ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Smore]

Was GoldLink on time?

[GtwoK]

For a while now, track has been laid along most of Borden, but only embedded up until Nyberg. Noticed today while driving past that embedding has now started further down the track, closer to Grand River Rocks. Anyone know why they would have skipped embedding the entire section between that and Nyberg?

[timio]

Bridge work over the creek?

[Canard]

Was GoldLink on time?

Great question. I can't find anything about the scheduled vs. actual opening. They did do 10 months of testing (first train movements until public opening), however.

[ijmorlan]

Ottawa is opening a short two-station section (I think) of their LRT first, for the Canada 150 celebration, with the whole system opening later.  When the Skytrain opened in Vancouver, they opened actually just one station first, and gave people rides for a few months out and back along the guideway, so they could try out the system until it was complete.

It would be my dream that something like that could happen here too, along the Waterloo spur.  Offer free rides between Northfield and R&T Park on weekends or something, just to at least give us something to experience and "preview" the system.  Since the FLEXITY Freedom testing is set to happen along this stretch anyway, I could actually imagine that happening!

That would be great. Perhaps it could even extend down to Seagram or the stop at Waterloo Town Square.

I have long thought that they should have started a mini service with just a single vehicle shuttling back and forth between UW campus and Uptown on a single track. I think that would have cut the legs out from under a lot of the nonsense that was spewed about LRT — there can still be differences of opinion, some of them even legitimate, but a lot of the outright incorrect facts wouldn’t have been tenable. Of course I’m aware the overhead costs for a single-vehicle service are rather large.

[BuildingScout]

I'm voting somewhere between "late" and "really late," though the definition of the second is of course subjective.

I have no clue if they are early or late, but I like the fact that there seems to be steady progress along the entire line.

[MidTowner]

I have long thought that they should have started a mini service with just a single vehicle shuttling back and forth between UW campus and Uptown on a single track. I think that would have cut the legs out from under a lot of the nonsense that was spewed about LRT — there can still be differences of opinion, some of them even legitimate, but a lot of the outright incorrect facts wouldn’t have been tenable. Of course I’m aware the overhead costs for a single-vehicle service are rather large.

That routing, in particular, would be extremely student-heavy (I know our entire transit system is). Almost no non-students would ride it, and the LRT naysayers would quickly label it a "student shuttle" and, no matter how successful it would be, they would claim that people who can afford to buy cars just won't take transit.

I think the beauty of the Ion's routing is that it serves several different kinds of areas and populations. It's going to be great to see the diversity of ridership on different parts of the line, and prove that we can be a strong transit community.

I'm with you and Canard, though, that offering some service along the Spur would be great, even if it's just weekends or one day a week or whatever is feasible. It would be nice for potential riders to go check it out, see how fast it's going to travel and how comfortable it is, and get used to seeing it running.

[Canard]

I bet if they get the spur ready this summer, and we get at least 1 train from Bombardier for testing, we could have weekend trial runs for passengers without too much difficulty. One or two stations would have to be kitted out (I suggested Northfield since its closest to the OMSF, where the trains sleep). Maybe just one, since then they could just run south to Bearanger and turn back, eliminating any level crossing interfaces (ie, getting the bells running at Bearanger). This would be the simplest.

When the SkyTrain did trial runs for passengers, they just drove it in manual mode with no signalling or anything.

I suppose the lawyers and insurance people would be the biggest hurdle - the whole "safe for public use" thing etc. It may not be worth their while, and since it's a P3, GrandLinq may say no because there's nothing in it for them except risk of delaying other elements of resources are diverted to spur operations for joyrides.

[insider]

He hasn't exactly established his claimed status, has he. It's easy to go online and claim you know something, and then not share any information.

ha... ok sure.

Anyway, from someone directly involved in ION's construction, but still a rumour, word on the street is that Grandlinq expects to surprise everyone with an earlier opening date: April 2017

But as I said, it's a RUMOUR - before you all eat me alive. And yes, I know stuff, and no, my nickname is not arbitrary but many times I just can't share as much information as I would like. When things are confidential and you spill the beans it's very easy to find out who it was, so I just prefer to protect myself. Sorry, not sorry

[Canard]

GrandLinq might be finished up their end in April 2017, sure - but as I've mentioned before, testing will take 6-9 months of train movements. So you can back-calculate from that...

We will not be riding full service on ion in April 2017. There's just no way. Victoria/King and Waterloo aren't going to wrap up until the end of 2016, so April 2017 is just four months past that.

I really, really hope you're right, though! I would much prefer the opening ceremony is held in spring/summer than winter. I hate the idea of balloons and streamers and a band playing in the snow.

[Canard]

To clarify: the April 2017 completion date you've heard could have always been that, and hasn't moved. April + 6 months of agresive testing puts opening at Fall of 2017, right on time.

[Markster]

To clarify: the April 2017 completion date you've heard could have always been that, and hasn't moved. April + 6 months of agresive testing puts openig at Fall of 2017, right on time.

Yeah, this seems likely.  Substantial completion for April 2017.
Testing beginning on the spur before then, and then citywide through the summer.
Optimistically opening to the public for September service changes.  (and that crush of students every year)

[KevinL]

I'm sure the Region's sweet spot is the Labour Day weekend, their standard date for implementing transit changes since time immemorial.

[Elmira Guy]

Region residents weigh in on proposed Ion LRT Stage 2 routes

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/kitch...-1.3492032

[Viewfromthe42]

A lot of "let's save costs by avoiding these areas" (Hespeler/Eagle) followed by "let's add in many other stops, including some egregiously expensive ones." (Preston)