ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[kps]

They wouldn’t close a road needlessly for months.

Ha ha ha. Good one.

[KevinL]

Forgot to post these yesterday - and Canard has pipped me a bit - but here's another look at the Gaukel intersection area.



I love this bit of pedestrian accessibility!

[clasher]

In other LRT news, Tritag has a nifty station button set for sale as part of a fundraiser. Pretty chic!

[mboos]

[nms]

Today on my bike into work I saw the tanker train stopped on its return from Elmira just north of  Erb@Caroline.

Which was weird. I would've expected it to have cleared the city hours before.

I bike down spur line trail (As a counter-example to the nightmarish Laurel trail, it is really quite nice. They've done a good job of maintaining it through the winter as well) and by Len's Mill Store there's a red DERAIL marker clipped to the rail and a middle-of-the-track red rectangle.

Is the train stranded, mayhap?

Other than an obstruction of the tracks, there could be a couple of reasons that the train is parked where it is:
- End of the regulated crew shift and no time to bring in a new crew before the track movements have to stop for the Ion construction
- Engine or equipment failure and no time to bring in a new crew before the track movements have to stop for the Ion construction

The red flag indicates that there is something ahead that could be dangerous to approaching trains (for instance, a washout or a parked train).   The derail is there to stop a train from moving beyond that point.

[Smore]

The derailer has been in place between King and Regina routinely for the last 6 months or more.

[Canard]

The platform at Seagram/Laurier/Waterloo Park got concrete forms today!

   

The second track now extends all the way South to University Ave. Just one more small chunk between University and Seagram to go!

   

   

[clasher]

Looking good! I was on Caroline today and can't believe how different (and good!) the street is gonna be with a train running down there.

[Canard]

The incremental improvements for the surrounding areas immediately touching the line (curbs, sidewalks, roads, lighting, planters, etc.) are going to make this project look absolutely spectacular. There's a word for that kind of thing, I can't think of what it is. We're not just getting a Rapid Transit system - we're getting a whole brushstroke of freshness running right through the core of our region, ready to spawn a bright future.

[ookpik]

Walking on the new tracks across from Waterloo Town Square today I noticed that there was duct tape on the tracks every couple of meters. That looked really weird at first glance. On closer inspection it seems the tape was to hold expansion material in place while the concrete was poured.

[Canard]

That's right - for embedded track, there's a rubber boot that covers encapsulates the rail in the concrete to reduce noise and vibration.  To hold it in place when they pour the concrete, they use duct tape.

The Rapid Transit team actually tweeted about this earlier this week, and they're preparing a video about it.

Here are some close-up photos from last fall, before and after a pour:

   

   

   

[insider]

Could someone post some supportive comments here:

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6262...s-on-edge/


If there is a place in the Region that can succeed even with a street closure, is Uptown. Really heavy pedestrian traffic, and people are already used to parking one or two blocks away from their destination.

[ookpik]

What I don't understand is why the city allowed the new construction on Willis Way during the LRT construction. Not only does that increase truck traffic in the downtown core, increase traffic chaos overall, create delays getting in and out of the parking areas on either side of Caroline, create all sorts of additional difficulties for pedestrians and cyclists, but it dramatically reduces available parking spots.

Now this will get even further compounded by the closure of King St for at least the next 9 months. Someone should update the wikipedia entry for "idiocy" to include this as a prime example.

[Viewfromthe42]

Considering the number of businesses which have closed up in the current Wildfire space, it's a bit rich to hear that they might close up because of ION.

[SammyOES]

I think the businesses have a legitimate complaint. I'll be less likely to head uptown for certain things this year - because its definitely going to be more of a pain to get around.

That being said, the region is also right. Construction happens all the time for maintenance and improvements and we can't subsidize all of it. And in this case the LRT is almost certainly going to bring more business uptown once its running.

Maybe there's a way to compensate businesses by looking at their books and covering some new losses now but pay for it by taking some new gains in the future. But I suspect not many people would go for that.