ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ac3r]

Somebody mentioned cheaping out on ION, but I’m not sure if everybody understands that going underground is almost certainly not feasible.

IDK why everyone keeps saying this. I have a PhD in architecture so I know a lot about engineering. It would have been entirely feasible to do cut and cover underground sections where necessary and without spending a too much money. It would have cost more than what we paid, but it would have paid for itself very quickly. There are no engineering challenges that could not have been overcome. I know everyone points to the water table but there are cities next to oceans that can build underground or run train tunnels under rivers and lakes. It's not hard.

The region was simply adamant to get it built ASAP, meaning that was not in the budget they decided to allocate though we could have easily reallocated money to it in order to tunnel or elevate it where needed. But we didn't, so as a result we have a "rapid" transit system that in many places travels slower than one can walk, that vehicles often drive into - with a cement truck derailing the entire thing, having to stop at red lights, to a wee bit of ice shutting the entire system down.

So really...what would have made more sense? An LRT that perhaps would have cost more but could have run underground or elevated downtown, moving much faster and wouldn't have to worry about driving into cars or people? Or one that plays bumper cars with traffic and falls apart due to a little bit of ice?

It's stuff like this that makes people, in the long run, not want to invest in transit. When you build a system that is very slow, gets into accidents, has the entire system shut down due to the weather - then people wonder why we spend the money in the first place. But if you invest a little more and be a little more bold and daring, you can end up with a proper transit system that can actually get more people out of their cars.

Of course it's too late to do anything, but that won't stop me from ranting on about how the region handicapped itself by designing the LRT the way they did... :'P And indeed, it was the cement truck at fault here. But it wouldn't have crashed into it if the LRT ran underground here. Ideally, I would have began tunneling it at perhaps Borden Station...then have back above ground at Grand River Hospital Station (just to save money - and because cut and cover makes that easy) then tunnel it again before Allen and bring it back up after Waterloo Public Square where it runs along the Laurel Trail. And then bam, you've got a light-metro that doesn't have to worry about traffic or signals or pedestrians and which can run much faster. And sure, it would have cost an extra couple hundred millions of dollars but that efficiency would have paid for itself.

[jamincan]

Obviously it's possible to go underground from an engineering perspective. To think that it was politically possible is incredibly naive.

[bravado]

It's just frustrating to hear the exact same people who forced this compromise on Ion are also the ones bitching that it is ugly, slow, and easy to drive into.

[neonjoe]

I know they built the first phase of iON on the cheap as the province and the feds only committed around 550m to us. Anything more would not have been digestible for the property tax base. If not elevated or underground why could they have not added crossing arms on the urban stretches of the system where it made sense. The side running ballasted portion on Courtland and Hayward have them. This could haven been done fairly cheaply. Although it’s probably not allowed by the MTO or Transport Canada.

[taylortbb]

And sure, it would have cost an extra couple hundred millions of dollars but that efficiency would have paid for itself.

It's nothing to do with engineering, it's all about that "extra couple hundred million" . I think what you describe would be closer to $500M, but that's not really the point. As someone deeply involved with the LRT approval process, who ran an "LRT war room" tracking the stances of every member of regional council (and why), I give you my absolute guarantee that if the project had cost $100M more we'd have no LRT.

I'd love tunneling through DTK too, I think the extra few hundred million would be money well spent, but I feel the same way I do about getting to travel through space with Captain Kirk. It's simply not connected to the reality we occupy. No amount of wishing for it will change that.

[danbrotherston]

“Why aren’t there crossing arms”. Why have crossing arms there and not on every other traffic signal in the city.

And we have rehashed the underground issue for years now lol.

There are all trade offs. When cars hit the LRV in downtown segments I question the design when they do so at fully signalized intersections I blame the bad drivers.

[ijmorlan]

Somebody mentioned cheaping out on ION, but I’m not sure if everybody understands that going underground is almost certainly not feasible.

IDK why everyone keeps saying this. I have a PhD in architecture so I know a lot about engineering. It would have been entirely feasible to do cut and cover underground sections where necessary and without spending a too much money. It would have cost more than what we paid, but it would have paid for itself very quickly. There are no engineering challenges that could not have been overcome. I know everyone points to the water table but there are cities next to oceans that can build underground or run train tunnels under rivers and lakes. It's not hard.

Right, it’s not hard, just expensive (in particular, dealing with water).

Even building the Gotthard Base Tunnel wasn’t really hard per se, just a stupendous amount of work.

The region was simply adamant to get it built ASAP, meaning that was not in the budget they decided to allocate though we could have easily reallocated money to it in order to tunnel or elevate it where needed. But we didn't, so as a result we have a "rapid" transit system that in many places travels slower than one can walk, that vehicles often drive into - with a cement truck derailing the entire thing, having to stop at red lights, to a wee bit of ice shutting the entire system down.

The slow travel is due to safety paranoia, not due to cost cutting. It could run faster if we would just decide to do so.

To be fair, I don’t know if it’s local safety paranoia that could be fixed by changing personnel at Grandlinq, or if it’s imposed by regulators. But I find it unbelievable that, for example, the slow speeds southbound approaching Erb St. or when running parallel to Courtland are really justified by any realistic safety concerns.

If anybody actually knows anything about the slowdowns, I’m all ears — but I will be asking probing questions about the information and won’t quietly accept any bafflegab.

[…]

Of course it's too late to do anything, but that won't stop me from ranting on about how the region handicapped itself by designing the LRT the way they did... :'P And indeed, it was the cement truck at fault here. But it wouldn't have crashed into it if the LRT ran underground here. Ideally, I would have began tunneling it at perhaps Borden Station...then have back above ground at Grand River Hospital Station (just to save money - and because cut and cover makes that easy) then tunnel it again before Allen and bring it back up after Waterloo Public Square where it runs along the Laurel Trail. And then bam, you've got a light-metro that doesn't have to worry about traffic or signals or pedestrians and which can run much faster. And sure, it would have cost an extra couple hundred millions of dollars but that efficiency would have paid for itself.

You do know where Laurel Creek runs through Uptown? You might actually be able to convince me that a grade separation at Agnes St. is not totally unrealistic (my biggest concern would be where the sewer line is), but threading a rail tunnel around the creek definitely moves it into the expensive megaproject category (relative to the size of our city).

[danbrotherston]

IDK why everyone keeps saying this. I have a PhD in architecture so I know a lot about engineering. It would have been entirely feasible to do cut and cover underground sections where necessary and without spending a too much money. It would have cost more than what we paid, but it would have paid for itself very quickly. There are no engineering challenges that could not have been overcome. I know everyone points to the water table but there are cities next to oceans that can build underground or run train tunnels under rivers and lakes. It's not hard.

Right, it’s not hard, just expensive (in particular, dealing with water).

Even building the Gotthard Base Tunnel wasn’t really hard per se, just a stupendous amount of work.

The region was simply adamant to get it built ASAP, meaning that was not in the budget they decided to allocate though we could have easily reallocated money to it in order to tunnel or elevate it where needed. But we didn't, so as a result we have a "rapid" transit system that in many places travels slower than one can walk, that vehicles often drive into - with a cement truck derailing the entire thing, having to stop at red lights, to a wee bit of ice shutting the entire system down.

The slow travel is due to safety paranoia, not due to cost cutting. It could run faster if we would just decide to do so.

To be fair, I don’t know if it’s local safety paranoia that could be fixed by changing personnel at Grandlinq, or if it’s imposed by regulators. But I find it unbelievable that, for example, the slow speeds southbound approaching Erb St. or when running parallel to Courtland are really justified by any realistic safety concerns.

If anybody actually knows anything about the slowdowns, I’m all ears — but I will be asking probing questions about the information and won’t quietly accept any bafflegab.

[…]

Of course it's too late to do anything, but that won't stop me from ranting on about how the region handicapped itself by designing the LRT the way they did... :'P And indeed, it was the cement truck at fault here. But it wouldn't have crashed into it if the LRT ran underground here. Ideally, I would have began tunneling it at perhaps Borden Station...then have back above ground at Grand River Hospital Station (just to save money - and because cut and cover makes that easy) then tunnel it again before Allen and bring it back up after Waterloo Public Square where it runs along the Laurel Trail. And then bam, you've got a light-metro that doesn't have to worry about traffic or signals or pedestrians and which can run much faster. And sure, it would have cost an extra couple hundred millions of dollars but that efficiency would have paid for itself.

You do know where Laurel Creek runs through Uptown? You might actually be able to convince me that a grade separation at Agnes St. is not totally unrealistic (my biggest concern would , but threading a rail tunnel around the creek definitely moves it into the expensive megaproject category (relative to the size of our city).

I think the thing that this has really revealed to me is just how invalid the "cyclists run red lights" rhetoric really is.

I knew drivers ran red lights sometimes, but given how wide the tolerances for the LRT are, it's clear to me that drivers run red lights CONSTANTLY...and not like...just red...LONG red.

As for speed...good luck finding answers...I've been asking for a while and got nothing. But there is no justification for this, for the LRV to be surrounded by cars doing 20 over the limit while it's forced to do 10, 20, 30 under the limit in some places.

Everyone here is on board with slow = safer, but I guarantee you, STOPPED LRVs would get crashed into. At a certain point, the problem is cars.

And I'm so tired of tunnels being painted as the magical solution...Toronto has a streetcar tunnel...it is not car free..

[ac3r]

Photos of some repair teams repositioning the train onto the tracks and one of an LRV towing the damaged to the service depot. A very costly procedure to do some very costly repairs. They'll also have to do some very costly track, electrical line and pantograph inspection. Then do a very costly repair on the train. And then a very costly investigation at all levels: GRT, RoW, Keolis, WRPS and so on. Eventually, the added up cost of all these collisions over the years will have cost the same as tunnels or elevated sections.

We can blame the cars all we want - and indeed they're at fault - but guess what? The LRT is basically a very expensive, very slow car because it is forced to share the same infrastructure they do. Wouldn't have had this issue if there was more investment or even just better planning. I.e. don't build it so long at first if the budget was the issue. Scrap the fantasy Cambridge line for now. Build the rest in phases. And start small.

Let's take the Edmonton LRT for example. The Capital Line started off in 1978 with 5 stations in the downtown area: 2 underground, 3 on the surface. In 1981 they expanded it with an additional surface station. In 1983 they expanded again with 3 more underground stations. 1982 and 1992 saw more underground expansion. By the 2000s they could warrant further expansion of the Capital Line. The slow but steady evolution of their rapid transit system meant they could build a much better system in increments, expanding as needed as well as capitalizing on the various economic and political changes that time brought (allowing them to get more funding from the governments). It also allowed them to prove to the public that it was worth the investment. Now they're at the point where they're expanding the Capital and Metro lines, building the new Valley Line and proposing 2 additional lines for the future and have a pretty great rapid transit system now.

Why couldn't we have done that here? Obviously, I understand they wanted to use this to spark off transit-oriented development and it did do a good job at it, but the system itself is still pretty weak. It's not like we absolutely needed to have Block Line Station or Northfield Station and similar low traffic stations right away. We could have built it to go from Borden to UW or something and then expand it as the years go by and likely not have spend more than we need...maybe an extra 250 million to build some easily constructed tunnels or elevated sections. We give the cops nearly that much each year so they can overpay officers and buy fancy toys...so we can't be that worried about how we spend money.

Photo credit goes to platonacci23 and wanTron_Soup.

[plam]

Photos of some repair teams repositioning the train onto the tracks and one of an LRV towing the damaged to the service depot. A very costly procedure to do some very costly repairs. They'll also have to do some very costly track, electrical line and pantograph inspection. Then do a very costly repair on the train. And then a very costly investigation at all levels: GRT, RoW, Keolis, WRPS and so on. Eventually, the added up cost of all these collisions over the years will have cost the same as tunnels or elevated sections.

I mean, everyone else here agrees that if it was a choice between tunnels or nothing, we would have gotten the nothing. Of course tunnels are technically possible, but the political will wasn't there.

Also, spending money later is less expensive than spending money earlier. So the costs over the years may still be less.

[neonjoe]

I believe that in most cases the third-party liability insurance of the party at fault will pay for damages to infrastructure/property. If not this, the municipality's insurance will cover it. The costs are of the damage is not directly passed down to the taxpayer.

[danbrotherston]

I believe that in most cases the third-party liability insurance of the party at fault will pay for damages to infrastructure/property. If not this, the municipality's insurance will cover it. The costs are of the damage is not directly passed down to the taxpayer.

I mean...if the insurance company pays for it...we still pay...if not directly...than indirectly.

At least if their liability insurance pays...only drivers (or commercial operators) pay.

[KevinL]

In this case, as the offending vehicle (cement truck) surely belongs to a private enterprise, I imagine the bill will go to their insurance.

[clasher]

I'd trade the money we spend on cops for a subway.

[danbrotherston]

I'd trade the money we spend on cops for a subway.

I wouldn't. I'm all for defunding the police, but there are far better uses of the money than a subway.

And if we're making magical choices that aren't realistic that would make the city better, I'd defund the police, dump that money into social services. Then I'd have built the LRT mostly at grade as it is now, but I'd have closed King to cars end to end and run the LRT all the way up it, and given it automatic priority at every intersection.

Now I have almost all the advantages of a subway at a lower cost than we spent on the LRT. Yes, it's still possible for someone to hit the train.

For a city of our density, building a fully grade separated system is just a subsidy for cars.