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ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit
(11-23-2017, 11:16 PM)KevinL Wrote: What 'old abandoned' rail lines exist between Sportsworld and Hespeler? There is a VERY ACTIVE CP line, but they are not willing to play ball.

(I do know abandoned lines are planned to be used between the Delta and Galt, but that's not what he's talking about.)

He's probably talking about the former rail line that runs from where the CP line crosses Eagle st out towards the Knights of Columbus hall. The tracks are still in place and is part of the old grand river railway route into Hespeler.
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The corridor *is* one of the proposed routes to bypass Eagle at the top of the hill. Might be a squeeze getting it past the old factory at the bottom of the hill, but it's not unfeasible.
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allot of chatter in the Preston community over the latest public consultations..support for the regions proposals is starting to be communicated to the region and among the people there

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=p...20politics
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(11-24-2017, 12:54 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(11-24-2017, 09:39 AM)Canard Wrote: I’m always gobsmacked that some can talk about “buying up homes” like people don’t live there or have lives. “Just destroy them, who cares about them”.

We’re talking about a project to benefit the entire Region, hundreds of thousands of people. In that context, 30 houses should not stop the project. The point is, even homes (and I use the word advisedly, normally I would use “houses” but I want to be clear that this argument still goes through even though the houses in question are people’s homes) have a market value, and if the market price of buying out the people on those streets is less than the price of moving the CP line to a new alignment, it would be silly to waste money on the more expensive alternative.

Having said that, that is an extreme approach offered more as a reductio. In actual fact, I think we could either take the approach that sometimes people just have to accept that their street will change (and similar to good old Mr. Aissa up on Northfield, I predict we’ll see most of them stay put, thus acknowledging by their actions that LRT tracks down the street aren’t actually that bad), or we could offer the property owners compensation for the change in their street without buying them out. Would those people really still be protesting if they all knew they were each getting $25,000 out of the deal? The total cost of compensation would be something like $750,000 under this made-up-on-the-spot idea. I’ll eat my shirt if it’s possible to move the CP line for that money.

[quote pid='45288' dateline='1511542497']
My aunt and uncle owned a home on Madison Ave. and what is now Charles St. The house and land was expropriated and they were given good compensation that allowed them to buy a house on Filbert Street. A very nice house and neighbourhood. However, living in a house that has lost the front yard may not be a very good deal. 
[/quote]
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(11-25-2017, 09:03 AM)kitborn Wrote:
(11-24-2017, 12:54 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: We’re talking about a project to benefit the entire Region, hundreds of thousands of people. In that context, 30 houses should not stop the project. The point is, even homes (and I use the word advisedly, normally I would use “houses” but I want to be clear that this argument still goes through even though the houses in question are people’s homes) have a market value, and if the market price of buying out the people on those streets is less than the price of moving the CP line to a new alignment, it would be silly to waste money on the more expensive alternative.

Having said that, that is an extreme approach offered more as a reductio. In actual fact, I think we could either take the approach that sometimes people just have to accept that their street will change (and similar to good old Mr. Aissa up on Northfield, I predict we’ll see most of them stay put, thus acknowledging by their actions that LRT tracks down the street aren’t actually that bad), or we could offer the property owners compensation for the change in their street without buying them out. Would those people really still be protesting if they all knew they were each getting $25,000 out of the deal? The total cost of compensation would be something like $750,000 under this made-up-on-the-spot idea. I’ll eat my shirt if it’s possible to move the CP line for that money.

[quote pid='45288' dateline='1511542497']
My aunt and uncle owned a home on Madison Ave. and what is now Charles St. The house and land was expropriated and they were given good compensation that allowed them to buy a house on Filbert Street. A very nice house and neighbourhood. However, living in a house that has lost the front yard may not be a very good deal. 

[/quote]

To be clear, my suggestion was based on the assumption that no actual property would be required and we were just compensating them for the change in their street. If property were required that would be on top of the compensation I suggested. I agree that depending on the owner losing the front yard could be unpleasant. The recent cases I can think of involve landlords on Columbia St. for whom I’m sure the compensation was effectively free money; but for an owner-occupant, they could be losing part of their garden or a sitting area.
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Submitted my feedback to the region. I hadn't noticed the new extension to the Galt segment before. Having a station closer to that pedestrian bridge certainly makes it more accessible to people in West Galt, especially the new tenants in the Southworks area.
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I'm personally a fan of the T3 terminal option which continues along the former Grand River Railway right-of-way (Wellington St) and puts the final station on the line at Concession and Ainslie. This would align stations to Main St and Concession; roads which cross the Grand River, simplifying bus routing through downtown Galt..
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Either way, lessening the significance of the Ainslie terminal is a move in the right direction. The intercity terminal belongs on Hespeler Road, either at Cambridge Centre or Pinebush. Put an interchange platform at Main or Concession for Hamilton buses and Galt-area GRT routes, but really the main terminal should be closer to the highway.
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(11-28-2017, 03:13 PM)DHLawrence Wrote: Either way, lessening the significance of the Ainslie terminal is a move in the right direction. The intercity terminal belongs on Hespeler Road, either at Cambridge Centre or Pinebush. Put an interchange platform at Main or Concession for Hamilton buses and Galt-area GRT routes, but really the main terminal should be closer to the highway.

I think the idea is to grow the city up and not out. The idea of a central transit terminal in downtown Galt makes sense from this perspective. That is also why it is important to have a stop in or near Preston as well.
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Transit connections in Galt make sense if Galt wants to grow up, but the southworks and Cambridge Mill-area developments haven't been well-received, let alone anything within spitting distance of Ainslie. If we ignore all that and assume that Galt wants to have 6 or even (gasp) 10+ storey buildings at their main Galt intersections, that only means that it makes sense to have grid intersections with transit lines there, as we are moving away from inefficient hub-and-spoke transit networks.

That said, a Greyhound hub does not make sense in Galt for Toronto-bound trips, as it puts the terminal as far south in Cambridge as possible, meaning that the bus itself has the longest path back to the 401, and everyone who needs to get to the hub has some degree of travel southwards in the wrong direction. The disconnected hubs of Cambridge (Galt, Preston, and both Hespeler and Hespeler Road) make the density required to make this function far less plausible than the continually-full buses of Greyhound up at UW/WLU. Greyhound terminals for disconnected passenger sources like Cambridge make the most sense as close as possible to the direct bus route, so for Toronto, a bus jaunting off the 401 and immediately back on, far closer than the current north-Cambridge area, makes the most sense, as while few live near any of these potential locations, the overall Greyhound trip is reduced, while the to-Greyhound trips aren't in the wrong direction for any users, either.
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Having the central terminal in Galt has also been a logistical nightmare for people in the rest of town trying to get somewhere on the bus that isn't Galt. Getting from Preston to Hespeler either required a trip down to Galt or two changes minimum. (I think you still have to change twice but the change points are closer together).

There's not a whole lot of "growing up" Galt can do. A few low-rise infill projects at most. Hespeler Road is a blank slate; there isn't a single thing along that road of even the faintest architectural or sentimental value. The old cores will become satellites to the real downtown; this will be a lot more for old Galtonians to swallow than residents of the rest of the city. (You think Cambridge vs Kitchener-Waterloo is bad?)
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Galt, Preston, and Hespeler will soon be as forgotten as Streetsville, because they will atrophy at their current residents' request.
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I went to the info session at the Preston arena last night.  I felt bad for the project representatives there, one was beset by the same group of residents for over half an hour, repeating their same anti-everything talking points over and over and over again.

One kept insisting that they should just expropriate the rail line from CP, then all of the North Cambridge routing problems would be solved.  "They can take our homes, why can't they just take CP's track?"  No matter how many times he was told by the project rep that rail lines are federally regulated and a municipality just doesn't have the authority to do that, he continued to repeat his point.

Looking at the display boards full size, I realized just how much I like the F2b/K3b route for Kitchener, and S3c/S3d route in South Cambridge.  Sad to see the trail get wacked, but it would really minimize disruption to the surrounding streets and properties and hopefully there'd be width for rail + trail.

North Cambridge is a real puzzle.  I like V/W/X to avoid a large chunk of Eagle St, and M/M1 is an interesting way of feeding into that, but how do you make the turn from King St onto M?  I find myself dreaming of some magical way to put a tunnel under the 401 right, about, here:

[Image: Tunnel.jpg]

It's short, and you wouldn't have to worry about any homes or buildings, so it could be done by cut-and-cover methods or even just as a trench with three portals under the 401 and King/ramp complexes.  But would the MTO let them???

Also, where do you put the Preston stop if they go with M/M1 to V/W/X?  It would be neat in the park, but that torpedoes bus connections.

I don't envy them this game, but can't wait to see how it all works out.
...K
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(11-29-2017, 03:09 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: Galt, Preston, and Hespeler will soon be as forgotten as Streetsville, because they will atrophy at their current residents' request.

Dear God, I hope whatever new downtown gets built in Cambridge (DH Lawrence is right that Hespeler Road is the best opportunity for it), it turns out better than Mississauga City Centre. I'd take Streetsville or Port Credit over that any day.
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Mississauga is definitely a good comparable for the development of a bunch of small centres that didn't want to accommodate growth, and the easiest-to-develop commercial area taking the development without much thought as to long-term planning. But that's what you get with a bunch of self-important (there must be a Preston stop!) NIMBYs (but no properties can be affected and no serious intensification of jobs or residents can occur!).
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