ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[MidTowner]

Looks like my imagined Phase 4 to close the loop and send LRT back down King St to Uptown is not going to be happening any time soon!

What's your imagined Phase 3?

[gomesjustin]

Looks like my imagined Phase 4 to close the loop and send LRT back down King St to Uptown is not going to be happening any time soon!

What's your imagined Phase 3?

Also curious to hear your imagined Phases! (We've all got them haha)

[Canard]

Mine's a Bombardier INNOVIA 300 Monorail to the airport along Victoria!

[GtwoK]

Y'know, I've always kinda thought the idea of a monorail in KW (at least, how KW is currently) was somewhat laughable. I just didn't see it working. But now that I think about it, a monorail would be the perfect solution for something like Victoria. Victoria make sense as the most likely route for Phase 3 (we've got N-S, now we need W-E) but theres the issue of how it would cross the tracks going in at King / Charles, as well as how it would interact with the street East of the 85. With so many business along Victoria over there — which are greatly helped by access from both sides of the street — a monorail allows the Ion ROW to still be crossable. I could see it! The monorail would also be able to travel over both the Ion Phase 1 tracks, and the CN crossing at Walnut.

That being said, a monorail West of downtown would feel strange to me; it's too residential.

[panamaniac]

Dumb question - can LRT lines intersect, or does one line always have to pass over/under the other?

[Markster]

If it's the same tech, they sure can intersect. See Toronto's streetcar network.
Many LRTs have branching lines, or intersecting lines that share some common track.

[Canard]

The problem/challenge for us here is that our line (and future lines) have to cross-cross heavy freight rail, and Transport Canada says no to that.

[Canard]

CTV news just ran a report that overall GrandLinq is a few months behind. More details (including an interview with GrandLinq) at 6pm.

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=911871

[Canard]

The latest in my little ride-along construction tours, this time between Victoria and Erb/Caroline, along King.

[Pheidippides]

It was super busy in Uptown this afternoon with lots of activity at the freight tracks crossing King. The tracks across King were ripped out (seemed like in one piece left on top of the existing freight line in front of the pizza place), a huge new hole was dug, and all the service connections were in progress if being replaced/fixed. I wonder if the new alignment will be in place by Monday/Tuesday. Sorry, no photo today.

[GtwoK]

IIRC, there was some super complex schedule for that crossing being closed over the course of a few months. Something like X days every Y weeks it would be closed with pedestrian crossings elsewhere, and A days every B weeks it would be closed with different pedestrian crossings entirely. It was on the most recent update. Could still be a while before the new alignment is in.

[Canard]

Remember, at Erb/Caroline, they'd remove the old track... do some work, then plop the old track back on top. They kept teasing us! Like every time I saw them pull up the old track I thought "This is it! New track going in!" and then they'd just throw the old track back on top.

I wonder if that's what's going to happen here. At first I was thinking that they'd be transitioning over to the new alignment this weekend... but after thinking about it some more, I bet they're just going to do some work and put the old track back on top.

[KevinL]

Meanwhile, down at Charles and Stirling, a crew was out this evening activating the new traffic signals and deactivating the temporary, wire-strung ones. Steady progress!

[JoeKW]

So the guy who threatened a construction worker with a knife couldn't even respect his bail conditions and he got sentenced to time served (54 days). I'm not a fan of harsh jail sentences but this seems on the low side.

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6770...kitchener/

[Canard]

Holy crap!!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The tracks start across Courtland <a href="https://twitter.com/WRConnected">@WRConnected</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt">@rideIONrt</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Grandlinq?src=hash">#Grandlinq</a> <a href="https://t.co/6hJ9s7dn1a">pic.twitter.com/6hJ9s7dn1a</a></p>&mdash; HAL8950 (@HAL8950) <a href="https://twitter.com/HAL8950/status/754293898672009216">July 16, 2016</a></blockquote>