ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

Agreed, that's what I thought to - but that can't work with the way the curbs are in the photos above.  The road surface will be at the bottom of the curb, which implies traffic is not permitted to drive across any of the embedded track through this intersection.

I think somehow you're seeing this wrong - to me, the embedded track is NOT level with the top of the curb, but with its lower level.

[Canard]

The curb which was poured around the OCS foundation is flush with the top of the embedded track. Road is therefore the height of the curb below the top surface of embedded track. I'm talking about the OCS foundation curb, ignore the others for now.

[Markster]

.....which now has me really wondering something. I had always assumed here that the track would "dip" or the road surface would come up to meet it... So that vehicles wound be still alowed to move straight through on either Charles or Benton. But looking at the curb that was poured around be OCS pole foundation, the top of that curb is flush with the top of the track, which suggests that the road will be the height of the curb below that - in other words, that vehicles will not be driving on top of the embedded track.

Does anyone know if that's the case? Does that mean that Charles South is through, Benton West is through, but Charles North is forced onto Benton/Frederick East and Benton North has to turn West onto Charles?

The curb they've poured is part of the intersection a little to the north (King St side) of the intersection. You can see that there are two levels: The left part of the curb is raised, the right part of the curb is lowered, allowing for the pedestrian crosswalk. The LRT track is roughly level with the right side, where the curb cut is. The left side is indeed a raised curb, as you can see the concrete of the track base dissappear behind it. No cars would need to cross at this point, because this is not yet in the intersection.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Caroline/William is slated to close next week until December 18 for track installation.

Queen and Duke is slated to close today for 6 weeks.

Closing Queen and Duke before Charles and Benton has re-opened?  That is not going to be pretty.....

Ditto that for the Caroline/William closure given that Allen/King and John/King are still closed.

Heck, let's just close everything at once!

[GtwoK]

Closing Queen and Duke before Charles and Benton has re-opened?  That is not going to be pretty.....

Ditto that for the Caroline/William closure given that Allen/King and John/King are still closed.

Heck, let's just close everything at once!

Caroline / William is not supposed to close until King / Allen reopen, and King from Union to Erb will be reopened while it's being worked on. That's not SO bad.

Courtland / Borden will finally be getting the track crossing it over the course of 10 days starting on the 17th.

[KevinL]

I just walked past the intersection and had a look for myself. I think the spot that's causing the confusion is because it's on a curve and the track has been aligned with a slight tilt; this means the side of the concrete embedding is higher there than it would usually be, and the interaction with the curb is exceptional as a result.

When the other curb islands, etc go in, I think this will be clearer.

[panamaniac]

Caroline/William is slated to close next week until December 18 for track installation.

Queen and Duke is slated to close today for 6 weeks.

Closing Queen and Duke before Charles and Benton has re-opened?  That is not going to be pretty.....

Having been stuck down there this afternoon, I'd strongly recommend that drivers avoid King St E between Frederick and Queen Sts (at least) until Benton Sts reopen.

[KevinL]

Courtland will close at Borden for ten days starting the 17th, presumably for track installation.

[Canard]

Glad to hear that's finally going to get connected, but man - can't imagine at all where traffic will go. Great to have this final push before winter but it's really getting bad now for closures.

[megabytephreak]

Some paving went in on King between Union and Allen today, you can see the curb seperating the single northbound lane from the space for the LRT down the center. The stretch also shows up as divided now in google maps. Will get a better look in the morning. Prepwork for paving on King between Allen and William is ongoing, they've been putting in some long days this week. .

[ijmorlan]

A short segment of track on Caroline just North of Father David Bauer has had concrete poured. Earlier today it looked like they were working on getting the mesh in place further down the street.

[nms]

In case you missed it, the Waterloo Spur upgraded ION track carried its first passengers on Wednesday when the Waterloo Central Railway brought veterans and families down from St. Jacobs for the Remembrance Day Ceremony.  The train was parked next to the Cenotaph at the request of the Legion to provide a covered area for veterans and their families to watch the ceremony.  Photo taken from Melissa Durrell's Facebook page.

[Canard]

That's very cool, and sort of historic, at the same time! Thanks for mentioning this.

[KevinL]

A very rare occasion, and unlikely to happen many times more - perhaps next Remembrance Day, but after that the lines will be occupied by Ion traffic. Glad it's recorded for posterity.

[timio]

This week's Planning and Works committee agenda has information on the King/Victoria Transit Hub, Stage 2 Ion, and Stage 1 Ion construction update.