ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

I think I know what they were doing in the photo at Queen. I was just by Erb/Caroline and something caught my eye - there are now cross-drilled holes in the rail head where the flange would be. My suspicion is they’re changing how the lubricators will function; looks like they’ll now directly inject grease through the rail. This seems far more robust than the orange urethane pads which were installed a few years ago (half of which are already missing or damaged).

[Canard]

Actually, looking at the configuration at Conestoga, I think this was likely the plan all along. The standard wipers are still there. But the lubricator in the roadway never had a urethane pad... it just had the steel cover.

So, my guess is they were always planing to hold off on drilling those holes, until just before the lubricators were planned on being commissioned... so the holes didn’t get filled with 2 years of road grit and crap. Once they’re turned on, they’ll always be pumping out lube.

[tomh009]

Unfortunately, in this case “RT” means they might settle for BRT. I’d say it’s about a 30% change LRT, 70% chance BRT, rounding error all other possibilities combined. Now that we have an LRT system, all future non-bus expansion will be LRT. The new line will not require more maintenance facilities; they would just have to add some additional storage tracks to the OMSF. So the plus side is that the per-km cost of an expansion will be less, until we get to such a large system that the existing maintenance spaces are insufficient.

Why do you reckon 70/30 BRT? We chose LRT for the first two phases, and at this time we would have additional LRT efficiencies.

[jeffster]

Over in the planning and works agenda, i noticed a really interesting thing on page 61, a conceptual option for "Stage 3".

They had a dotted line running from Connestoga Mall south on King Street, then heading west down University and Erb St to Ira Needles.

Interesting concept.

Also, the line running down Victoria (west). Not much room in between Park st. and Lawrence, albeit it would be a one way line. I often wonder if the region/city is secretly buying properties along Victoria for future expansion, for road expansion at the very least.

Victoria Street was in the initial LRT design, back in the 90's IIRC, then dropped. It would have been "Line 2".

[ijmorlan]

Unfortunately, in this case “RT” means they might settle for BRT. I’d say it’s about a 30% change LRT, 70% chance BRT, rounding error all other possibilities combined. Now that we have an LRT system, all future non-bus expansion will be LRT. The new line will not require more maintenance facilities; they would just have to add some additional storage tracks to the OMSF. So the plus side is that the per-km cost of an expansion will be less, until we get to such a large system that the existing maintenance spaces are insufficient.

Why do you reckon 70/30 BRT? We chose LRT for the first two phases, and at this time we would have additional LRT efficiencies.

Saying “reckon” is very kind. It’s my wild guess, biased towards the pessimistic side. I’m not sure this city is politically ready for a multi-line LRT system, and won’t be at all surprised to see BRT chosen and then watered down until it’s just minor improvements on the iXpres, similar to the ION Bus in Cambridge.

But I do hope LRT will be chosen, and I agree that extension can be expected to be cheaper than the original system due to the lack of need for another OMSF. All we would need is more storage tracks, either within the existing OMSF or at a new “SF”. The “OM” part of the existing facility should be sufficient for a system quite a bit bigger than anything we’ll see in the near future.

I also think that regional roads should be designed for the addition of LRT. That is, the exact location of the rails should be designed into every suburban regional road, and utilities placed accordingly. Then when it’s time to build LRT on that street, only the last couple of months of the construction that we saw previously will be needed. A road like Fischer-Hallman could be designed to accept LRT later with essentially no impact on initial construction costs — there is tons of space, so it’s just a matter of taking it into account when deciding exactly where the buried services and lanes actually go. Not at all the same sort of challenge as threading LRT through downtown Kitchener.

[jamincan]

Honest question, what benefit would an LRT line along Victoria have? With ION coming online, I think I would rather see investment move toward improving bus service. It's a lot less glamorous, but any E-W route would have a minimal time saving for a lot of cost and I fear would result in reduced frequencies and service hours.

[KevinL]

Keep in mind, this is likely some time away yet - probably 10-20 years. But it's worth considering options.

[jeffster]

Honest question, what benefit would an LRT line along Victoria have? With ION coming online, I think I would rather see investment move toward improving bus service. It's a lot less glamorous, but any E-W route would have a minimal time saving for a lot of cost and I fear would result in reduced frequencies and service hours.

IIRC, it was an 'easy' route. I believe they'd be thinking of twinning existing infrastructure. So the cost was actually quite minimal, with virtually no need to purchase property other than from the RR owner. Also easy to get people to main existing RR station if you have busses hitting every LRT stop.

I think we need to see how this LRT goes before building more lines.

[Canard]

I've always thought Victoria was just the natural fit for an East-West route - I never really thought anything else made sense.

[tomh009]

Honest question, what benefit would an LRT line along Victoria have? With ION coming online, I think I would rather see investment move toward improving bus service. It's a lot less glamorous, but any E-W route would have a minimal time saving for a lot of cost and I fear would result in reduced frequencies and service hours.

The same as phases 1 and 2, the intent would be to drive intensification. Given that this would likely be late 2020s or early 2030s, that may well work out.

The route from Conestoga Mall, down King to Erb Street -- that could have earlier applicability. Can someone remind me whether it's realistic to start with a BRT (trolley bus?) and then upgrade to LRT later? I'm thinking not, but I may be wrong.

[ijmorlan]

Honest question, what benefit would an LRT line along Victoria have? With ION coming online, I think I would rather see investment move toward improving bus service. It's a lot less glamorous, but any E-W route would have a minimal time saving for a lot of cost and I fear would result in reduced frequencies and service hours.

It depends on what transit mode share you are assuming. With a high enough mode share, any road that today has enough traffic to be worth widening to 4 lanes would probably merit an LRT. And — Catch-22! — an LRT system with 5-minute service along every current 4-lane road would probably attract an enormously higher mode share than our current transit system. Where this will end up I have no idea.

[Pheidippides]

Also, the line running down Victoria (west). Not much room in between Park st. and Lawrence, albeit it would be a one way line. I often wonder if the region/city is secretly buying properties along Victoria for future expansion, for road expansion at the very least.

I would prefer they not split the line like they did in Uptown and Downtown in phase 1 as it seems to be suggested by that early map. Charles and Duke are about 250m apart and I think that is too far apart; Victoria and Highland are >600m apart in places.

I think they could probably fit both directions of the line on Victoria. Most of Victoria is already wide enough, and even in that narrow section you have identified above, Lawrence to Park, the region actually already has a pretty wide right-of-way; it is 20.25m. Compare that to the typical right-of-way on King, say near KCI, and it is only 22.75m. So you are looking at a difference of 2.5m or 1.25m on each side. Literally slivers of land, just like it was along King. Hopefully they make better use of it than they did along King and include fully segregated and protected bike lanes.

Victoria @ Lawrence	King @ KCI

There would seem to be more redevelopment/intensification potential along Highland/Queen west of King, and more redevelopment/intensification potential along Victoria east of King. The Highland/Queen option could probably only ever be uni-directional without significant land takings as the narrowest points are only 17-18m of right-of-way.

It also makes me question why widening Victoria between Lawrence and Park was added to the Moving Forward plan for the 2018-2031 timeline if that very same plan has plans to rip that up not long after.

[tomh009]

There would seem to be more redevelopment/intensification potential along Highland/Queen west of King, and more redevelopment/intensification potential along Victoria east of King. The Highland/Queen option could probably only ever be uni-directional without significant land takings as the narrowest points are only 17-18m of right-of-way.

Since we're speculating how about a one-way loop route? Something like Victoria St S - Belmont St W - Highland Rd - Queen St S - Courtland Ave E - Benton St - Frederick St - Victoria St N? With a single track the width of the right-of-way is much less of an issue. (Yes, it would take longer to get to King from, say, Victoria and Belmont, but not terribly so, and a larger number of neighbourhoods would be serviced, and hopefully intensified (Belmont is another area that has potential, as is Frederick beyond Edna).

[mpd618]

Since we're speculating how about a one-way loop route? Something like Victoria St S - Belmont St W - Highland Rd - Queen St S - Courtland Ave E - Benton St - Frederick St - Victoria St N? With a single track the width of the right-of-way is much less of an issue. (Yes, it would take longer to get to King from, say, Victoria and Belmont, but not terribly so, and a larger number of neighbourhoods would be serviced, and hopefully intensified (Belmont is another area that has potential, as is Frederick beyond Edna).

A lot more areas would be "served" but the service would be questionable. Like, if you can take a train from Victoria/Belmont to Victoria/King in 5 minutes that's nice, but taking 30 minutes to go the reverse direction means you'll be taking the direct bus back on Victoria instead. If there isn't one, then you're not going to consider transit viable for the trip at all. People don't want to travel in loops.

[ijmorlan]

Just looking at the map, I suspect the idea is that Victoria and Highland are alternatives, rather than necessarily being two directions. However, I defer to anybody with more detailed knowledge of the history of the proposal.