ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

I think space for tracks is not a big issue, so long as we're willing to make real changes in our city. The singular feature of most of our regional roads being 4-5 lanes is that we could fit an LRT down the middle of any road, so long as we were willing to make it a priority. No touching any property, or heritage buildings, or anything.

That being said, I'd be curious to see us try and innovate in the transportation space a little bit, fixed guideways help, but the most important feature of a transit system in my mind, is frequency.

We have very significant density nodes near the LRT but just outside of walking distance, we should have very high frequency, but low speed connectors between those nodes and the adjacent LRT stations. That would significantly improve the service provided, without a huge investment.

That being said, if we're talking traditional LRT, I suspect one of the top bang for buck options is to make the north end of the LRT a loop...continue south from Conestoga Mall, split when Regina St. starts and make King and Regina one lane one way for cars, one lane, one way for LRT, and continue south and link up with the existing tracks in Uptown. In addition to linking Laurier up directly, and also linking up a HUGE popuplation node, there is actually an enormous amount of empty land for development and plenty of area for intensification. And the distance isn't very far, it would be a relatively low cost for that return.

(Of course, this is after we fix the mistakes in the original Phase 1, like fixing ped connections at all the stations, and rerouting it under the Block Line Bridge. I mean, we are dreaming after all.)

[jwilliamson]

That being said, if we're talking traditional LRT, I suspect one of the top bang for buck options is to make the north end of the LRT a loop...continue south from Conestoga Mall, split when Regina St. starts and make King and Regina one lane one way for cars, one lane, one way for LRT, and continue south and link up with the existing tracks in Uptown.  In addition to linking Laurier up directly, and also linking up a HUGE popuplation node, there is actually an enormous amount of empty land for development and plenty of area for intensification.  And the distance isn't very far, it would be a relatively low cost for that return.

How would you run service on such a loop? If you split the service so half the trains go north through Waterloo Park and half go north along King, then you only have half the frequency on either branch. You could add some trains that just run along the loop, but then there are more transfers.

(I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just curious.)

[dunkalunk]

While on the topic of things far in the future:



I tend to agree that an extension of the LRT from Conestoga Mall down King, West on University and Erb to The Boardwalk makes good sense both from a ridership and development standpoint.

I envision that the outer 2 lanes of Univsersity Ave would be converted into a transit mall with shared stations for all buses and LRT (similar layout to Willis Way in Uptown)

Also, given rail ownership, I could see an O-Train type of service from The Boardwalk to a new terminal at Region of Waterloo airport to connect the airport to both the GO station at Breslau and Downtown Kitchener.

[dunkalunk]

my proposal

king/university/erb line to board walk with Kitchener west go.


boardwalk - highland/Victoria line

spur Kitchener south to cambridge

Given that it's a former rail alignment, Homer Watson Blvd South is screaming out to have an LRT run down the middle of it. Plenty of development opportunities along the mostly abandoned rail corridor as well. The trick though is what you'd need to do to people's houses is Preston though. It would definitely be cheaper than the current proposed elevated structures crossing the Grand and Speed rivers though.

[nms]

That being said, if we're talking traditional LRT, I suspect one of the top bang for buck options is to make the north end of the LRT a loop...continue south from Conestoga Mall, split when Regina St. starts and make King and Regina one lane one way for cars, one lane, one way for LRT, and continue south and link up with the existing tracks in Uptown.  In addition to linking Laurier up directly, and also linking up a HUGE popuplation node, there is actually an enormous amount of empty land for development and plenty of area for intensification.  And the distance isn't very far, it would be a relatively low cost for that return.

How would you run service on such a loop? If you split the service so half the trains go north through Waterloo Park and half go north along King, then you only have half the frequency on either branch. You could add some trains that just run along the loop, but then there are more transfers.

(I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just curious.)

It would be an interesting puzzle to bring the LRT down King St from Conestoga Mall.  Would you bring back lettered routes just like when there was the 7 A/B/C/D/E/F? Or have one unit doing a loop up the spur to the mall, down King to the Uptown Square (maybe both directions), while interspersing the train that ran the full route north and south? You could maintain the trip frequency by splitting the trains at the Uptown Square and putting the loop unit in between (Train A goes up the spur, Loop Unit A goes up the spur, Train B goes up King St, Loop Unit B goes up King St, Train C goes up the spur etc). It's nice to dream, but I'm not sure that we'll ever see the track density that existed in Old Toronto.

[danbrotherston]

That being said, if we're talking traditional LRT, I suspect one of the top bang for buck options is to make the north end of the LRT a loop...continue south from Conestoga Mall, split when Regina St. starts and make King and Regina one lane one way for cars, one lane, one way for LRT, and continue south and link up with the existing tracks in Uptown.  In addition to linking Laurier up directly, and also linking up a HUGE popuplation node, there is actually an enormous amount of empty land for development and plenty of area for intensification.  And the distance isn't very far, it would be a relatively low cost for that return.

How would you run service on such a loop? If you split the service so half the trains go north through Waterloo Park and half go north along King, then you only have half the frequency on either branch. You could add some trains that just run along the loop, but then there are more transfers.

(I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just curious.)

Yeah, that is a good question, I've thought about that a few times, and I'm not really sure, I think running half up King and half up the Spur would make the most sense, frequency would be halved but that's okay so long as our frequency is high already...and stations near the north end (Northfield, Conestoga) would still see good frequencies, because for most destinations, it wouldn't matter which direction they got on.

[danbrotherston]

While on the topic of things far in the future:



I tend to agree that an extension of the LRT from Conestoga Mall down King, West on University and Erb to The Boardwalk makes good sense both from a ridership and development standpoint.

I envision that the outer 2 lanes of Univsersity Ave would be converted into a transit mall with shared stations for all buses and LRT (similar layout to Willis Way in Uptown)

Also, given rail ownership, I could see an O-Train type of service from The Boardwalk to a new terminal at Region of Waterloo airport to connect the airport to both the GO station at Breslau and Downtown Kitchener.

Lol....everyone always wants to connect up the airport. Maybe you guys have a vision for our airport that I don't see.

[tomh009]

Also, given rail ownership, I could see an O-Train type of service from The Boardwalk to a new terminal at Region of Waterloo airport to connect the airport to both the GO station at Breslau and Downtown Kitchener.

Lol....everyone always wants to connect up the airport. Maybe you guys have a vision for our airport that I don't see.

Until such time that there are flights leaving throughout the day, a bus service to the airport makes a lot more sense. Minimal startup cost, and bus schedules can easily be adjusted based on flight schedules.

[dunkalunk]

While on the topic of things far in the future:



I tend to agree that an extension of the LRT from Conestoga Mall down King, West on University and Erb to The Boardwalk makes good sense both from a ridership and development standpoint.

I envision that the outer 2 lanes of Univsersity Ave would be converted into a transit mall with shared stations for all buses and LRT (similar layout to Willis Way in Uptown)

Also, given rail ownership, I could see an O-Train type of service from The Boardwalk to a new terminal at Region of Waterloo airport to connect the airport to both the GO station at Breslau and Downtown Kitchener.

Lol....everyone always wants to connect up the airport. Maybe you guys have a vision for our airport that I don't see.

While on the topic of things far in the future. (Think 2060, when we have flying electric taxis between here are Toronto ?). In all seriousness though, any half-hourly service between Kitchener and Guelph is probably more valuable than an airport connection in the short term.

[ac3r]

Lol....everyone always wants to connect up the airport. Maybe you guys have a vision for our airport that I don't see.

I think the logic is "build it and they will come" but the airport has to grow first. It'll be a very, very, very long time before there is any sort of rail connection to the airport. Pearson only got the Union Pearson Express in 2015. I think we'll all be old and/or dead by the time YKF sees an LRT connecting it.

[Bytor]

Lol....everyone always wants to connect up the airport. Maybe you guys have a vision for our airport that I don't see.

I think the logic is "build it and they will come" but the airport has to grow first. It'll be a very, very, very long time before there is any sort of rail connection to the airport. Pearson only got the Union Pearson Express in 2015. I think we'll all be old and/or dead by the time YKF sees an LRT connecting it.

I think that UPX took so long to appear has more to do with the North American love of the automobile and dislike of sane public transit systems, rather than Pearson's volume of use. Where as for YKF, the issue there really is its volume of use.

"Build and they will come" is true, but is a lot easier to use as a justification for something that can be built incrementally, like bike lanes. We can't really build rail service to YKF incrementally. :-(

[nms]

Northfield to R+T is closer to 2km.

It's actually around 1500m if not a bit less then that.

[kalis0490]

I think we should  talk more about the  Conestoga  /king /unversity to westmount line. It has the most potential for rt . 
More than a highland/victoria line currently I believe. Theyre building university and king again so it may be better to add bus lanes or something for potential ion rt 3. This route has been earmarked  in multiple regional docs for rt in future.

[tomh009]

I think we should  talk more about the  Conestoga  /king /unversity to westmount line. It has the most potential for rt . 
More than a highland/victoria line currently I believe. Theyre building university and king again so it may be better to add bus lanes or something for potential ion rt 3. This route has been earmarked  in multiple regional docs for rt in future.

I think BRT might be the right answer here, and that way it could still happen in the current decade. Something like a U-shaped BRT line along University, Ira Needles and Victoria?

[kalis0490]

The portion king to university to waterloo station should be lrt imo as theres very high ppl/jobs/hectare, ridership of grt and development chance.  Moreso than any section in Cambridge I think , I think that lrt make sense given the crush loads. The Kitchener part ( highland/victoria) currently has far less of the above and brt makes sense  IMO. The grt ridership map I posted shows this.


That section  I was talking about was considered for ion but due to the rail corridor, they didn't go with the alignment.