General University Area Updates and Rumours

[Acitta]

There is an ION station and a bus terminal right there at the University. Why do you need to drive a car to get there?

Well primarily because our cities are built like shit and so you still need a car to get most places in any reasonable amount of time. 

That said I would love to take a bus or the Ion, but when it’s a 15 minute drive from my parents house to the nearest bus stop or a 25 min drive to the nearest LRT stop and only a 35-40 min drive to the university, taking transit doesn’t make much sense. 

Alternatively I could pay $1000 a month to live in a shitty apartment next to the university but I’d rather be comfortable at home for free and pay the gas money instead.

It is a no more than a 30-minute bike ride from anywhere in Waterloo to UW. It is a thirty-minute bike ride from downtown Kitchener to UW and less than an hour from the bottom of Kitchener. If you find the GRT too slow, then get a bicycle and sell your expensive to support car.

[CP42]

Well primarily because our cities are built like shit and so you still need a car to get most places in any reasonable amount of time. 

That said I would love to take a bus or the Ion, but when it’s a 15 minute drive from my parents house to the nearest bus stop or a 25 min drive to the nearest LRT stop and only a 35-40 min drive to the university, taking transit doesn’t make much sense. 

Alternatively I could pay $1000 a month to live in a shitty apartment next to the university but I’d rather be comfortable at home for free and pay the gas money instead.

It is a no more than a 30-minute bike ride from anywhere in Waterloo to UW. It is a thirty-minute bike ride from downtown Kitchener to UW and less than an hour from the bottom of Kitchener. If you find the GRT too slow, then get a bicycle and sell your expensive to support car.

This is such a bad take.

[the_conestoga_guy]

It is a no more than a 30-minute bike ride from anywhere in Waterloo to UW. It is a thirty-minute bike ride from downtown Kitchener to UW and less than an hour from the bottom of Kitchener. If you find the GRT too slow, then get a bicycle and sell your expensive to support car.

This is such a bad take.

Yeah, if it’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest bus stop, I can’t imagine it’d be a reasonable cycling distance from UW. 

It’s one thing to ask a working person to move closer to their job. But it’s a non-option to someone who can just commute to school from their parents house given the current housing market.

[Acitta]

This is such a bad take.

Yeah, if it’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest bus stop, I can’t imagine it’d be a reasonable cycling distance from UW. 

It’s one thing to ask a working person to move closer to their job. But it’s a non-option to someone who can just commute to school from their parents house given the current housing market.

Well, I am 70 years old and have no problem cycling all over Waterloo Region, year round. It is even easier since I bought an e-bike. K-W is less than 15 km across and just over 20 km top to bottom. It is not hard to get anywhere in the two cities in a reasonable amount of time, especially with the increasing improvements to the cycling and trail networks.

[ac3r]

Time is precious and few people are willing to waste time to take transit and such if they don't have to. With the time it takes to get anywhere via transit or cycling it's no surprise people aren't going to use it as a primary means of getting around. The region and GRT also clearly need new talent that is actually used to running rapid transit and transit in a region that is now the size it is because they have no idea what they're doing anymore besides trying to find enough money to fuel the buses and keep the lights on now when they should have been working to strengthen the existing system to encourage people to actually transition to using that and even taking a bike along with them.

[bravado]

Well primarily because our cities are built like shit and so you still need a car to get most places in any reasonable amount of time. 

That said I would love to take a bus or the Ion, but when it’s a 15 minute drive from my parents house to the nearest bus stop or a 25 min drive to the nearest LRT stop and only a 35-40 min drive to the university, taking transit doesn’t make much sense. 

Alternatively I could pay $1000 a month to live in a shitty apartment next to the university but I’d rather be comfortable at home for free and pay the gas money instead.

That all makes sense, so just another cost of your comfort at home and low gas money budget is that you have to pay out the ass for parking and walk from the corner of campus... Can't really have it both ways.

[danbrotherston]

Well primarily because our cities are built like shit and so you still need a car to get most places in any reasonable amount of time. 

That said I would love to take a bus or the Ion, but when it’s a 15 minute drive from my parents house to the nearest bus stop or a 25 min drive to the nearest LRT stop and only a 35-40 min drive to the university, taking transit doesn’t make much sense. 

Alternatively I could pay $1000 a month to live in a shitty apartment next to the university but I’d rather be comfortable at home for free and pay the gas money instead.

That all makes sense, so just another cost of your comfort at home and low gas money budget is that you have to pay out the ass for parking and walk from the corner of campus... Can't really have it both ways.

This is the right take.

This is no different than complaining that gas is too expensive.

Accita's take is wrong...it is isn't possible to bike from everywhere in the region. I also drove to campus and I also hated parking there, but I lived with family in New Hamburg (more than a decade before they had even the absolutely minimal transit they have now), getting to campus REQUIRED a car...biking was infeasible in summer and impossible in winter. If I didn't have a car, I wouldn't have been in school. And yes, it was still cheaper than living on campus...for me it wasn't for comfort, it was financial reality. Housing was and is way more expensive than driving, but largely because driving is massively subsidised.

[Acitta]

That all makes sense, so just another cost of your comfort at home and low gas money budget is that you have to pay out the ass for parking and walk from the corner of campus... Can't really have it both ways.

This is the right take.

This is no different than complaining that gas is too expensive.

Accita's take is wrong...it is isn't possible to bike from everywhere in the region. I also drove to campus and I also hated parking there, but I lived with family in New Hamburg (more than a decade before they had even the absolutely minimal transit they have now), getting to campus REQUIRED a car...biking was infeasible in summer and impossible in winter. If I didn't have a car, I wouldn't have been in school. And yes, it was still cheaper than living on campus...for me it wasn't for comfort, it was financial reality. Housing was and is way more expensive than driving, but largely because driving is massively subsidised.

Well, I cycle all over the region, including going to New Hamburg on occasion. I agree that for a daily commute, New Hamburg to Waterloo is rather long and most people may not want to do that. However, if you live in Kitchener or Waterloo and your destination is in either of those, then commuting by bicycle is definitely a reasonable proposition. I live in Kitchener and regularly shop at the Wholesale Club in Waterloo and periodically go to the St. Jacobs Market. It is not difficult. I have never owned a car in my life, and couldn't afford one even if I wanted one. There are a lot of people who live a car-free lifestyle. In fact, one of the reasons I moved to Kitchener 22 years ago was that the Region was great for cycling.

[danbrotherston]

This is the right take.

This is no different than complaining that gas is too expensive.

Accita's take is wrong...it is isn't possible to bike from everywhere in the region. I also drove to campus and I also hated parking there, but I lived with family in New Hamburg (more than a decade before they had even the absolutely minimal transit they have now), getting to campus REQUIRED a car...biking was infeasible in summer and impossible in winter. If I didn't have a car, I wouldn't have been in school. And yes, it was still cheaper than living on campus...for me it wasn't for comfort, it was financial reality. Housing was and is way more expensive than driving, but largely because driving is massively subsidised.

Well, I cycle all over the region, including going to New Hamburg on occasion. I agree that for a daily commute, New Hamburg to Waterloo is rather long and most people may not want to do that. However, if you live in Kitchener or Waterloo and your destination is in either of those, then commuting by bicycle is definitely a reasonable proposition. I live in Kitchener and regularly shop at the Wholesale Club in Waterloo and periodically go to the St. Jacobs Market. It is not difficult. I have never owned a car in my life, and couldn't afford one even if I wanted one. There are a lot of people who live a car-free lifestyle. In fact, one of the reasons I moved to Kitchener 22 years ago was that the Region was great for cycling.

I mean, I lived in the region without a car for seven years, so I am quite familiar with the experience.

Given that Bjay says that the nearest bus stop is a 15 minute drive from his home, I can only assume that he is in a town in one of the townships...there aren't many places in the city that are a 15 minute walk from a bus stop let alone a 15 minute drive.

I also think that there are places in the cities where you can live where you would not feel comfortable/safe cycling places; the highway remains a significant barrier in many places. While you and I (or at least the me who lived in the region, before I had a child) might feel comfortable riding on painted bike lanes next to 80+km/h traffic I can certainly and personally understand why not everyone would.

If one has no choice about where they live, driving is likely to become far less optional than for people who have the freedom to choose where they live based on their transportation needs. Frankly, living within 2 blocks of five carshare vehicles, plus being within 50 meters of an ION stop, plus living within 100 meters along a relatively roadway of trails leading to the Iron Horse Trail afforded me a significantly different car free experience than someone living out by Trussler Woods....or any of the the other idiotically inaccessible suburbs the city has built in the last 10 years.

(Aside on "progress"....

People say "we're making progress"...but what is progress...is progress...moving towards a goal? That's how I take "progress", and I think most people take it that way. We aren't making progress by that definition. We build more sprawl faster than we fix our broken urban planning. We are making "progress" only in the sense that we are moving away from our goal more slowly than before...)

[plam]

(Aside on "progress"....

People say "we're making progress"...but what is progress...is progress...moving towards a goal? That's how I take "progress", and I think most people take it that way. We aren't making progress by that definition. We build more sprawl faster than we fix our broken urban planning. We are making "progress" only in the sense that we are moving away from our goal more slowly than before...)

Low-density sprawl is, well, low-density, and so the correct question to ask is about the numbers/proportion of people living in low-walkscore (+ transit, bike, etc) vs high-walkscore regions.

[tomh009]

Yeah, if it’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest bus stop, I can’t imagine it’d be a reasonable cycling distance from UW. 

I can't imagine anywhere in Kitchener or Waterloo where it would take a 15-minute drive to the nearest bus stop, so I assume Bjays93 is living somewhere in the townships. Which means the issue is not really how our cities are built but where each person chooses to live.

[dtkvictim]

Yeah, if it’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest bus stop, I can’t imagine it’d be a reasonable cycling distance from UW. 

I can't imagine anywhere in Kitchener or Waterloo where it would take a 15-minute drive to the nearest bus stop, so I assume Bjays93 is living somewhere in the townships. Which means the issue is not really how our cities are built but where each person chooses to live.

Many people don't exactly get to choose where to live, at least not in a reasonable sense. That's not completely down to how our cities are built, but it is a factor.

I think it's also reasonable to argue that a city built with car dependency affects nearby areas/towns. If KW was a compact transit friendly city, I bet places like New Hamburg would be served with higher quality transit connections to KW too.

[Bjays93]

Yeah, if it’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest bus stop, I can’t imagine it’d be a reasonable cycling distance from UW. 

I can't imagine anywhere in Kitchener or Waterloo where it would take a 15-minute drive to the nearest bus stop, so I assume Bjays93 is living somewhere in the townships. Which means the issue is not really how our cities are built but where each person chooses to live.

Yes, my parents home is out in the townships. 

We aren’t even in a town, it is a 150 year old farmhouse on a 48 acre plot of land that is now mostly provincially sensitive wetlands. I obviously had no influence over where my parents chose to live, they bought the house before I was even born. It’s a gorgeous place and quite honestly, I’d take it over suburbs any day. Having also lived in a big city with great transit, I have absolutely nothing against big city living and honestly I really like it. But it’s either countryside or downtown, I definitely couldn’t do suburbs or sprawl. If you choose to live in the country though, then driving is a reality. 

It would be an hour and a half bike ride from my house to school which, isn’t economical to begin with but even if I could handle that bike ride every day, that means leaving at 6am for morning classes and depending on if I have a night class or not (like I do this term) I could be biking home at 11pm at night. 

That’s biking in the dark on unlit country roads, where people often drive way over the speed limit and doing that every day. Then in the winter you can add potentially unplowed roads into the mix. 

I love biking and I ride my bike a ton. If I was in the city and anywhere inside of a 30 min bike ride from UW I’d absolutely bike there often. Unfortunately it’s just not an option for me even though I wish it was. 

As Dan said, the alternative is I simply have to deal with the crappy UW parking setup, which is fine. The point of my initial comment wasn’t even complaining about the cost (which does annoy me) my problem has nothing to do with the parking itself per se, but rather going back to the original comment I made, I think surface parking lots are a terrible use of space. Beyond the long distance from parking lots to where you want to get on campus, my real issue is that lots should built underneath various buildings and the current surface lots converted to other uses. Heck, I’d gladly pay more for parking if that were the case. 

No idea how this spiralled into what it did.

[plam]

I can't imagine anywhere in Kitchener or Waterloo where it would take a 15-minute drive to the nearest bus stop, so I assume Bjays93 is living somewhere in the townships. Which means the issue is not really how our cities are built but where each person chooses to live.

As Dan said, the alternative is I simply have to deal with the crappy UW parking setup, which is fine. The point of my initial comment wasn’t even complaining about the cost (which does annoy me) my problem has nothing to do with the parking itself per se, but rather going back to the original comment I made, I think surface parking lots are a terrible use of space. Beyond the long distance from parking lots to where you want to get on campus, my real issue is that lots should built underneath various buildings and the current surface lots converted to other uses. Heck, I’d gladly pay more for parking if that were the case. 

No idea how this spiralled into what it did.

It's certainly far more space-efficient to put parking lots in structured parking or underground, but it also costs like $25k per spot in 2015 dollars or something. But yes, I do agree that huge parking lots are a terrible use of space and actually bad for the environment.

[nms]

Add to that the added challenge that I doubt that parking structures are actively part of the provincial funding formula so funding a larger parking structure would have to come out of other university revenue (including parking fees). Could a parking structure actually be built and financed on future parking fees alone? Does anyone know if that's how Grand River Hospital supports their parking garage?