ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

There's lots of tracks-through-roundabouts in Europe, particularly the east.


Poznań, Poland


Warsaw, Poland


Karlsruhe, Germany

[danbrotherston]

Those are some monsters. Why did north america copy eastern Europe's roundabouts. So weird.

[ac3r]

While indeed they exist all over the planet, it's not exactly a solution you want to use. You can build a tunnel or viaduct over obstacles, ensuring both trains and vehicular traffic flow with ease. It's safer, too

Problem is, we're cheap AF, so we end up with the worst possible product just so we have something.

[dtkvictim]

I've seen a very disproportionate number of dashcam incidents from Poland's tram roundabouts. Probably not something we want to replicate.

[ZEBuilder]

I've seen a very disproportionate number of dashcam incidents from Poland's tram roundabouts. Probably not something we want to replicate.

Especially through the Homer Watson and Ottawa roundabout, that things already horrendous to walk and bike through, now imagine the chaos of a train through that thing. If they don't elevate or tunnel it through that section they're going to be shooting themselves in the foot.

[ac3r]

We can't even keep people from crashing into them at intersections where people are told to stop using giant red lights, signs and even more signs (some illuminated). Hell a lot of people can barely figure out a roundabout. Now combine both trains and roundabounts...no thanks.

[ijmorlan]

I've seen a very disproportionate number of dashcam incidents from Poland's tram roundabouts. Probably not something we want to replicate.

Especially through the Homer Watson and Ottawa roundabout, that things already horrendous to walk and bike through, now imagine the chaos of a train through that thing. If they don't elevate or tunnel it through that section they're going to be shooting themselves in the foot.

“Chaos”? That just doesn’t make sense. Every so often the lights flash, the gates drop, everything stops, and the train goes through.

If they time it poorly (Erb and Caroline, I’m looking at you) non-LRT traffic will be held up unnecessarily, but “chaos”? No.

[Bytor]

Well they had the brilliant job of putting the LRT through a roundabout in Cambridge, so they could just replicate that nonsense here. :'P

Saw a roundabout in NZ with a train track running through it. It being NZ it probably doesn't get that many trains through it every day though.

I saw a roundabout in Ireland with a tram line through it, and it's really easy to find pictures of it with google.

It's not near as bad of and idea as ASc3r wants to think it is.

[Bytor]

I've seen a very disproportionate number of dashcam incidents from Poland's tram roundabouts. Probably not something we want to replicate.

That's selection bias. How often do the trams go through and not get hot? The times the do get hit is, what, a millionth of a percent of all trips?

[ac3r]

The point is why do it when you can not do it? Money is the obvious answer, but a good engineer is going to try and not run a train through an intersection if they can. It's safer because you aren't putting human lives at risk and you'll avoid having to fix damaged train vehicles.

[Acitta]

There's lots of tracks-through-roundabouts in Europe, particularly the east.

I notice that the one in Warsaw has traffic lights, both for cars and the trams.

Edit: I found a time lapse for it: https://youtu.be/O08OPYB_6kc

[dtkvictim]

I've seen a very disproportionate number of dashcam incidents from Poland's tram roundabouts. Probably not something we want to replicate.

That's selection bias. How often do the trams go through and not get hot? The times the do get hit is, what, a millionth of a percent of all trips?

I could have a biased sample, yes. I don't have the statistics. But you can't deduce that out of thin air, and definitely can't use that as proof that the opposite is true. I said disproportionate, meaning in relation to the total number of both tram and car accidents I've seen in Poland. A millionth of a percent of all trips seems very hyperbolic on its own, but the incidents I've watched also mostly included car on car accidents as a result of the overly complex design required to accommodate trams in a roundabout. Remember that these large roundabouts generally have a higher rate of incidents, though less severe, and can still hold up every person in the tram even when the tram isn't involved.

But at a fundamental level, I'm not sure why you are arguing in favour of adding complexity (and not the traffic calming kind) to our roadways when alternatives likely exist. Unless you think our current incident rate is within the bounds of acceptable.

[westwardloo]

Personally I think it would be a mistake for the Region to run phase 3 down Ottawa instead of Victoria/ highland. Connecting another line to the Transit Hub would make the most sense, especially if the region is going to foot the bill for the majority of the train station. I think think the east line should run down victoria, with the line splitting at Edna, one tail continues down Victoria and the other tail runs along the highway to the AUD grounds (New Hospital) then runs down Ottawa. Quick sketch of the Idea.

[ZEBuilder]

Personally I think it would be a mistake for the Region to run phase 3 down Ottawa instead of Victoria/ highland. Connecting another line to the Transit Hub would make the most sense, especially if the region is going to foot the bill for the majority of the train station. I think think the east line should run down victoria, with the line splitting at Edna, one tail continues down Victoria and the other tail runs along the highway to the AUD grounds (New Hospital) then runs down Ottawa. Quick sketch of the Idea.

Problem with that is that the MTO owns Victoria from the expressway all the way out past Breslau and there is no way they would allow a LRT. While Victoria may be better going out towards Breslau in terms of densification opportunities with all the commerical space, there is almost no catchment area north of Victoria which means in theory it wouldn't be optimizing the cost, meanwhile Ottawa has a large catchment on both the north and south side of the road so you will get alot of densification but will also get alot more people using it since you have everything from Fairway to Victoria that can feed into the line. Instead of Ottawa to Victoria with a Victoria Line so conceptually from the regions point of view to justify the cost it makes more sense along Ottawa since it is more centrally located. It also allows for a easy way to get into the south end of Breslau which is really a short trip away from the airport.

[danbrotherston]

I think it's important to look at a mix of development opportunity and density. I know Victoria/Highland has a fair bit of density, but the majority of the development opportunity is if we rezone light industrial/commercial into higher density uses. FWIW, it might be better to take the LRT up Shirley as it's less constrained by the railway.

One dream I have for the region is to redevelop a bunch of the malls, for example the Laurentian centre at Ottawa and Alpine is a huge area of surface parking. That could be redeveloped into a fairly significant high density mixed use area (for example, the Laurentian centre is roughly the same size as the Amersfoort city centre).

All that's really needed is a very high frequency connector service to link it to a transit station on the LRT...