ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

This new LRT straddles the roadside to move passengers. This one is for Canard ... enjoy. 

Here is the URL for the original article.  Futuristic LRT

Omg, please let the stupid "straddlebus" die. I'm curious why this is going viral everywhere again. I hate it so much. This tweet sums it up nicely:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I want to hear about the straddle bus even less than I want to hear about Hyperloop.</p>&mdash; Michael Druker (@m_druker) <a href="https://twitter.com/m_druker/status/735582897315414018">May 25, 2016</a></blockquote>

It's not a thing. It's some concept by a high school or college student who has a bit of solid modelling skills and zero knowledge of how transport actually works or needs to work. It also diminishes the credibility of other transportation alternatives, like Monorail, which are actual, viable alternatives, but get lumped in with this and laughed at by urban planers.

Now I've gone horribly off topic. Sorry, I know you were just trying to bring something interesting up, I'm not lashing out at you Just... Blechhhhh!!!  More FLEXITY talk plz!

(Perhaps a moderator could move our posts over to the other transport thread in this sub forum?)

[timio]

Ottawa / Mill is closing for 2 months early June.  This is likely when they'll shift the CN line and re-configure the intersection based on the recommended alternative.  As you can see below, the functional design is vague on the design so you have to go digging to find out that Council endorsed alternative 1 for the redesign.



Information on the alternatives from the PIC in 2013.

[Canard]

Thanks for digging that up! I think Alternative A, the chosen one, makes the most sense. It maintains all possible movements. I don't see any advantage at all with B; only disadvantages, since it prohibits certain movements off Mill.

[jamincan]

I'm confused... both of the alternatives shown in the reports show Mill being broken into a north and south leg with the north leg intersecting Ottawa further west from the south leg. This seems to show Mill remaining a continuous street (and also be oriented with South being up?), which is inconsistent with those reports.

[timc]

I was reading this article in The Record today about what the Region can do about Bombardier, and in there, I found this:

Q: Can the construction schedule for GrandLinq be altered to line up with anticipated train delivery?

A: No. GrandLinq is required by contract to have the light rail system substantially completed by July 1, 2017. On that date, the region must start making payments to GrandLinq for operations and maintenance.

If the trains aren't ready and GrandLinq completes construction on time, the region still has to pay but the government won't be receiving the revenue from fares it anticipated.

However, at this point GrandLinq is behind schedule, Galloway said, so that might eliminate the gap. It is too early to call though since the consortium has more than a year to make up time.

While parts of the project have taken longer than expected, I don't recall an admission of this sort before. From what I've heard recently, for the most part, things are still planned to be finished on time.

Also, if GrandLinq is done on time, how much does it cost the Region per day to pay for a system that isn't even running? And will it create more or less fuss than was caused by the green bin fiasco? :-)

[Spokes]

So much ION content to sift through and catch up on. As someone who appreciates transit, but isn't a transit buff, I've learned so much from all of you, thank you so much!

A question though, with the Bombardier delay, is there a chance we get SOME of the vehicles and start rolling them out a bit at a time, or is that pointless?

[timio]

Thanks for digging that up! I think Alternative A, the chosen one, makes the most sense. It maintains all possible movements. I don't see any advantage at all with B; only disadvantages, since it prohibits certain movements off Mill.

Both options also eliminate northbound through traffic on Mill.

[timio]

And will it create more or less fuss than was caused by the green bin fiasco? :-)

The answer is more. Always more.

...

[tomh009]

A question though, with the Bombardier delay, is there a chance we get SOME of the vehicles and start rolling them out a bit at a time, or is that pointless?

Once Grandlinq receives some of the vehicles, they can start testing and training.  That will take a while anyway, and during that time the remaining vehicles will (hopefully) arrive.  It wouldn't make sense to start service with much less than the full complement of trains as you'd have to take a big hit on frequency, and that critical first impression would suffer from people having to wait for a long time for the next train.

[tomh009]

They really do need to get Charles open.  With Duke now torn up, and King closed from Water St, the east-west traffic in downtown is really suffering.  Need to have at least one street operational.

Just wait until Victoria closes next week

Right.  It'll be a few weeks of really bad construction.  By the end of June a lot of the streets will reopen (Queen at both Charles and Duke!) and the situation will improve, but that overlap period will not be pleasant.  Good thing I'm walking to work!

[GtwoK]

Just wait until Victoria closes next week

Right.  It'll be a few weeks of really bad construction.  By the end of June a lot of the streets will reopen (Queen at both Charles and Duke!) and the situation will improve, but that overlap period will not be pleasant.  Good thing I'm walking to work!

My concern is that, even with intersections at Duke reopening now, they will still need to close again for the installation of track. Here's hoping that's no more than 2 adjacent intersections at a time!

[clasher]

Thanks for digging that up! I think Alternative A, the chosen one, makes the most sense. It maintains all possible movements. I don't see any advantage at all with B; only disadvantages, since it prohibits certain movements off Mill.

The southbound left turns from Mill onto Ottawa probably don't have a high volume compared to all the other movements in that intersections so that's why they made an option without them. It also moves the bus stop on the island away from the freight rail a bit. Even without the additional traffic detouring off Courtland making that turn is always slow since there isn't an advanced green at that light. Using Mill as a northbound alternative to Courtland is pretty much done with either option it but I'm sure people will still make northbound left turns off Mill street for a while. Drivers getting off the highway at Courtland and heading to the west side of Kitchener use Mill to Spadina to Highland it seems from my casual observations and driving out of downtown on Mill Street in the evenings or coming from H-W & Ottawa at this time but I've since decided that H-W to Stirling and up Highland gets me downtown just as quick. Either way they go I'm going to avoid this area from now on.

[Waterlooer]

I really hope the Region just waits to get all 14 trains before they start service. 30 minute frequency doesn't sound very rapid to me and would be a huge step backwards considering the 200 runs every 10 minutes during Fall/Winter. Maybe, if construction on ION is done by September 2017, they'll run buses along the ION corridor and make all the stops ION will make. This way GRT could still have their network redesign of bus routes that integrate with ION stations for the Fall.

[tomh009]

BRT on the LRT route! But I think they'll be needing the LRT tracks for testing and training so that's probably not a practical option.

[timc]

BRT on the LRT route!  But I think they'll be needing the LRT tracks for testing and training so that's probably not a practical option.

Not to mention that the riding the spur line would be *awfully* bumpy in a bus.