ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[belmont]

One concrete form looks ready to pour at Charles+Benton, plus bonus shots of more rebar and Charles street:

[jamincan]

Does anyone have any idea when the first street running section will be open to traffic, and which section that will be?

[GtwoK]

Heh, Belmont, you posted the exact pictures I took earlier and was just about to post!

You can see from the last one though what I was referring to a day or two ago — The one side of Charles is dug down to a much lower grade. Almost 4 feet, I'd say! Still wondering what the reason for this is.

Does anyone have any idea when the first street running section will be open to traffic, and which section that will be?

It should be the intersection at Benton Charles, which was scheduled to open next week, but will most likely be the week after. I suppose from the way you've worded it that the track on Borden so far doesn't count.

[KevinL]

To me, the best move would be to completely rebuild and widen the Water Street underpass.

Still tricky geometry in downtown Galt, though.

[Drake]

LRT through the Delta is going to be a big adjustment for drivers. They could follow the heavy rail corridor to Samuelson (and dare I hope a new GO station one day?), but then they'd have to run down the former Grand River Railway right of way to get to Ainslie. Moving or altering the path that's taken its place is going to be a hard sell.

Wouldn't having an LRT system that connected with a GO Stop be a good thing? It certainly a good discussion topic.

As for Canard's suggestion of following Coronation through Preston, I think that is a neat idea. Hespeler Road is already bad. Throwing a train into the mix there is not an improvement, but what do I know.

[Canard]

I think the idea with the 24 alignment is it will spurn commercial development instead of all these little car dealerships and fast food joints. I don't see it personally. It's beyond repair. Nobody is riding transit there, it's all built for cars and parking lots and everything is too far apart (bad walkability - look at the smart centre). Preston on the other hand is dense, has lots of (forgive me) people who could probably really use transit, and the coronation could be a high speed section down the centre with just one stop at the hospital and then another at the Delta. One or two in downtown Preston.

I too took Benton/Charles pics tonight but as we've got a bit of an overload on those I'll abstain from posting them.

All the track ties are across for the Seagram south track and one rail is in across the road.

[mpd618]

Hespeler Road is already bad. Throwing a train into the mix there is not an improvement, but what do I know.

What is persuasive to me about a Hespeler Road alignment is that it has a lot of past-its-prime big box and strip plazas, whose owners would likely be quite willing to redevelop to maximize their revenue. And no one would miss what's there now. Plus, a lot of it could be built just on the far-too-large parking lots, without initially displacing the current uses. There's a lot less opportunity for transit-oriented development along Coronation.

[tomh009]

I too took Benton/Charles pics tonight but as we've got a bit of an overload on those I'll abstain from posting them.

You snooze, you lose!

[DHLawrence]

Hespeler Road is already bad. Throwing a train into the mix there is not an improvement, but what do I know.

What is persuasive to me about a Hespeler Road alignment is that it has a lot of past-its-prime big box and strip plazas, whose owners would likely be quite willing to redevelop to maximize their revenue. And no one would miss what's there now. Plus, a lot of it could be built just on the far-too-large parking lots, without initially displacing the current uses. There's a lot less opportunity for transit-oriented development along Coronation.

This. Anything of sentimental value has already been demolished and there's nothing of architectural value. Bring on the bulldozers. Through traffic is going to complicate things until a Highway 24 bypass is built.

LRT connecting to GO would be a dream come true. The proposed alignment along Water Street with a stop at GCI would serve Samuelson well; I don't think the CPR station is any farther from Water Street than Port Credit or Clarkson GO stations are from Hurontario. It's the Samuelson to Ainslie leg that's going to be tricky. Water Street is narrow and steep and the former Grand River Railway alignment is now a trail (and parking lot for a building facing Main and Wellington) so fitting it in is going to be challenging.

[notmyfriends]

Wasnt there a pretty document that walked through short/medium/long (pie in the sky) redevelopment plans for Hespeler road and Fairway road and other areas? Had a bunch of high rises and what not filling up the Cambridge Centre parking lot etc.

[ookpik]

Even-handed is overrated. What we need are more one-handed Councillors: Delivery delayed: Waterloo Region won’t get in on TTC lawsuit over late Bombardier LRT streetcars   

[On the one hand:] A legal battle brewing between the Toronto Transit Commission and Bombardier over late streetcars won't draw in the Region of Waterloo, officials say. "I don't think it affects us at all at this point," Coun. Tom Galloway said.

[On the other hand:] Delivery needs to start in late 2016 so that Bombardier and construction consortium GrandLinq have time to work out any issues with the trains and the system. "There is reason to be concerned," Galloway said. "They're very late on the Toronto order."

[Posted partly in jest since I have no idea whether we should really be worried or not.]

[JoeKW]

You should be worried but there's nothing to be done yet so just go with the flow I guess

[DHLawrence]

Wasnt there a pretty document that walked through short/medium/long (pie in the sky) redevelopment plans for Hespeler road and Fairway road and other areas? Had a bunch of high rises and what not filling up the Cambridge Centre parking lot etc.

Don't know about a document, but there was an article about a public information session that had a model, I think. All very generic, but still promising. Cambridge Centre would be the best place to start; build parking garages behind HBC and Target Zellers the Halloween store and the entire front lot could be replaced by higher buildings. The west side is going to be challenging because of the creek flood plain, but they could offset that by creating a linear park between Eagle and Dunbar; they can sell for a premium.

It's the best place for LRT to go, really. King Street is too narrow and I can't see the people on Coronation *not* going NIMBY about light rail taking up their front lawns.

[tomh009]

Wouldn't that be NIMFY?

But seriously, I do agree that strategically Hespeler Road seems to be the best option, to drive development in that area.

[chutten]

Well, I think it's a question of routing to where things _are_ or where we hope things _will be_.

It is a lot easier to sell the former.