaller buses (sometimes even vans or cars) being a magic bullet for better transit, and in general, I don't think that's the case. Frequency is absolutely important, but I suspect most routes which are seeing smaller buses are not seeing a high frequency...transit agencies like ours are barely willing to prioritize frequency over cost on heavily used routes.