ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[panamaniac]

Friday's update gives the official notice for the Frederick construction start.  Late July through October for Frederick/King (labelled as Duke/King in the update) and late July through November for Frederick/Duke.

Do we know when Queen at Duke is supposed to re-open?  It will not be pretty of Queen and Frederick are closed at the same time.

[Square]

Friday's update gives the official notice for the Frederick construction start.  Late July through October for Frederick/King (labelled as Duke/King in the update) and late July through November for Frederick/Duke.

Do we know when Queen at Duke is supposed to re-open?  It will not be pretty of Queen and Frederick are closed at the same time.

July 29th is the date right now.

[panamaniac]

Do we know when Queen at Duke is supposed to re-open?  It will not be pretty of Queen and Frederick are closed at the same time.

July 29th is the date right now.

OK.  So re-opening of Queen and closing of Frederick will be coordinated.  That's good.

[panamaniac]

I was just reading in the Ottawa news that OC Transpo hopes to cut up to 600 positions when Ottawa's LRT comes on line. Very different transit situation in the Region, but have there been any estimates of Ion's impact on GRT employment?

[KevinL]

Duke is looking quite good past Queen just now. I can see that date being met.

[tomh009]

I was just reading in the Ottawa news that OC Transpo hopes to cut up to 600 positions when Ottawa's LRT comes on line.  Very different transit situation in the Region, but have there been any estimates of Ion's impact on GRT employment?

Based on the GRT plans that I recall, I don't see any cuts to the bus routes.  That being the case, there really should be no significant impact.

Some day in the distant future, when we have LRT criss-crossing the city it might be different, but then there should hopefully be new opportunities for GRT employees with Grandlinq as well.  It's really too far in the future to speculate.

[mpd618]

I was just reading in the Ottawa news that OC Transpo hopes to cut up to 600 positions when Ottawa's LRT comes on line.  Very different transit situation in the Region, but have there been any estimates of Ion's impact on GRT employment?

The GRT / Regional Transportation Master Plan goal was to reallocate the buses and service to the rest of the network, it's not supposed to cut bus service or funding.

[rangersfan]

600 positions seems like a lot of positions to be lost.

[plam]

600 positions seems like a lot of positions to be lost.

It is, however, what we would have been paying for if we had built BRT and not LRT, 30 years later. There's a reason that operating costs are so much higher with BRT.

[Canard]

This is it: Ottawa's system is replacing a very congested BRT Transitway. Here, that's not the case.

(Just FYI: Hiring for ion's staff is done through Keolis - one of the system partners of GrandLinq.)

[Pheidippides]

   

[Markster]

The GRT / Regional Transportation Master Plan goal was to reallocate the buses and service to the rest of the network, it's not supposed to cut bus service or funding.

It's really going to be interesting...

Is the level of service that ION displaces near the level of a regular service increase for GRT? ION is not going to be bringing in a particularly large (systemwide) bump in ridership, at least not immediately. The private contractor for ION needs to get paid, so I hope that GRT doesn't get starved of funding.

It's going to be interesting to see how the accounting comes in.

[MidTowner]

...Is the level of service that ION displaces near the level of a regular service increase for GRT?  ION is not going to be bringing in a particularly large (systemwide) bump in ridership, at least not immediately...

Doesn't Ion displace the entire 200 service between Fairview and Conestoga, plus arguably a lot of service by the 7? That would be a lot of capacity.

I don’t think I understand how the buses used on the King corridor could be deployed elsewhere without a big increase in the budget contribution to GRT. Like you say, there will be little new ridership as a result of Ion for a while. If the buses from the King corridor are deployed elsewhere, they will create some new ridership and revenue, but not nearly what they had been doing when running on King. We’re adding the annual cost of Ion to the transit budget, without taking any costs away in terms of buses and labour, and probably not increasing ridership in the short term. Isn’t the outcome of that a big increase to the budget while ridership and revenues flatline?

[Viewfromthe42]

My understanding has been that the rapid transit budget, the multi-year tax increase, the one always brought up in the Record, it encompasses all LRT costs. We cut them a cheque to meet the contract, which includes building the system, maintaining it, operating it to certain standards, etc. So the increase in cost is already there. I'd almost wonder if politicians would be tempted to try reabsorbing those service hours as a tax reduction effort.

[panamaniac]

I was just reading in the Ottawa news that OC Transpo hopes to cut up to 600 positions when Ottawa's LRT comes on line.  Very different transit situation in the Region, but have there been any estimates of Ion's impact on GRT employment?

The GRT / Regional Transportation Master Plan goal was to reallocate the buses and service to the rest of the network, it's not supposed to cut bus service or funding.

...Is the level of service that ION displaces near the level of a regular service increase for GRT?  ION is not going to be bringing in a particularly large (systemwide) bump in ridership, at least not immediately...

Doesn't Ion displace the entire 200 service between Fairview and Conestoga, plus arguably a lot of service by the 7? That would be a lot of capacity.

I don’t think I understand how the buses used on the King corridor could be deployed elsewhere without a big increase in the budget contribution to GRT. Like you say, there will be little new ridership as a result of Ion for a while. If the buses from the King corridor are deployed elsewhere, they will create some new ridership and revenue, but not nearly what they had been doing when running on King. We’re adding the annual cost of Ion to the transit budget, without taking any costs away in terms of buses and labour, and probably not increasing ridership in the short term. Isn’t the outcome of that a big increase to the budget while ridership and revenues flatline?

Some of that capacity will be shifted to the new Ottawa St cross-town run, no?