ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[dtkvictim]

The next generation  is just going to rip it out! So don't bother touching the environment

Wasting  money trying to force people not to drive their car

By having rail thru the downtown cores you impeded thousands of cars and raise travel times and exhaust output. Either stick to the very outskirts and industrial areas or cancel the project.

You can avoid most the issues by having a gondola system, see #3

Consider a gondola system for the Cambridge portion of the lrt, somewhat the the capital of Boliva (La Paz) has, see video of it here. https://youtu.be/fUL011b7z2s

Have you considered that with an increase in electric vehicles there actually be an increase in the total number of cars on the road because they are considered environmentally friendly.  Why would I walk to a bus to get to the LRT to get to bus when I can drive in an environmentally friendly vehicle and arrive quickly in nice weather and bad..

My favourites... The gondola suggestion takes the cake though. I guess they don't realize La Paz essentially sits in a bowl.

[ijmorlan]

"I don't like investing in transit because I would NEVER use it, ....well...maybe it would be convenient to take to the airport, so clearly it makes sense to build a high capacity transit service to an airport with 3 flights on a busy day".

If you build it they will come!

[dunkalunk]

Was there a station to station travel time estimate given as part of this phase?

[danbrotherston]

"I don't like investing in transit because I would NEVER use it, ....well...maybe it would be convenient to take to the airport, so clearly it makes sense to build a high capacity transit service to an airport with 3 flights on a busy day".

If you build it they will come! 

I umm...think airport trains might be the exception.

[Coke6pk]

We don't want this in Cambridge

The whole city does not want this the residents will fight this every step of the way after we watched you destroy the bit of heritage culture waterloo had left and only provided the service to part of the town cutting off most the regular buss service for the half that isn't on its direct route

I think going against public opinion on this train will be the death of Cambridge

Just curious.  Is this the same city than complained so much for not being part on Stage 1?

(Kitchener/Waterloo) ...from either city, you can travel to the Hospital, Cambridge,, lets bypass the people and take you to the mall,,
and no where near the Hospital,,, who ever has come up with this route should find another job,, btw

Technically you will be able to get to Grand River Hospital from Cambridge as well!  Want a stop at the Cambridge Hospital?  Why can't St. Mary's patients get the same service.  They are always the poor cousin to Cambridge.

/sarcasm

Coke

[ac3r]

Was there a station to station travel time estimate given as part of this phase?

Not yet...I think they'd need to do a bit more work on things to determine the travel times. If I had to guess, I'd think it would take at most 30 minutes to get from Fairway Station to Galt Station. The length of this part of the line isn't that long, much of it is elevated or grade separated, so it should be able to maintain a reasonable speed for most of the trip.

[Bytor]

As I slowly read through those comments, I am beginning to thing that any thing that submitted as a group/organisation should not get the benefit of privacy redaction. They need to be out in the open.

Also, I'm getting my blood pressure up at the some the outright falsehoods made in those emails and comments.

Email 15 (which was sent in again a multiple times as emails 16, 17, 19, 21) is a perfect(ly bad) example of both.

Considering these significant uncertainties and the controversy involving the proposed route, we think a ten year hiatus where no further money is spent on a fixed route LRT would give the planners and elected politicians the opportunity to evaluate the following:

If there is no money spent on the LRT, they they cannot reevaluate anything because the staff time to do that reevaluation costs money.

The rest is an attempt to sound all "officialese" like they even know what they are talking about.

[ac3r]

Honestly...I wouldn't even waste your time reading this junk. Public feedback like this is rarely taken into consideration, but they have to pretend to care. Planners tend to know what they're doing when designing something of this magnitude and unless there was some absolutely massive step they failed to consider (which rarely happens), they don't really care what random people think - especially when they're getting big brain suggestions like building a gondola system or that they're "Wasting money trying to force people not to drive their car".

[danbrotherston]

Honestly...I wouldn't even waste your time reading this junk. Public feedback like this is rarely taken into consideration, but they have to pretend to care. Planners tend to know what they're doing when designing something of this magnitude and unless there was some absolutely massive step they failed to consider (which rarely happens), they don't really care what random people think - especially when they're getting big brain suggestions like building a gondola system or that they're "Wasting  money trying to force people not to drive their car".

There is a real shame here...because real public consultation could reveal issues that are important, like, I dunno...the fact that Traynor residents constantly cross the hydro right of way.

At best, such important details are buried in a mountain of bullshit.

At worst those people aren't even consulted, and the mountain of bullshit comes from wealtherier better connected people.

[ijmorlan]

Honestly...I wouldn't even waste your time reading this junk. Public feedback like this is rarely taken into consideration, but they have to pretend to care. Planners tend to know what they're doing when designing something of this magnitude and unless there was some absolutely massive step they failed to consider (which rarely happens), they don't really care what random people think - especially when they're getting big brain suggestions like building a gondola system or that they're "Wasting  money trying to force people not to drive their car".

I can’t help but wonder if this attitude isn’t exactly the problem with planners. Pretending to care and assuming that they know what they are doing when they clearly do not (at least, not all the time) are not the route to optimal projects.

While it is a fact that many of the comments are B.S. (to the extent that something as imprecise as that can be a fact), there are bound to be missed local context or thought provoking ideas in the feedback, sadly mixed in. As an expert in my own domain, this is my experience with client feedback, and I’ve seen enough to be certain that it is the same in the architecture/urban planning realm.

[ac3r]

I can’t help but wonder if this attitude isn’t exactly the problem with planners. Pretending to care and assuming that they know what they are doing when they clearly do not (at least, not all the time) are not the route to optimal projects.

While it is a fact that many of the comments are B.S. (to the extent that something as imprecise as that can be a fact), there are bound to be missed local context or thought provoking ideas in the feedback, sadly mixed in. As an expert in my own domain, this is my experience with client feedback, and I’ve seen enough to be certain that it is the same in the architecture/urban planning realm.

I don't think there are many missed ideas here to be honest. Planners are highly educated people, they aren't waiting on some random nobody to point out major problems...that's why they study this. It's all considered before hand, though indeed they may miss some issues (in our case, one big complaint was accessibility of stations or pedestrian access as danbrotherston mentioned). In architecture (which is my field) that's why we do things like shadow, aesthetic, economic or environmental etc studies. We don't need some old man down the street to write an angry email telling us that a modern building doesn't look like something built in 1930 or that we ought to dig up the soil and test it because a gas station was there in 1952. If someone had a truly thought provoking idea, it would have been thought of already or brought to attention in some other fashion, rather than through some shitty website where random NIMBYs can pseudoanonymously air their grievances.

[danbrotherston]

Honestly...I wouldn't even waste your time reading this junk. Public feedback like this is rarely taken into consideration, but they have to pretend to care. Planners tend to know what they're doing when designing something of this magnitude and unless there was some absolutely massive step they failed to consider (which rarely happens), they don't really care what random people think - especially when they're getting big brain suggestions like building a gondola system or that they're "Wasting  money trying to force people not to drive their car".

I can’t help but wonder if this attitude isn’t exactly the problem with planners. Pretending to care and assuming that they know what they are doing when they clearly do not (at least, not all the time) are not the route to optimal projects.

While it is a fact that many of the comments are B.S. (to the extent that something as imprecise as that can be a fact), there are bound to be missed local context or thought provoking ideas in the feedback, sadly mixed in. As an expert in my own domain, this is my experience with client feedback, and I’ve seen enough to be certain that it is the same in the architecture/urban planning realm.

Soliciting useful and relevant feedback is a skillset in itself, not everyone (few even) have it. It is a job which is made much easier (but absolutely still not trivial) when those you are soliciting feedback are working in good faith.

[danbrotherston]

I can’t help but wonder if this attitude isn’t exactly the problem with planners. Pretending to care and assuming that they know what they are doing when they clearly do not (at least, not all the time) are not the route to optimal projects.

While it is a fact that many of the comments are B.S. (to the extent that something as imprecise as that can be a fact), there are bound to be missed local context or thought provoking ideas in the feedback, sadly mixed in. As an expert in my own domain, this is my experience with client feedback, and I’ve seen enough to be certain that it is the same in the architecture/urban planning realm.

I don't think there are many missed ideas here to be honest. Planners are highly educated people, they aren't waiting on some random nobody to point out major problems...that's why they study this. It's all considered before hand, though indeed they may miss some issues (in our case, one big complaint was accessibility of stations or pedestrian access as danbrotherston mentioned). In architecture (which is my field) that's why we do things like shadow, aesthetic, economic or environmental etc studies. We don't need some old man down the street to write an angry email telling us that a modern building doesn't look like something built in 1930 or that we ought to dig up the soil and test it because a gas station was there in 1952. If someone had a truly thought provoking idea, it would have been thought of already or brought to attention in some other fashion, rather than through some shitty website where random NIMBYs can pseudoanonymously air their grievances.

I dunno...have you seen Phase 1 ION?

While you might argue that some things weren't "missed"--that only bad choices were made i.e., not providing pedestrian access to transit stations. But other things absolutely were missed (Traynor access).

[plam]

I can’t help but wonder if this attitude isn’t exactly the problem with planners. Pretending to care and assuming that they know what they are doing when they clearly do not (at least, not all the time) are not the route to optimal projects.

While it is a fact that many of the comments are B.S. (to the extent that something as imprecise as that can be a fact), there are bound to be missed local context or thought provoking ideas in the feedback, sadly mixed in. As an expert in my own domain, this is my experience with client feedback, and I’ve seen enough to be certain that it is the same in the architecture/urban planning realm.

Soliciting useful and relevant feedback is a skillset in itself, not everyone (few even) have it. It is a job which is made much easier (but absolutely still not trivial) when those you are soliciting feedback are working in good faith.

Yes, and it comes back to the question of whether the experts know best. Sometimes they don't. I think we've talked about that in the context of, say, intersection and street design. Sometimes they do. One should get a COVID vaccine! As an expert, it's important to not think that one knows everything.

[ac3r]

I don't think there are many missed ideas here to be honest. Planners are highly educated people, they aren't waiting on some random nobody to point out major problems...that's why they study this. It's all considered before hand, though indeed they may miss some issues (in our case, one big complaint was accessibility of stations or pedestrian access as danbrotherston mentioned). In architecture (which is my field) that's why we do things like shadow, aesthetic, economic or environmental etc studies. We don't need some old man down the street to write an angry email telling us that a modern building doesn't look like something built in 1930 or that we ought to dig up the soil and test it because a gas station was there in 1952. If someone had a truly thought provoking idea, it would have been thought of already or brought to attention in some other fashion, rather than through some shitty website where random NIMBYs can pseudoanonymously air their grievances.

I dunno...have you seen Phase 1 ION?

While you might argue that some things weren't "missed"--that only bad choices were made i.e., not providing pedestrian access to transit stations. But other things absolutely were missed (Traynor access).

The LRT was a result of the region wanting to spend as little money as possible in order to reap the rewards of claiming they built an amazing rapid transit system as fast as possibly. It was a colossal fuck up, but they stood to make a lot of money off of it...which sadly is all that matters in the end. There's plenty of places along the LRT that could be improved, but alas, it would have cost money. The LRT was built to build condos and offices. Pedestrian access? No. Being able to turn a corner faster than a snail? No. They did the bare minimum.