ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Is that the plan? If so, when? (Where'd you hear that?)

Did they have any speeches it fireworks or a band or anything?

[Canard]

So, just drove the whole route on our way home from the states and I saw exactly one person at the Pinebush stop and that's it. Every other stop deserted. Nothing at Ainsile. No streamers or anything. So disappointed.

When the LRT service starts, if they just quietly start the first train out at 6am on a Monday or whatever with no fanfare I'll be crushed.

[BuildingScout]

So, just drove the whole route on our way home from the states and I saw exactly one person at the Pinebush stop and that's it. Every other stop deserted. Nothing at Ainsile. No streamers or anything. So disappointed.

When the LRT service starts, if they just quietly start the first train out at 6am on a Monday or whatever with no fanfare I'll be crushed.

Gosh man, it's 33C outside feeling more like 39C and its labour day. What did you expect?

[Coke6pk]

So, just drove the whole route on our way home from the states and I saw exactly one person at the Pinebush stop and that's it. Every other stop deserted. Nothing at Ainsile. No streamers or anything. So disappointed.

When the LRT service starts, if they just quietly start the first train out at 6am on a Monday or whatever with no fanfare I'll be crushed.

When the first one goes, I'll let ya know... I won a contest to ride the first ION train. :

Coke

[plam]

So, just drove the whole route on our way home from the states and I saw exactly one person at the Pinebush stop and that's it. Every other stop deserted. Nothing at Ainsile. No streamers or anything. So disappointed.

When the LRT service starts, if they just quietly start the first train out at 6am on a Monday or whatever with no fanfare I'll be crushed.

Often things have a soft opening and then a grand opening. Not sure what they're planning here.

[D40LF]

Many people seem to be very confused about the aBRT in Cambridge today. I overheard a couple comments about the bus operator "not knowing where he's going". Other than people being confused, I love the more direct route down Hespeler and the added stops. The stations look fantastic. Not sure if it actually is any faster, but it felt quicker getting from Pinebush to Cambridge Centre. It will be nice when they move the Cambridge Centre terminal in front of the mall along Hespeler so ION buses don't have to travel down Conestoga Blvd to get to Cambridge Centre.

If anything, it's slower. A quick glance at the the schedule shows it just about on par with route 52 between Ainslie and Fairview. What a shame.

So, just drove the whole route on our way home from the states and I saw exactly one person at the Pinebush stop and that's it. Every other stop deserted. Nothing at Ainsile. No streamers or anything. So disappointed.

When the LRT service starts, if they just quietly start the first train out at 6am on a Monday or whatever with no fanfare I'll be crushed.

The Region will be hosting a formal event on Friday.

http://www.grt.ca/en/travelwithus/ION.asp

[Canard]

No, it looks like they just bumped the date. It said September 7 before. So maybe they'll just keep bumping it to the next Friday.

I'm aware of soft openings (very common in the theme park industry) but they said over and over that today (the 7th) was the "Grand Opening". Nothing grand about it. No special traffic lights either at any of the stops along 24; in fact, in only one spot (between Delta and Can-Amera) did I see a spot where a bus would have an opportunity to "queue jump" - and only Northbound, at that. What a shame.

[Waterlooer]

That's also because a lot of people still don't know about these stops. More people will use them in time. Same thing happened with other stops on the 200 like at sports world.

[Square]

Canard: GRT tweeted me back about the traffic signals. I was told that these buses will have the same technology that fire and ems vehicles use to change the light to green, BUT only when they are 2 or more minutes behind.

Also I wonder how busy they will be this Friday when it's free?

[taylortbb]

Also I wonder how busy they will be this Friday when it's free?

Probably not very. GRT does this for all the new iXpress routes for the first few months, and I've never noticed Friday being busier than any other day. I think awareness of free Fridays is quite limited among those that don't regularly use transit.

[timio]

Unannounced closure at William and Caroline tonight. It was odd seeing route 7 travelling across William to Westmount for the detour. They were digging a trench with some green water pipes nearby, but who knows what for.

[TMKM94]

Unannounced closure at William and Caroline tonight.  It was odd seeing route 7 travelling across William to Westmount for the detour.  They were digging a trench with some green water pipes nearby, but who knows what for.

William and Caroline was closed last night also, and according to the bus shelter in front of Waterloo town square. It will be closed tomorrow night also. I noticed today they we're putting more asphalt down towards Willis way.

[ijmorlan]

Unannounced closure at William and Caroline tonight.  It was odd seeing route 7 travelling across William to Westmount for the detour.  They were digging a trench with some green water pipes nearby, but who knows what for.

I was there a few nights ago and there were signs posted advertising night closures September 8 - 10 so I’m expecting it to be closed this evening also.

However, as far as I can tell this closure is not mentioned on rideion.ca or the linked http://rideion.tumblr.com site (why does that even exist?). So this is actually a good example of the sort of deficiency I’ve noticed in their notifications. All they need is one really smart co-op student to communicate with the construction scheduling people (the people who call up work crew X and send them to intersection Y on day D), update the website, and command the sign-deploying crews. In fairness you would not know ahead of time whether the co-op student was good enough so maybe it should be a permanent person. Who could also be below standard. But what I’m trying to say is they’re clearly spending enough; they’re just not actually doing a good job of communicating what is happening.

[timio]

The construction updates and road closure notices seemed to stop as of the weekend. Perhaps it's a case of the summer student doing the job is gone now and they haven't figured out who is supposed to keep it up. That's the optimistic view.

Pessimistic view is they gave up and don't care about communicating anymore.

[kwliving]

But what I’m trying to say is they’re clearly spending enough; they’re just not actually doing a good job of communicating what is happening.

Isn't that standard government project procedure?