ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Square]

I was just at King and Green Street and saw a tow truck operator turn left from King to Green. Why is this news? On King at Green has a left turn lane with a left turn extra traffic light signal. But what did this person do?, turn left from the straight thru lane!(the left turn signal was red) If a LRT vehicle was going thru, BANG another accident. Wow terrible drivers!

[taylortbb]

I'll put it out there: Reckless driving, which is a serious offence as opposed to careless driving. If people are driving like this, it's not "careless", it's reckless. Call it as it is, let the court sort it out. Eventually people will stop being idiots if they know the consequences are serious.

Reckless driving is an American charge. The closest in Canada is dangerous driving, which is basically the criminal counterpart to careless driving.

The standard for dangerous driving is pretty high though, "wanton and reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others". Given crashing with an LRV is unlikely to kill anyone on the LRV it's a difficult standard to meet.

Increased penalties for careless driving however would probably be a good idea.

[jamincan]

I think jeffster is talking about the guy who drove across the LRT tracks and hit another car head on. That does seem like a wanton and reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others to me, but I'm not a lawyer.

[taylortbb]

I think jeffster is talking about the guy who drove across the LRT tracks and hit another car head on. That does seem like a wanton and reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others to me, but I'm not a lawyer.

If it was intentional, because the driver didn't want to wait for a left turn spot, then yeah it might be. But I drove past that accident scene, it didn't look (in my totally not professional opinion) like that's what happened. It looked much more like a loss of control situation, which I believe is generally the line between careless and dangerous.

[Acitta]

Countdown to launch: How to ride the LRT.

[panamaniac]

Will food and drink be allowed on the Ion trains?

[KevinL]

Will food and drink be allowed on the Ion trains?

Keep food and drink in closed, spill-proof containers. Take your garbage and recycling with you when you leave.

https://www.grt.ca/en/about-grt/boarding...g-ion.aspx

[bgb_ca]

Google maps are now showing the stations

[danbrotherston]

Google maps are now showing the stations

I wonder how to get, and if we will ever get, the Google Maps transit maps, where they show the transit lines.

[ijmorlan]

Update on the derail at Willow St.: today it was engaged when I got home from work in the afternoon. Later in the evening I noticed it was disengaged, but upon taking a closer look I saw that the signal was showing yellow. This makes me wonder if perhaps the derail state is now interlocked with the signal.

[KevinT]

Update on the derail at Willow St.: today it was engaged when I got home from work in the afternoon. Later in the evening I noticed it was disengaged, but upon taking a closer look I saw that the signal was showing yellow. This makes me wonder if perhaps the derail state is now interlocked with the signal.

I've always assumed that the derails are interlocked to the signal state (and the state of the rest of the system, i.e. OCS power off on the shared section, gauntlet tracks switches set, etc.)  Were they not?

[ac3r]

Google maps are now showing the stations

I wonder how to get, and if we will ever get, the Google Maps transit maps, where they show the transit lines.

It would be a matter of the region/Keolis submitting transit and geospatial data to Google and ensuring it's compatible with their mapping systems, then partnering with Google Transit. From what I know, Ito World (a company in the UK) handles this for most cities that have transit data on Maps, so all parties would need to come together and enter into an agreement to get this working.

[Bob_McBob]

The Record will be running a 24 page special about ION in Friday's edition if anyone feels the urge to buy an actual newspaper.

[Rainrider22]

The Record will be running a 24 page special about ION in Friday's edition if anyone feels the urge to buy an actual newspaper.

Thanks,  I will for sure..

[ijmorlan]

Update on the derail at Willow St.: today it was engaged when I got home from work in the afternoon. Later in the evening I noticed it was disengaged, but upon taking a closer look I saw that the signal was showing yellow. This makes me wonder if perhaps the derail state is now interlocked with the signal.

I've always assumed that the derails are interlocked to the signal state (and the state of the rest of the system, i.e. OCS power off on the shared section, gauntlet tracks switches set, etc.)  Were they not?

Except during installation and testing, I had never observed the derail engaged until yesterday. Having said that, I misspoke, in that I agree it was probably already interlocked: I doubt the system would allow a non-red signal with the derail engaged. But until yesterday, it was not engaged, even when the signal was red.

Incidentally, a second point and a cute flip-up “derail” sign and blue light were recently installed. In addition to the inside point which sits on top the track and would lift the train up and pull it over the rail, there is now a second point on the outside which would push the train away from the track.