ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Pheidippides]

The photos date stamped in April and January in that newsletter is from the first quarter of this year and states, "The first pilot and production vehicles are now being assembled and will be ready for testing in spring 2016." They must have been photos of a FLEXITY in production, not the FLEXITYs from this order, otherwise that must have been one heck of a production hiccup if they still are not ready.

[Canard]

That report was put together before the revised schedule; trains are still on target to head to Millhaven before month's end.  I believe it, if that's where they were at in January and April.

Train pictured is actually the Metrolinx pilot vehicle; paint scheme matches their "neutral" motif (grey upper stripe, black "smile" encapsulating the headlamps):

   

Reminder - FLEXITY Freedom buildout starts as follows:

Train 1: Metrolinx Pilot LRV
Train 2: Metrolinx Pilot LRV
Train 3: Waterloo ion LRV No 1
Train 4: Waterloo ion LRV No. 2
Train 5: Waterloo ion LRV No. 3
etc..

Still, so, so exciting to see.  I've been dreaming of the day when the first photo would be leaked from Thunder Bay.  Figured it'd have to be Metrolinx or the Region that would finally sneak some out!

[Canard]

No, it's painters tape. As I mentioned these photos are of Metrolinx' first pilot LRV.

[kitborn]

This editorial about LRT vs. BRT.

Until the passenger numbers go up for Cambridge to Kitchener, this may be a good idea.

[jgsz]

This editorial about LRT vs. BRT.

Until the passenger numbers go up for Cambridge to Kitchener, this may be a good idea.

From the editorial:

An express bus system could, in time, build the ridership numbers that would convince senior levels of government that Cambridge needs and deserves light rail.

Building ridership numbers seems like a spurious argument to me.  

For starters, Cambridge has 126,748 (2011) people.  Waterloo has 98,780 (2011) people.  I realize Waterloo has lots of students but many have little to do with the community.  They take GO buses to the GTA but relatively few go far from campus, which is unfortunate.

Before merging with GRT, Cambridge Transit had about 25 buses serving 90,000 people.   It was better than nothing but very little was done to encourage ridership. For example, there was no Sunday service.  And buses didn't run that often.  Memories linger and I doubt many people in Cambridge will be enticed to leave their car at home and hop on a BRT.  

BRT is not as sexy as an LRT.  So what happens if ridership numbers don't improve significantly?  Will Cambridge cancel BRTs and go back to regular bus service?  That would be a shame but it could happen.  

If you want to build ridership on public transit go for the full LRT, without delay.  There is ample evidence to show that once an LRT is built ridership increases fast.  

IIRC, both the Provincial and Federal governments are in favour of funding public transit.  Why Cambridge mayor, Doug Craig, is such a stick-in-the-mud is beyond me.

[jamincan]

I'm also a bit surprised that Doug Craig seems to think that we'll have a hard time convincing senior levels of government to fund expansion. They're practically throwing money at transit expansion right now.

[clasher]

The cost to build a true BRT with a separate ROW seems like a wasted opportunity to just built an LRT right off the get-go. Aren't labour costs are lower on an LRT system since BRT generally needs more buses to provide a similar level of service?

[ijmorlan]

The cost to build a true BRT with a separate ROW seems like a wasted opportunity to just built an LRT right off the get-go. Aren't labour costs are lower on an LRT system since BRT generally needs more buses to provide a similar level of service?

Yes, but only at high service levels where it is reasonable to run fewer larger vehicles rather than more smaller vehicles. So LRT scales better as traffic increases.

The editorial made at least one subtly-incorrect point: it claims BRT routes are easier to move thanks to the lack of tracks. Well, that might be true of a regular bus route or cheap Walmart BRT such as has been built in Cambridge so far, but real BRT requires … a dedicated right-of-way with dedicated lanes, which is guaranteed to be just as hard to move as an LRT line.

I will say that of all the places to cheap out and just build BRT, the Cambridge extension is a less-bad place for it. Just expand Hespeler Road with BRT lanes, protect for LRT conversion, and have the bus pop onto the 401 and expressway to get up to Farview Mall. So the cost savings over LRT is larger than usual (an entire segment of the route from Fairvew to Hespeler/401 can be skipped), and the route runs down the middle of an already-large road.

Having said that, let’s do it right, build it as LRT, and prove wrong all the people who said Cambridge would never get LRT (including, I believe, Doug Craig himself). If it is built as BRT, however, I want a signed statement from Doug Craig that he will never whine about Cambridge getting the short end of the stick ever again. I always thought he would become pro-LRT once it was clear that the KW area was definitely getting an LRT system. So I guess points for consistency but minus points for not pushing for the interests of his constituency. Except politicians aren’t really scored on consistency so that’s really only minus points.

[MidTowner]

...If it is built as BRT, however, I want a signed statement from Doug Craig that he will never whine about Cambridge getting the short end of the stick ever again...

Yep.

The best line of the article is “There's no rush to respond to Mayor Craig's trial balloon — nor should anyone feel inclined to let the air out of it”

Real BRT with dedicated lanes might be a good interim measure, and certainly better than “aBRT.” But the best thing for the Region to do is lobby the provincial government aggressively for funding for Phase II to Cambridge. It might not be the most cost effective route in the Region, but politically it has to be done. Otherwise Cambridge would threaten any major transit investments anywhere else in the Region- especially but not just Ion expansion elsewhere.

[Viewfromthe42]

Rain is such that the "roadway" on King in front of Kaufman Lofts is currently a river.

[timc]

Rain is such that the "roadway" on King in front of Kaufman Lofts is currently a river.

I imagine it's a pretty muddy river too.

[Canard]

First pics of FLEXITY Freedom going together in Thunder Bay.

One more; cab shot:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">And from <a href="https://twitter.com/Metrolinx">@Metrolinx</a> Rapid Transit, Capital Projects Group 2015-16 Q3 report, LRV pilot interior shot <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/onpoli?src=hash">#onpoli</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://t.co/GukowsMA5O">pic.twitter.com/GukowsMA5O</a></p>&mdash; Chris Drew (@chrisjamesdrew) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrisjamesdrew/status/765579068125302785">August 16, 2016</a></blockquote>

[GtwoK]

Lots of lovely tree planting going on along the line downtown today! They tend planting trees along Duke at Francis and it looks quite nice

Noticed something strange being installed at King / Francis. Across King, on the east side, where the crosswalk will be, they had dug an 18" trench. Along that trench, there were ~8 metal poles, standing vertically on the bottom of the trench, not buried at all. The top of the poles was level with where the pavement will eventually be. What would those be for? All I could think was maybe some sort of barrier could be inserted into them for when they need to close King for events?

[Canard]

What did the poles look like? What diameter? Was there a mounting flange on top?

[danbrotherston]

Lots of lovely tree planting going on along the line downtown today! They tend planting trees along Duke at Francis and it looks quite nice

Noticed something strange being installed at King / Francis. Across King, on the east side, where the crosswalk will be, they had dug an 18" trench. Along that trench, there were ~8 metal poles, standing vertically on the bottom of the trench, not buried at all. The top of the poles was level with where the pavement will eventually be. What would those be for? All I could think was maybe some sort of barrier could be inserted into them for when they need to close King for events?

If it was, that would be a very useful addition, I am kind of surprised the city didn't have that before.  Closing the road with orange construction signs always seemed to be a bit unfortunate.