ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[trainspotter139]

We've got trains on a train waiting for the train to Elmira. https://twitter.com/mrjasonli/status/101...5292580864
   

[danbrotherston]

Yes. If they were working from maps they wouldn't see it. They would have to work from sat photos, which may not be part of their workflow, or as jeffster points out, the designers may have gotten overruled by people who only looked at the maps.

I’m pretty sure no project of this nature gets designed without site visits. Not noticing the plainly obvious existing paths is basically malpractice as far as I’m concerned. Now, as has been discussed by others, we’re never going to be able to figure out specifically whose fault it is — there may well have been junior designers who noticed them and suggested a crossing, or suggested looking at the issue, but who were overruled by more senior and less competent people. It’s even conceivable that Grandlinq asked the Region about it and staff there looked at their book and saw that there was no formal right-of-way so decided to ignore it. In this case it would be the fault of the Regional staff involved. We don’t know, but I don’t think it’s possible for this specific error to have been made without somebody dropping the ball.

What would you like them to do when they notice those paths?

They cannot legally open them without acquiring land, they weren't legally open before.

Frankly, I cannot understand this insistence on putting blame on individual failures.  To me, this is quite clearly a failure of the system.

[danbrotherston]

As a designer of complex automation systems, I totally get where they're coming from.

I don't mind when a customer has input at the "concept" stage... but final design reviews are awful if you go into too much detail (or allow the customer to dig really deep).  They want to change everything... and there's a massive cost that is involved in that, because it's like doubling your engineering time.

I do understand that.

I wouldn't have these objections if I had faith in their ability to get these design details right.  But everything in our region's active transportation history, even recent history, suggests that it won't be the case.

Although, perhaps I misspoke before...the point is perhaps not that I should be consulted after detailed design, is that's considerations like storm drain placement, curb design, should be discussed before detailed design phase then.

[Bob_McBob]

CTV: Two more LRT vehicles roll into town

[Bob_McBob]

CTV: Two more LRT vehicles roll into town

[Canard]

Thought things seemed awfully quiet this afternoon... zero activity at Lancaster. The engines are totally off and parked. I had suspected the Guelph crash might have thrown a wrench in their ops today...

Edit - engines just fired up. Hrm. Maybe?! If they’re just starting shunting now, my guess is it’ll go up laaaaate if at all.

Edit 2 - they’ve started building the consist, and there’s already ~4 sulfuric acid cars behind the engines, so there’s still hope!

Edit 3 - ‪Train just left. No LRV's tonight.

[Bob_McBob]

CTV was light on details, but The Record is still clinging to the faint scandalous hope all our LRVs will have welding defects.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/874...oo-region/

[Canard]

All they have said is the truth. There’s been no official statement either way if we’re affected or not.

[Bob_McBob]

Yes, it's technically true, but it's dishonest to leave out all the relevant details, like the fact only one of the region's LRV frames was actually welded in Mexico. CTV and The Record have a long history of publishing vague stories about ION and letting the public assume the worst, and it's clear from comments that's exactly what happened with the TTC welding fiasco.

[plam]

I do think that not consulting enough with those affected the most also contributed. I was hoping for some formal "lessons learned" to be published before we got too far along in phase 2 so this kind of thing would be less likely to happen, but it is almost too late now. Hopefully, someone is thinking about all the voices they haven't heard from in the phase 2 consultations. They are certainly hearing from the vocal and organized groups enough; hopefully not to the detriment of another less vocal group (for whatever reasons).

Yes. Old Albert Rd in Waterloo got a formal crossing because a Regional Councillor (Jane Mitchell) advocated for it (and it seems like it was hard even then). There was no Regional Councillor advocating for Traynor/Vanier. I'm guessing that they looked at maps and not sites or satellite images, or the frontline staff got overruled, as discussed earlier in this thread.

https://janemitchellblog.wordpress.com/2...-crossing/

People have asked me why there is a crossing at Old Albert in Waterloo and not at Traynor.  Frankly, I use the Albert crossing and kept after staff for a pedestrian crossing from the very beginning of LRT. Unfortunately due to the informal nature of the Traynor /Vanier crossings, no one picked up this need for a pedestrian crossing. It is not uncommon for the needs of pedestrians to be ignored as shown by the many beaten down paths along roads without sidewalks and is something that we must continue working on changing.

[Canard]

AI normally am very weary of the media, Bob, and their reporting “techniques” designed simply to anger as many people as possible... but in this case I will reiterate that they have said noting dishonest.

There has been no official statement that we’re okay; you’re making the assumption on your own (as we all are) that only 501 may potentially have issues, but we actually don’t know. The silence is more than a little troubling, at least enough to give pause...

What I do take issue with is the CTV’s line about “vehicles are now delayed again by Bombardier” or whatever - which is categorically false. The current delay is nearly entirely on Metrolinx for failing to develop and procure the in-cab signaling system, which was to be the same as Crosstown.

[ijmorlan]

What would you like them to do when they notice those paths?

They cannot legally open them without acquiring land, they weren't legally open before.

Frankly, I cannot understand this insistence on putting blame on individual failures.  To me, this is quite clearly a failure of the system.

Work out an easement agreement with the relevant property owners, or expropriate narrow rights-of-way out to Fairview. A long process, to be sure, but by now it would be complete. I’m not so annoyed that the initial plan wasn’t perfect, but it’s years later and it still isn’t fixed.

Or, put paths on both sides of the tracks. Then it doesn’t matter whether the path/fence cut/parking lot with which the crossings line up are official: officially, the crossings would just be connecting the two paths, and it would be matter between the pedestrians and the property owners if they walked onto a property from the path. Also, paths on both sides improves the access to the crossings — for anybody going from a destination west/east of a crossing to one east/west of that crossing, the exact location of the crossing no longer matters at all.

Good point about individual failure, but still, somebody should have noticed and should have said something. Somebody should have cared enough to slip a note to a couple of regional councillors or neighbourhood associations early on, even if they had been overruled or ignored by other parts of the organization.

[Canard]

So, the game begins again tonight... will they stay, or will they go?

Bit of a crowd already at Lancaster.

[bgb_ca]

I'm camped out waiting (but not at Lancaster). Video to hopefully follow.

[danbrotherston]

Anyone have any idea what time this will be?