ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[JoeKW]

Hopefully you get a cut of the gross value of the contract if they get land it

[KevinL]

..as I posted on the Toronto Projects thread a couple hours ago.

[Canard]

I just want a shot at sitting in the driver's seat at some point and tooting the horn, and making a couple of station announcements

[plam]

Huh! I also had never heard of white noise reversing. I did notice that Swiss trucks never seemed to make noise. I wonder if they're just not that safety conscious or whether they had the white noise.

[KevinL]

I'm pleased to report that I just now passed the corner of Frederick and Duke, and a modified pickup belonging to a subcontractor that was digging up the sidewalk reversed out - producing the white-noise variety of audible warning.

[Canard]

NICE!!!

[Canard]

Allen and GRH were getting their tactile edges and final concrete surfaces today.

The GRH has this oddity at its north end:



So the platform levels off at track height, but there are no curb cuts on the either side of the road (inner or outer). So the only way to "legally" enter the platform coming from Union is to walk all the way to the south entrance at Pine.

All of the other platforms on Charles are like this too (Borden, Kitchener Market...).

My guess is they will only have access from the one end only, and there will be a little railing to act as a fence/barrier at the other end, like some of the stops in Toronto:

   

https://goo.gl/maps/HwyxyYAibcn

It's a lot easier to just copy the design for all stations and then if you want to add something in later, it's already prepped for it.

[Viewfromthe42]

You don't put tactile strips unless you're expecting someone to cross the threshold at that point.

[Canard]

You do if you don't want to rip up the concrete later though. What I'm suggesting is there could be a railing or fence at the end of the platform, before the ramp down to where those strips are. Nobody would ever even get to them.

[Markster]

Ah! I just noticed that GRH thing last night.

The first picture here, I took standing in the Mt. Hope crosswalk.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Grand River Hospital <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt">@rideIONrt</a> station *could have level access from Mt. Hope St except for this cap-end curb and ramps going to the tracks <a href="https://t.co/pkEG1KzQE5">pic.twitter.com/pkEG1KzQE5</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/872623376552128514">June 8, 2017</a></blockquote>

It's absolutely absurd!  They could easily connect the station platform to Mt. Hope St. But they don't!

Allen Station got it right.  There are connections on both ends of the platforms to both Allen St and John St:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Allen Station didn't screw this up. Here's access to John St. And yet the *hospital* station got it wrong. <a href="https://t.co/vVy0d7ipV3">pic.twitter.com/vVy0d7ipV3</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/872625183135330304">June 8, 2017</a></blockquote>

[MidTowner]

That's insane. Mount Hope has lights- how can it not have platform access?

[Markster]

That's insane. Mount Hope has lights- how can it not have platform access?

My best guess is that thanks to the narrowing of the space between the tracks, and the extra-large cat poles (the weighted ones) that the navigation path around the pole is slightly substandard, and so they've just thrown out any idea of a connection?

All of which makes me ask: "Well why wasn't platform access from both ends in the plans from the beginning?!"

[Pheidippides]

Because how people actually access the stations and travel across their neighbourhoods was too often not considered (e.g Traynor ave) or considered and ignored (e.g. the above examples, the king/William bus stop, etc.).

Do not forget that in addition to the GRH stop there have been similar potential platform access problems identified at R&T, Willis, UW, Laurier, and public square to name a few. That is a high proportion of stations for it to be random. The details of how people access the stations will impact how well the system does and should have been given greater consideration.

I really hope that the region does a project ending consultation to collect all the lessons learned on to the next phase of ion and other similar projects across the province.

[Canard]

So this just happened:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Track equipment triggered lights at Northfield. Chaos. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLrt?src=hash">#wrLrt</a> Cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/WRPSToday">@WRPSToday</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/570traffic">@570traffic</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt">@rideIONrt</a> <a href="https://t.co/iZqJpACStT">pic.twitter.com/iZqJpACStT</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/872939111161769984">June 8, 2017</a></blockquote>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is messed. They keep going on and off. Seriously you need to send traffic control here <a href="https://twitter.com/WRPSToday">@WRPSToday</a> cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/RegionWaterloo">@RegionWaterloo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tomjgalloway14">@tomjgalloway14</a> <a href="https://t.co/h0c68rely7">pic.twitter.com/h0c68rely7</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/872940779991334912">June 8, 2017</a></blockquote>

There was the tamper, ballast sweeper and a little trailer at the Northfield platform.  They were moving southbound (2 of them) and they left the little trailer.  The little trailer was triggering the lights, I think (or something to do with how the tracks were switched).  After they came back and fetched the trailer, the lights went off momentarily... then they came back on again.  There were two guys playing with the switch and it seemed like every time they touched it the lights would cycle on and off and so on.

They should really get this sorted!

[Smore]

You do if you don't want to rip up the concrete later though. What I'm suggesting is there could be a railing or fence at the end of the platform, before the ramp down to where those strips are. Nobody would ever even get to them.

This hasn't been a barrier through the project to date...