ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

Real greenery is a benefit though. It provides drainage, encourages insects and lessens the heat island effect. There may be fake grass that can also achieve that but real grass will always be superior.

Real is better, absolutely. But if that's not possible, artificial grass might still be better than bare concrete ...

[KevinL]

I think there’s a real argument to be made for a green track - not even necessarily grass, just something green and alive. Clover? Bee-friendly grasses?

Sedum works well on green roofs, and I see from Wikipedia it's been used this way too.

[tomh009]

I think there’s a real argument to be made for a green track - not even necessarily grass, just something green and alive. Clover? Bee-friendly grasses?

Sedum works well on green roofs, and I see from Wikipedia it's been used this way too.

Nice idea, Kevin, I love this! Far less maintenance than grass, too.



https://www.sempergreen.com/us/solutions...-blanket-1

[ac3r]

I don't know how I missed this - or maybe I've just forgotten about this news as it's from 2022 - but the region does not expect construction of the Cambridge line to begin until 2028 and be operational by 2032 (though I'm sure that target would not be met like last time). Really?! That's disappointing news, particularly for residents of Cambridge since they had to hand over a lot of money to fund it in Kitchener and Waterloo.

As usual and true to the meme of Cambridge being awful, they get shafted and left behind once again.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.6553870

[bravado]

I don't know how I missed this - or maybe I've just forgotten about this news as it's from 2022 - but the region does not expect construction of the Cambridge line to begin until 2028 and be operational by 2032 (though I'm sure that target would not be met like last time). Really?! That's disappointing news, particularly for residents of Cambridge since they had to hand over a lot of money to fund it in Kitchener and Waterloo.

As usual and true to the meme of Cambridge being awful, they get shafted and left behind once again.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.6553870

Yeah it’s embarrassing, but the Region likes to do safe and mediocre instead of ambitious and useful. The resentment in Cambridge(over a lot of things) is super real and shouldn’t be ignored. The new Mayor hasn’t been around long enough yet to really show her true Chapman side.

[ac3r]

You'd think it would have been better to get a pro-LRT mayor to run. One who understands the benefit of what sort of progress this would have meant for Cambridge as a place to live, an area for innovation, to set up a business, the economic and intellectual growth that would have occurred by pushing the city in the direction to become more integrated in the region, national and global world and the benefits it brings.

Waterloo Region just seem as if Kitchener and Waterloo is the place it now is to (usually) good governance over the decades. We took some massive chances when it came to investments in new roads, redoing infrastructure and urban spaces, doing theoretical studies on what sort of direction we should focus on, building the LRT which brought in so much investment it's crazy and got so much growth in business, from the very large (look what Google has accomplished) to small (pick any new business a new or old resident started up on their own).

Cambridge is just like: Yeah, we're here, can you not bother us unless it's really important? We're fine the way we are.

[bravado]

Cambridge is just like: Yeah, we're here, can you not bother us unless it's really important? We're fine the way we are.

This, but a lot angrier…

I look forward to the angry complaining types that got elected learning the hard way that whining online (their former job) is a lot easier than actually delivering (their new job).

Many people are perfectly content with being a car sewer suburb and I only wish the bills associated with that life come due sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, the little hardworking cores of Galt, Hespeler and Preston are longing for any connection with the more dynamic cities north of the 401. The LRT is a MAJOR part of making that connection happen - or else we’re all doomed to become a Toronto commuter town attached politically at the hip to 2 independent towns with real futures.

[nms]

Cambridge has also had to spend 50 years cobbling together a municipal identity. Waterloo didn't have to change much as it grew because the communities that it absorbed were pretty small. Kitchener just gobbled up everything including some larger villages until it hit Preston and Hespeler.

Cambridge also spent a lot of effort rearranging the downtowns of Preston and Galt to deal with older buildings and flood prevention.

But 2028 is only 5 years away now, which is in the range of time between the decision to choose LRT in the Region and put a shovel in the ground in Waterloo and Kitchener. And they didn't have to cross a major highway or river.

[Bytor]

Prior to the pandemic at the rate that ridership on ION aBRT, later route 302 was going, 2028 would have been the first year that it would have been high enough for it to have crossed the threshold where LRT operating costs per ride are finally lower than a bus route for the same number of people. Roughly 7,000 per day on average.

2032 would have been 10,000/day, the point where the divergence in costs becomes apparent and bus routes start to struggle as they begin to need 10 minute headways or better to not be overly crowded.

As such, 2028 was a reasonable earliest point for Stage 2 construction to start, and 2032 a reasonable goal for start of service.

While the increased ridership in the latter half of 2019 was huge, even going by GRT's historical 5-7% yearly average growth, 30% growth wasn't something that would have been sustained, but because the pandemic hit we don't know if it would have returned to 7% or settled at something higher. If it went back to 7% yearly growth, which is still incredible, that only pushes forward the 7,000 and 10,000 daily riders as mentioned above by a year, 2027 and 2031, and only barely.

So 2028/2032 was still a reasonable hypothetical time frame.

Far more concerning, in my personal opinion, is that the RMoW has steadfastly and consistently refused to give any sort of targets or metrics that would start the processes for Stage 2 in earnest. Not yet having funding is irrelevant, because such targets could be worded like "If funding has been secured, then at 5,000 daily riders we order the extra trams, at 6,000 we start the RFQ process, …" and so on.

As we all know, the Region waited excessively late with the relevant bus routes having serious issues for many years before the contract was finally awarded. ION could have easily had a decade of service before the pandemic, based on ridership alone. I fear the Region will do a similar thing for Stage 2.

[Acitta]

Prior to the pandemic at the rate that ridership on ION aBRT, later route 302 was going, 2028 would have been the first year that it would have been high enough for it to have crossed the threshold where LRT operating costs per ride are finally lower than a bus route for the same number of people. Roughly 7,000 per day on average.

2032 would have been 10,000/day, the point where the divergence in costs becomes apparent and bus routes start to struggle as they begin to need 10 minute headways or better to not be overly crowded.

As such, 2028 was a reasonable earliest point for Stage 2 construction to start, and 2032 a reasonable goal for start of service.

While the increased ridership in the latter half of 2019 was huge, even going by GRT's historical 5-7% yearly average growth, 30% growth wasn't something that would have been sustained, but because the pandemic hit we don't know if it would have returned to 7% or settled at something higher. If it went back to 7% yearly growth, which is still incredible, that only pushes forward the 7,000 and 10,000 daily riders as mentioned above by a year, 2027 and 2031, and only barely.

So 2028/2032 was still a reasonable hypothetical time frame.

Far more concerning, in my personal opinion, is that the RMoW has steadfastly and consistently refused to give any sort of targets or metrics that would start the processes for Stage 2 in earnest. Not yet having funding is irrelevant, because such targets could be worded like "If funding has been secured, then at 5,000 daily riders we order the extra trams, at 6,000 we start the RFQ process, …" and so on.

As we all know, the Region waited excessively late with the relevant bus routes having serious issues for many years before the contract was finally awarded. ION could have easily had a decade of service before the pandemic, based on ridership alone. I fear the Region will do a similar thing for Stage 2.

I bet that if the ION to Cambridge were in service right now, that ridership would be a lot higher than the current bus service. I certainly would go there more often if I could take the ION all the way there.

[Bytor]

Higher than today? Sure, I bet many would think like you. I would.

But higher enough to make it worthwhile by putting it over the "cheaper per ride than a bus route" threshold of roughly 7,000 a day? That I doubt. That would be an unbelievable 67% increase in average daily ridership.

[bravado]

I'm not certain that the current crazy congestion on the main car-sewers in Cambridge - which isn't comparable to KW's busiest streets IMO - really can handle any increase in bus users.

The LRT should be a project that's designed to fill a need that people aren't currently filling with existing transit, not replace or improve existing garbage options.

[KevinL]

Yeah, it's like the old phrase 'don't measure the need for a bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the river'. There could be a LOT of latent demand unlocked.

[ac3r]

More than could. If Cambridge was connected with the LRT it would definitely see high use. It's the second largest city in the region but feels entirely disconnected from the rest of us and the transit within the city itself is subpar.

[ijmorlan]

Yeah, it's like the old phrase 'don't measure the need for a bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the river'. There could be a LOT of latent demand unlocked.

It’s just like adding a lane to the highway, except actually affordable and sustainable unlike indefinite freeway widening.