ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

Eight-minute daytime frequency would be very nice. But a sudden drop to 30 minutes at 8 PM? Or does that mean that frequencies would be between 15 and 30 minutes at those times (5-7 AM and 8 PM-midnight)?

[Bob_McBob]

They mean 30 minute frequency, which is ridiculous for an LRT system.

[ZEBuilder]

They mean 30 minute frequency, which is ridiculous for an LRT system.

This is why people hate transit. We're a region of more than 600,000 there is no reason the spine of our transit system should be running at 30 minute frequencies after 8pm. Regional staff should really take transit late at night and realize how many people still take it, most nights between 9 and 10 there's very few seats left when I get on at Mill, this has been changing now that it's getting dark earlier but in late September early October there often times was only a handful of seats left and by the time it gets to uptown it was often standing room only.

[bravado]

Suburban-housed planners and accountants at Region HQ don’t go anywhere after 6PM, why should anyone else? Think of the savings!

[ac3r]

God damn I hate this region. It's run by the worst, most clueless people. Transit ridership is the highest it has ever been in our history and they want to cut the service...while calling it "service expansion" lmao.

Well if they do this I guess I'll renew my license and drive again. No point in trying to support transit in this shithole if they want to pull this.

Also, can I get a refund if this will be the case? I contributed who knows how much in tax dollars to get this thing built and it's crap.

[danbrotherston]

This is what happens when your only goal in life is to maximise funding for cops...

The framing shows exactly this..."People are upset at lack of capacity...but we can do this to appear as though we're doing something instead of spending more"

[ijmorlan]

Agreed with everyone. Increase daytime frequencies to 8 per hour, keep it at 4 per hour the rest of the time. The only 2 per hour should be if we extend the operation times of the system, like maybe add an extra trip at beginning and end of service. Enough with the cuts. This isn’t a bus route.

[dtkvictim]

How many inactive trains are there at 10 minute headways? Could the extras all be strategically put into service as double length trains to alleviate at least some of the overcrowding without having to kill off-peak headways, or would that also require contract renegotiation?

It's still not the right answer though, which is to just increase the budget to provide adequate service.

Suburban-housed planners and accountants at Region HQ don’t go anywhere after 6PM, why should anyone else? Think of the savings!

I don't think it has to do with being suburbanites or staying home after 6PM, it's just people who don't understand or use transit. They think one train serving 100 people is the same as two trains serving 50 people each. Don't ask them to schedule a carpool trip to Costco with their neighbours though...

This is what happens when your only goal in life is to maximise funding for cops...

Whose goal is that?

[danbrotherston]

How many inactive trains are there at 10 minute headways? Could the extras all be strategically put into service as double length trains to alleviate at least some of the overcrowding without having to kill off-peak headways, or would that also require contract renegotiation?

It's still not the right answer though, which is to just increase the budget to provide adequate service.

This would require...*some* investment in completing the station buildout.

...

This is what happens when your only goal in life is to maximise funding for cops...

Whose goal is that?

A significant fraction of council. Last year it was a slight majority...we'll see if it remains so this year I suppose.

[KevinL]

The off-peak reductions and daytime increases apparently balance out, so this can all be done with no budget increase.

To which I say, what's so wrong with increasing the budget? Success begets success, let's not shoot ourselves in the foot.

[dtkvictim]

How many inactive trains are there at 10 minute headways? Could the extras all be strategically put into service as double length trains to alleviate at least some of the overcrowding without having to kill off-peak headways, or would that also require contract renegotiation?

It's still not the right answer though, which is to just increase the budget to provide adequate service.

This would require...*some* investment in completing the station buildout.

If done properly, yes. But I thought they could run double length trains  without doing the station buildout, no? I thought it was just "should have" amenities like extra shelters, displays, payment terminals, etc. that are missing, and not any "must haves" like operational infrastructure.

...


Whose goal is that?

A significant fraction of council. Last year it was a slight majority...we'll see if it remains so this year I suppose.

Voted to increase the budget yes, but that's a far cry from what you've suggested. Intentional mischaracterization isn't helping anything. To stay on topic, I really don't think public transit budgets and related discourse would look any different if the police vanished as a municipal responsibility tomorrow.

[bravado]

The off-peak reductions and daytime increases apparently balance out, so this can all be done with no budget increase.

To which I say, what's so wrong with increasing the budget? Success begets success, let's not shoot ourselves in the foot.

Because council + the people who complain to council have a list of “good liabilities” and “bad liabilities”, and transit will always be bad and needing to be controlled and reduced.

[danbrotherston]

This would require...*some* investment in completing the station buildout.

If done properly, yes. But I thought they could run double length trains  without doing the station buildout, no? I thought it was just "should have" amenities like extra shelters, displays, payment terminals, etc. that are missing, and not any "must haves" like operational infrastructure.

I mean...fair enough, that's possible, but I'd argue we'd be slamming them for that too.

I think it's moot anyway, they don't have enough spares to pair up all the trains...which would lead to inconsistent capacity not a good experience. So we'd need to order more trains with the normal lag time for that.

A significant fraction of council. Last year it was a slight majority...we'll see if it remains so this year I suppose.

Voted to increase the budget yes, but that's a far cry from what you've suggested. Intentional mischaracterization isn't helping anything. To stay on topic, I really don't think public transit budgets and related discourse would look any different if the police vanished as a municipal responsibility tomorrow.

I mean, if you want to call it a mischaracterization for the majority of council...fair enough, but it is absolutely not a mischaracterization for some of council, who spoke very passionately about the absolute necessity to vote the police a significant surplus, and one of whom sits on the police board.

To my eye at least several of these councillors strongly oppose all spending except police. If that is not how they actually feel, they should act differently, rather than just protesting otherwise.

[tomh009]

They mean 30 minute frequency, which is ridiculous for an LRT system.

Do you have a link for the complete document?

[dtkvictim]

I mean...fair enough, that's possible, but I'd argue we'd be slamming them for that too.

I think it's moot anyway, they don't have enough spares to pair up all the trains...which would lead to inconsistent capacity not a good experience. So we'd need to order more trains with the normal lag time for that.

Yeah my expectation would be that they build out the stations ASAP, but I'd be temporarily understanding if ridership spiked beyond their predictions.

But yes, moot point if there isn't enough trains anyways, that's what I was curious about. I know there isn't enough trains to double up all of them, but I was thinking along the lines of doubling the peak trains going through the busiest areas, for example the trains going through downtown/Conestoga/universities around 8:20-8:50am. I think the unexpected overcrowding is coming from Conestoga students, so something like this could buy time to find more money or renegotiate the contract (assuming it doesn't already break the contract) since usage patterns wouldn't change much (i.e. continue to grow) for the current school year.

I know nothing about transit and train operations though, I'm just curious.