ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Markster]

Does anyone know why we went with the horizontal bar bus signals instead of the dedicated lights for buses like at Highland Hills mall?

It's less prone to confusion. The idea being that motorists can expect that every red-yellow-green signal applies to them. The buses meanwhile, can get signals that tell them to Go which motorists won't recognize and won't accidentally follow. I've even seen people on twitter complain about "buses running red lights" because they didn't realize that there's a separate signal for them.

In other signal news, I saw an LRT signal change to the vertical bar! I hadn't seen any signal changes for them yet. This was at the railway crossing in Uptown. The pedestrians had a walk signal, and the LRT had a vertical bar. They were clearly synchronized.

[ijmorlan]

Does anyone know why we went with the horizontal bar bus signals instead of the dedicated lights for buses like at Highland Hills mall?

It's less prone to confusion. The idea being that motorists can expect that every red-yellow-green signal applies to them.  The buses meanwhile, can get signals that tell them to Go which motorists won't recognize and won't accidentally follow.  I've even seen people on twitter complain about "buses running red lights" because they didn't realize that there's a separate signal for them.

In other signal news, I saw an LRT signal change to the vertical bar!  I hadn't seen any signal changes for them yet. This was at the railway crossing in Uptown.  The pedestrians had a walk signal, and the LRT had a vertical bar.  They were clearly synchronized.

Now if they can just fix it so that the pedestrian crossing of the LRT track only gets a red when the LRT signal is activated by an LRV, not when somebody presses the button to cross King St., then we’ll really have something.

[Canard]

Grandlinq crews are removing the guard rails on the Northfield bridge today.

In other news, people are parked solid in not only the new Bike lanes in uptown, but now also the LRT tracks again as well.

   

[jamincan]

It's green car parking. Hook up your car to the overhead lines with jumpers and get a full charge over dinner.

[tomh009]

Sigh. From bad to worse.

I don't see this behaviour in DTK, is it simply a difference in enforcement?

[KevinL]

I have this gut feeling that, with this being the height of holiday shopping and the BIA being a loud voice, bylaw is mostly looking the other way just now.

But I have zero evidence in that regard, for the record.

[Canard]

That was my thought too, Kevin.

[Markster]

Sigh. From bad to worse.  

I don't see this behaviour in DTK, is it simply a difference in enforcement?

There were fewer places in DTK where the LRT replaced existing street parking. Charles and Duke had the occasional street parking, but it was pretty randomly placed, and often not in terribly desirable locations.
Waterloo meanwhile replaced a large strip of street parking on the central commercial drag.

It's going to take some time for people to adjust, and that would happen faster with trains on the tracks.

[ijmorlan]

Sigh. From bad to worse.  

I don't see this behaviour in DTK, is it simply a difference in enforcement?

There were fewer places in DTK where the LRT replaced existing street parking.  Charles and Duke had the occasional street parking, but it was pretty randomly placed, and often not in terribly desirable locations.
Waterloo meanwhile replaced a large strip of street parking on the central commercial drag.

It's going to take some time for people to adjust, and that would happen faster with trains on the tracks.

I dunno, I haven’t heard anything about big snowplow attachments being delivered to the OMSF…

[Canard]

I like the idea of a big Narwhal-like poker thingie on the front of the LRV that jams into the cars and pumps them full of some volts.

[Spokes]

Grandlinq crews are removing the guard rails on the Northfield bridge today.

In other news, people are parked solid in not only the new Bike lanes in uptown, but now also the LRT tracks again as well.

At what point does the region instruct the cities to go on a ticketing spree?

[timc]

Now if they can just fix it so that the pedestrian crossing of the LRT track only gets a red when the LRT signal is activated by an LRV, not when somebody presses the button to cross King St., then we’ll really have something.

Gee, you know, that seems like it would be a natural place to put a railway crossing arm instead of having a pedestrian signal. Wouldn't that pretty much do what you are suggesting?

[Canard]

According to a gentleman who works on the project, “ties were cracked” on the Northfield bridge. Yikes!

[ijmorlan]

Now if they can just fix it so that the pedestrian crossing of the LRT track only gets a red when the LRT signal is activated by an LRV, not when somebody presses the button to cross King St., then we’ll really have something.

Gee, you know, that seems like it would be a natural place to put a railway crossing arm instead of having a pedestrian signal. Wouldn't that pretty much do what you are suggesting?

Um, yeah, actually I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me. That would make a lot of sense. Although it doesn’t really matter what sort of signal controls pedestrian movement across the tracks, as long as it only goes red in the presence of a train.

[danbrotherston]

Gee, you know, that seems like it would be a natural place to put a railway crossing arm instead of having a pedestrian signal. Wouldn't that pretty much do what you are suggesting?

Um, yeah, actually I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me. That would make a lot of sense. Although it doesn’t really matter what sort of signal controls pedestrian movement across the tracks, as long as it only goes red in the presence of a train.

Yes, this is the problem, right now it goes red when there is zero cross traffic.  It's training people to ignore signs.  Just like allowing parking in no parking zones, just like the "trail closed" signs left all over the place, just like using "road closed" signs used for traffic calming.

Our cities are training people to ignore the law, very bad policy.