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

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RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - MidTowner - 07-03-2019

That's pretty close to the opening day ridership forecast (27,000).

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 07-03-2019

(07-03-2019, 02:33 PM)MidTowner Wrote: That's pretty close to the opening day ridership forecast (27,000).

Well above it seems, the 27k ridership forecast seems to include the Cambridge "BRT":



Worth noting that the 2009 models that Mike refers to here, would be based on the moderate growth seen in the late aughts, and neither the rapid growth in the early 10s nor the substantial decline in the late 10s.

Also, I don't think any ridership numbers are valuable during the free fare time. But it is interesting none the less...it's also interesting to see how crowded the trains were at only 27k riders per day...we will need new trains soon enough.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 07-03-2019

For those interested in following, WRPS has responded:



I don't really buy their statement. The vehicle is parked in a way that the officer could not easily have disembarked from the drivers side door without falling off the platform. By the time I arrived, the arrest must have been over for five minutes at least, they could have moved.

But I'm not really up for questioning them about this more publicly than here however, and I do appreciate the response, even weak as it is.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - KevinT - 07-03-2019

(07-02-2019, 02:50 PM)KevinT Wrote: it made me wonder why on earth the podiums don't make a sound? A simple mid-pitch Bing for a valid tap and low pitched Brrrrrrt! for an invalid one would be extremely helpful for both the visually impaired and the traveller on the go. It seems weird for the podiums to be completely silent. I also found the screens hard to see without shading them with my hand, adding even more value proposition to combining the display with sound.

Happy to report that Canard raised the issue with them on twitter and the response was favourable:



RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 07-03-2019

With respect to the recent discussion we had about adding more LRVs, I noticed the 2019 budget forecast has $31m allocated for vehicle purchases from 2022-2023. That must be two per year?

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 07-03-2019

(07-03-2019, 07:16 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: With respect to the recent discussion we had about adding more LRVs, I noticed the 2019 budget forecast has $31m allocated for vehicle purchases from 2022-2023. That must be two per year?

Is that LRVs or are those buses?

I know there was a substantial increase in buses planned.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 07-03-2019

(07-03-2019, 07:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(07-03-2019, 07:16 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: With respect to the recent discussion we had about adding more LRVs, I noticed the 2019 budget forecast has $31m allocated for vehicle purchases from 2022-2023. That must be two per year?

Is that LRVs or are those buses?

I know there was a substantial increase in buses planned.

Good question. The regular Rapid Transit budget lists $51m for vehicles this year, plus $2m in 2021, and no other spending until at least 2029 (outside the forecast). The "Rapid Transit Project Expansion" section lists $31m for vehicles over two years from 2022-2023.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 07-03-2019

(07-03-2019, 03:33 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I don't really buy their statement. The vehicle is parked in a way that the officer could not easily have disembarked from the drivers side door without falling off the platform. By the time I arrived, the arrest must have been over for five minutes at least, they could have moved.

But I'm not really up for questioning them about this more publicly than here however, and I do appreciate the response, even weak as it is.

Sounds like it could be reasonable, at least when it started. If they’re arriving to help with an arrest in progress, they don’t have time to spend figuring out where to park. However, once the arrest was completed, it should be possible to move the vehicle within a couple of minutes — if they need to stay nearby to complete paperwork or collect evidence or talk to witnesses, they should be able to put the car somewhere more appropriate first.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 07-03-2019

When it comes down to it, it's police policy to park wherever they want for their convenience. Does an officer responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart have to park on the sidewalk beside the entrance? No, of course not. If you call them on it, they'll just say it's department policy in case they have to respond to another call. There will always be an excuse like this, and in the end they can park wherever they please and nobody can do anything about it because they're above the law in this respect. If they feel like blocking an entire LRT station rather than parking across the street, they'll do it, and that's the end of it.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 07-03-2019

(07-03-2019, 09:19 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: When it comes down to it, it's police policy to park wherever they want for their convenience. Does an officer responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart have to park on the sidewalk beside the entrance? No, of course not. If you call them on it, they'll just say it's department policy in case they have to respond to another call. There will always be an excuse like this, and in the end they can park wherever they please and nobody can do anything about it because they're above the law in this respect. If they feel like blocking an entire LRT station rather than parking across the street, they'll do it, and that's the end of it.

This is why it's so important to get police OUT of their cars and SUVs.

And this is why it was so disappointing to hear the police bicycle officers make such a terribly driver centric video last year.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Rainrider22 - 07-04-2019

Just finished reading another horrible and negative opinion piece by Peter Taylor who always has to qualify himself as the contributing editor at Maclean's magazine (like this should make his opinion more valid)

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/9485498-it-s-too-soon-to-cast-ion-as-the-hero/

While he does make some valid points, his negativity and almost hopeful failure of the project so he can say "I told you so", out weighs any ability for me to take him seriously. I used to read Maclean's but refuse to now solely based on his continued negative opinion pieces in The Record. I may soon have to stop reading The Record if they continue to utilize him...

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - plam - 07-04-2019

(07-04-2019, 11:50 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: Just finished reading another horrible and negative opinion piece by Peter Taylor who always has to qualify himself as the contributing editor at Maclean's magazine (like this should make his opinion more valid) 

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/9485498-it-s-too-soon-to-cast-ion-as-the-hero/ 

While he does make some valid points, his negativity and almost hopeful failure of the project so he can say "I told you so", out weighs any ability for me to take him seriously.  I used to read Maclean's but refuse to now solely based on his continued negative opinion pieces in The Record.  I may soon have to stop reading The Record if they continue to utilize him...

It's probably an op-ed, i.e. not commissioned by The Record. They did decide to run it...

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - KevinL - 07-04-2019

Mike Boos did an excellent dissection of that column this morning.

https://www.twitter.com/mikeboos/status/1146752241648513026

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 07-04-2019

(07-04-2019, 11:50 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: Just finished reading another horrible and negative opinion piece by Peter Taylor who always has to qualify himself as the contributing editor at Maclean's magazine (like this should make his opinion more valid) 

Every author in the Record (and many other publications) has a brief description which appears at the head or foot of their articles. His is hardly atypical.

Other than that, yeah, it’s a pretty dumb article. The headline point is actually true: we can’t really tell yet how successful it is; we’ll see what ridership both on Ion and on the whole public transit system is around the end of the year. But the overall tone has the same passive-aggressive negativity that we all know and love from Jeff Outhit’s articles.

He should have left out that stupid “mall-to-mall” phrase: it’s idiotic.

Also I have to disagree with the quoted planning professor and others who say the same thing, that Ion is not to move people but to shape development patterns. It can only shape development patterns if it moves people. The fact that it can shape development patterns is a reason to build it even if current ridership doesn’t truly justify an LRT rather than a bus, but even there the purpose of building it is to move lots of people in the future who choose where to live partly because LRT is available.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - MidTowner - 07-04-2019

I likewise agreed with the title but not much else. We'll see if it's a success at year four and year ten. But it is a success on day one- without having had the ability to carry passengers before operating, it has nevertheless attracted development, which is a secondary objective.

It's hard not to be a bit offended when people suggest that only students use transit in Waterloo Region. I don't understand people's insistence that this is the case. Plenty of us use it for all kinds of different reasons, and not "reluctantly."