05-04-2016, 11:44 AM
(05-04-2016, 10:53 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: With the hoped for increased service along this line you would think that there would be a plan to do one crossing every 3 years or so - although every 3 years might be ambitious given the Weber one is still not done and the other competing priorities across the region and city.
It's pretty phenomenal to think that there have been, in 3 years, two major grade separations (Weber and King) undertaken.
As far as I can tell, Kitchener has never grade-separated an existing, urban, level crossing on the mainline before. Even the Margaret St bridge has been there for over a hundred years:
Quote:The 1959 bridge replaced an older wood and iron overpass whose history probably went back fewer than 40 years to the mid-1920s.
It, in turn, had taken the place of a much older and smaller wooden span at Margaret Avenue that, from 1902 on, had carried the Berlin and Bridgeport Electric Street Railway over the Grand Trunk Railway tracks.
There may have been an even earlier bridge but historical documentation is slim.
Kitchener has been focused on suburban expansion, with all grade separations being of the vein of "grade separate rural road as we upgrade it to suburban arterial". I recall reading about the politicking involved with the Westmount Rd crossing.
Couple this with the gradual decrease of rail traffic through the 60s-90s, and I'm sure that it's just something that seemed like it wasn't that big an issue. King St, Weber St, and Lancaster had always had to wait for trains, and for decades, those delays were getting fewer and further between.
And of course, on top of the King and Weber ones, we're also about to get the Edna-connector and Bruce-extension to Wellington as part of the Highway 7 work.