Waterloo Region Connected
ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Printable Version

+- Waterloo Region Connected (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com)
+-- Forum: Waterloo Region Works (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=14)
+--- Forum: Transportation and Infrastructure (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=25)
+--- Thread: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit (/showthread.php?tid=14)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 03-13-2023

(03-13-2023, 09:59 AM)neonjoe Wrote: The Toronto subway claims many lives a year as well and its grade separated. We don't know the circumstances for this specific case but walking in a fenced area of the system in the middle of the night could have been due to many different reasons.
With the TO case, platform screen doors could help but really there's a point of declining returns for the investment made. Where there's a will to trespass there will always be a way.

There's quite a difference though. TTC subway fatalities are quite often suicides, accidental falls and the occasional psychotic person pushing someone onto the tracks (though that is extremely rare). And when it comes to subways, they're grade separated indeed but the stations are totally open. Thankfully, as you said, screen doors can be helpful. Unfortunately cost is once again the issue. It is estimated to cost well over 1 billion dollars to install screen doors on TTC subway stations, although that figure seems extremely bloated for such a simple technology.

The issue is: what price do we put on a human life? This forum will whine for weeks when a cyclist is killed and cry to the wolves that we should be lowering speed limits, putting crossing islands in, adding in new lights or speed bumps and so on and so on. All of that costs money, either in the construction of the infrastructure or the economic losses incurred by making it harder for people to get places in a timely manner. We want safe cycling lanes and sidewalks, so why not safe transit? I don't have any children but if I did, I would gladly put any sum value on their life...whether that was to improve bike lanes or rapid transit.

Unfortunately it is already too late to really do anything about this since we were too cheap to build the LRT in a safe manner in the first place. They got this thing approved as fast as they could and cut sooooooooo many corners to save money on it. Safety was not a priority. Any safety boils down to a horn, some signs and lights and essentially saying to anyone "it's your duty to not get your car hit or your life taken". Which, yes, it is our personal responsibility to ensure that but we also have to ensure we also mitigate as many avenues for those incidents from occurring in the first place.

Accidents will always happen, but we should be trying everything we can to design and engineer a world in which they are harder to happen. It's a very simple concept, money be damned. If money is an issue then to hell with bike lanes and pedestrian islands, right?

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - KingandWeber - 03-13-2023

(03-13-2023, 03:51 PM)ac3r Wrote:
(03-13-2023, 09:59 AM)neonjoe Wrote: The Toronto subway claims many lives a year as well and its grade separated. We don't know the circumstances for this specific case but walking in a fenced area of the system in the middle of the night could have been due to many different reasons.
With the TO case, platform screen doors could help but really there's a point of declining returns for the investment made. Where there's a will to trespass there will always be a way.

There's quite a difference though. TTC subway fatalities are quite often suicides, accidental falls and the occasional psychotic person pushing someone onto the tracks (though that is extremely rare). And when it comes to subways, they're grade separated indeed but the stations are totally open. Thankfully, as you said, screen doors can be helpful. Unfortunately cost is once again the issue. It is estimated to cost well over 1 billion dollars to install screen doors on TTC subway stations, although that figure seems extremely bloated for such a simple technology.

The issue is: what price do we put on a human life? This forum will whine for weeks when a cyclist is killed and cry to the wolves that we should be lowering speed limits, putting crossing islands in, adding in new lights or speed bumps and so on and so on. All of that costs money, either in the construction of the infrastructure or the economic losses incurred by making it harder for people to get places in a timely manner. We want safe cycling lanes and sidewalks, so why not safe transit? I don't have any children but if I did, I would gladly put any sum value on their life...whether that was to improve bike lanes or rapid transit.

Unfortunately it is already too late to really do anything about this since we were too cheap to build the LRT in a safe manner in the first place. They got this thing approved as fast as they could and cut sooooooooo many corners to save money on it. Safety was not a priority. Any safety boils down to a horn, some signs and lights and essentially saying to anyone "it's your duty to not get your car hit or your life taken". Which, yes, it is our personal responsibility to ensure that but we also have to ensure we also mitigate as many avenues for those incidents from occurring in the first place.

Accidents will always happen, but we should be trying everything we can to design and engineer a world in which they are harder to happen. It's a very simple concept, money be damned. If money is an issue then to hell with bike lanes and pedestrian islands, right?

You're missing a very important qualifier, which is "reasonably". In almost every case, it is unreasonable to take every safety precaution in engineering our world. And yes, that means we sometimes must make choices that will, at least on the face of things, statistically result in more direct injuries or even deaths to obtain certain other benefits. However, in the case of ION, I actually highly doubt (although it's impossible to know for certain) that there have been an increased number of accidents or deaths owing to its construction. Indeed, for the two people who have died and the others injured in car accidents involving ION, we don't know how many passengers did not die because they were never hit by a bus that ION replaced or never in a car accident and instead safely rode the ION. Further, the two deaths involving ION so far sound like they were the result of extreme recklessness or perhaps a willful intent to be harmed (as they involved individuals walking on active, dedicated train tracks at night) so I hardly think they're much different than the TTC fatalities you think are acceptable. And this is all without getting into the social, environmental and economic benefits of ION, which I think are numerous.

Boiling it all down though, I'm actually very interested to hear if your position is that the ION should simply not have been built at all. Taking into account the political climate and financial resources of the time, we know for an almost certainty that there would be no LRT today if it had to be grade separated so that was ultimately the choice that had to be made. I think the Region made the right choice in the circumstances, but I guess there is some argument we could have had a substantially larger BRT network with the money we spent. And this is not to say I think ION is perfect - far from it (I personally think it should have run through King St in Kitchener and that station planning could have been much improved, in both cases without any added cost) - but overall I think the project exemplifies not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - dtkvictim - 03-13-2023

(03-13-2023, 03:51 PM)ac3r Wrote: There's quite a difference though. TTC subway fatalities are quite often suicides, accidental falls and the occasional psychotic person pushing someone onto the tracks (though that is extremely rare). And when it comes to subways, they're grade separated indeed but the stations are totally open. Thankfully, as you said, screen doors can be helpful. Unfortunately cost is once again the issue. It is estimated to cost well over 1 billion dollars to install screen doors on TTC subway stations, although that figure seems extremely bloated for such a simple technology.

The issue is: what price do we put on a human life? This forum will whine for weeks when a cyclist is killed and cry to the wolves that we should be lowering speed limits, putting crossing islands in, adding in new lights or speed bumps and so on and so on. All of that costs money, either in the construction of the infrastructure or the economic losses incurred by making it harder for people to get places in a timely manner. We want safe cycling lanes and sidewalks, so why not safe transit? I don't have any children but if I did, I would gladly put any sum value on their life...whether that was to improve bike lanes or rapid transit.

Unfortunately it is already too late to really do anything about this since we were too cheap to build the LRT in a safe manner in the first place. They got this thing approved as fast as they could and cut sooooooooo many corners to save money on it. Safety was not a priority. Any safety boils down to a horn, some signs and lights and essentially saying to anyone "it's your duty to not get your car hit or your life taken". Which, yes, it is our personal responsibility to ensure that but we also have to ensure we also mitigate as many avenues for those incidents from occurring in the first place.

Accidents will always happen, but we should be trying everything we can to design and engineer a world in which they are harder to happen. It's a very simple concept, money be damned. If money is an issue then to hell with bike lanes and pedestrian islands, right?

Since you didn't answer before: Should we have stuck with the status quo, or should we have spent the money we did on the LRT, which already has a better track record for collisions in front of CHCI than the previous 4 lane road did? Is the money we spent not an improvement?

And since you didn't answer before: Should all tram lines in Europe be torn out and replaced with elevated or underground rail? What safety features do you think they have which ours doesn't? Many European cities release footage compilations of crashes or close calls that are no different than our system, and I bet the statistics are in the same order of magnitude.

What additional safety features do you want? According to the reporting on the recent fatal incident, the pedestrian was walking in the LRT right of way, which is completely fenced off in that area except for road and pedestrian crossings which are all signalized and have crossing arms.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Acitta - 03-13-2023

Last month, I took the GO bus to Bramalea to find that the trains had been delayed or cancelled because of "someone trespassing on the tracks." This often seems to happen on the Toronto Subway also. There always seems to be some idiot who thinks that it is a cool idea to walk through the tunnel. No matter how safe you make something, there is always some idiot who will go out of their way to make it unsafe.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Acitta - 03-13-2023

‘Sorry for the disruption’: Company that manages Waterloo Region’s light rail transit apologizes after freezing rain left riders scrambling for transit
Keolis’ manager admits weather has been a challenge this year

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 03-13-2023

(03-13-2023, 06:57 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: What additional safety features do you want? According to the reporting on the recent fatal incident, the pedestrian was walking in the LRT right of way, which is completely fenced off in that area except for road and pedestrian crossings which are all signalized and have crossing arms.

This point in particular is interesting in light of this discussion, because it entirely invalidates the complaint that the LRT was not built grade separated: in the areas where the fatal incidents occurred, it is grade separated. OK, not literally “grade” separated, as in existing at a different altitude from everything around it, but if the Toronto subway counts as entirely grade separated then the areas of the LRT where the collisions occurred count as grade separated.

The following are grade separated, yes?

https://goo.gl/maps/h1KbG4RhotvKUbdPA
https://goo.gl/maps/DSZ6gaJcohVgsrW3A
https://goo.gl/maps/qSVt3CU5qrcikKWY9

OK, the subway has barbed wire whereas the LRT doesn’t. What more could anybody want? And they shouldn’t bother to bring up level crossings. If somebody uses a level crossing to access the track and then walks along the track, that’s on them. It’s not anything wrong with the system design. Anyway, there are stairs at every subway station giving direct access to the track, so it’s not even true that the tracks aren’t accessible (well, not wheelchair accessible, but accessible on foot).

It is true that there are design errors in the system. For example, the failure to provide additional crossings in the Traynor area is an unforgivable lapse of engineering judgement. But the lack of grade separation is not a design error by any reasonable criterion.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 03-13-2023

(03-13-2023, 03:51 PM)ac3r Wrote: I don't have any children but if I did, I would gladly put any sum value on their life...whether that was to improve bike lanes or rapid transit.

Yes, I can believe that you would spend $100K to save the life of your (hypothetical) child. But that's still a non sequitur.

Or would you be willing to spend, say, $50K, (of your personal money, in either increased property taxes or increased rent) to either elevate or bury the LRT underground, because it would save some (a few) lives? In reality, not many people would be willing to do that.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Rainrider22 - 03-14-2023

Sadly you cant rule it out as intentional. I have seen many cases where people have put on head phones playing music loud so they cant hear the train coming. They then walk with their back to the direction the train is coming from.... So to Neonjoe's point, yes, we need to wait and hear the facts.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - nms - 03-15-2023

The section of the LRT tracks where this fatality occurred is about 1 km of track intersected by three pedestrian crossings (the RT Station, Quiet Place and Old Albert) plus two roads (Bearinger Rd and Northfield Drive) plus one grade separated crossing (Weber St). This is also the only section of Waterloo track that is not also paralleled by a multi-use trail. South of this stretch, pedestrians could walk all the way south to the main line at Kitchener via the TransCanada Trail/Laurel Trail and Spurline Trail. To the north, pedestrians can walk from Northfield Drive to the Market.

Without knowing the destination of the pedestrian, it's impossible to know whether a multi-use trail would have encouraged them not to walk on the tracks. I note that the other fatality along these tracks was closer to Columbia where there is a multi-use trail parallel to the tracks.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 03-18-2023

This article seems to imply Keolis didn't even order catenary ice scrapers for ION until the end of 2020, and that it's just pure luck we didn't have any major ice issues until this year, given none were delivered until last November.

https://www.therecord.com/local-waterloo/opinion/2023/03/18/fighting-the-freeze-room-for-improvement-for-waterloo-region-light-rail-trains.html

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 03-19-2023

"Climate change will take care of it! No need to spend the money on this nonsense." - Keolis, probably.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bytor - 03-19-2023

(03-18-2023, 03:45 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: This article seems to imply Keolis didn't even order catenary ice scrapers for ION until the end of 2020, and that it's just pure luck we didn't have any major ice issues until this year, given none were delivered until last November.

https://www.therecord.com/local-waterloo/opinion/2023/03/18/fighting-the-freeze-room-for-improvement-for-waterloo-region-light-rail-trains.html

Whose resposnibility would it have been to order them, though? Is it something that should have come with the vehicles, like (all-weather) tires on a brand new car? Or are the scrapers an "aftermarket" thing like getting winter tires?

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 03-19-2023

(03-19-2023, 06:51 PM)Bytor Wrote:
(03-18-2023, 03:45 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: This article seems to imply Keolis didn't even order catenary ice scrapers for ION until the end of 2020, and that it's just pure luck we didn't have any major ice issues until this year, given none were delivered until last November.

https://www.therecord.com/local-waterloo/opinion/2023/03/18/fighting-the-freeze-room-for-improvement-for-waterloo-region-light-rail-trains.html

Whose resposnibility would it have been to order them, though? Is it something that should have come with the vehicles, like (all-weather) tires on a brand new car? Or are the scrapers an "aftermarket" thing like getting winter tires?

I mean, one would have to read the contract specifically.

But given that Keolis is ordering them now, and that they are only attached to the train during bad weather, I'd be pretty surprised if they weren't Keolis's responsibility.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 03-29-2023

That dusting of snow we just had apparently took out most of the system for an hour, and there's still no service between Mill and Fairway.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - plam - 03-29-2023

(03-29-2023, 04:18 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: That dusting of snow we just had apparently took out most of the system for an hour, and there's still no service between Mill and Fairway.

There did seem to be a bit of ice accumulation on my bicycle...