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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
Dumb question, but can the illegal turn be ticketed based solely on Ion video, or does a cop have to witness it herself?
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(07-21-2019, 09:16 AM)panamaniac Wrote: Dumb question, but can the illegal turn be ticketed based solely on Ion video, or does a cop have to witness it herself?

Technically the iON video should be just as good as a red-light camera. But there might need to be some kind of certification issued in order for it to qualify.

And then the ticket will be issued to the owner of the car, not the driver.
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(07-21-2019, 09:47 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(07-21-2019, 09:16 AM)panamaniac Wrote: Dumb question, but can the illegal turn be ticketed based solely on Ion video, or does a cop have to witness it herself?

Technically the iON video should be just as good as a red-light camera. But there might need to be some kind of certification issued in order for it to qualify.

And then the ticket will be issued to the owner of the car, not the driver.

The video is evidence to the crime. The red light cameras allow tickets to be issued to cars directly using some legislation. 

The video from the ion would allow an officer to investigate and possibly lay charges.
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(07-19-2019, 07:30 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(07-19-2019, 07:22 PM)ac3r Wrote: Honestly...it should be more.. If fare evading can get you a ticket of over $200, hitting a train and costing the city so much money in damage and costs to remedy that needs to carry pretty big consequences. I don't know how we do it here in Toronto when this happens, but there is probably a way bigger penalty.

The key is to fine the perpetrators of near misses, not severely punish those who are actually involved in collisions. Most of the people who collided probably thought they were driving OK; hearing that penalties were being increased for hitting the LRT would barely register, because they’re not planning to do that. By contrast, starting to receive a series of $100 fine notices in the mail would very quickly make them realize that they have to shape up (or switch to riding transit).

Also, the fines should be income-scaled. There are poor people for whom a $100 fine would be a crushing financial blow, while even a $1000 fine wouldn’t be a serious disincentive for many rich people. Maybe the greater of 1% of the value of the car, or 1/1000 of the person’s yearly income.

I know in some Euro countries fines are based on income. That said, if they can't afford the fine, they shouldn't drive. Just have the fines posted for the illegal maneuvers.

I guess my point is, if a $100 fine was a crushing financial blow, then what about maintaining your vehicle? New brakes, for example, would cost a lot more that $100. Though I do suppose some people don't care if they run their car into the ground literally, hopefully they don't kill any innocents on the way.

As for people with holes in their pockets, I suppose you could have a escalating fine based on plate number. Though if the police decide to enforce at some point, then start giving people points, eventually they'd be off the road.
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(07-21-2019, 04:03 PM)jeffster Wrote:
(07-19-2019, 07:30 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: The key is to fine the perpetrators of near misses, not severely punish those who are actually involved in collisions. Most of the people who collided probably thought they were driving OK; hearing that penalties were being increased for hitting the LRT would barely register, because they’re not planning to do that. By contrast, starting to receive a series of $100 fine notices in the mail would very quickly make them realize that they have to shape up (or switch to riding transit).

Also, the fines should be income-scaled. There are poor people for whom a $100 fine would be a crushing financial blow, while even a $1000 fine wouldn’t be a serious disincentive for many rich people. Maybe the greater of 1% of the value of the car, or 1/1000 of the person’s yearly income.

I know in some Euro countries fines are based on income. That said, if they can't afford the fine, they shouldn't drive. Just have the fines posted for the illegal maneuvers.

I guess my point is, if a $100 fine was a crushing financial blow, then what about maintaining your vehicle? New brakes, for example, would cost a lot more that $100. Though I do suppose some people don't care if they run their car into the ground literally, hopefully they don't kill any innocents on the way.

As for people with holes in their pockets, I suppose you could have a escalating fine based on plate number. Though if the police decide to enforce at some point, then start giving people points, eventually they'd be off the road.

The first step would be stopping orienting our society around a requirement to own an operate an automobile. It's just a bad idea all round.

That being said, I think pointing out that a 100 dollar fine could be a crushing blow is true but not quite the point. Punishments are supposed to be uniform. People who don't think about it will believe that this means the dollar value should be the same for everyone. But the punishment is not losing x dollars, it's what losing x dollars deprives you of. If you lose x dollars and this means you don't eat for a week, this is clearly a fundamentally different punishment than losing x dollars and you contribute x dollars less to your investments.  This is obviously an extreme example, but fines should be income geared so that the punishment they entail is equal among people of all levels of wealth.
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(07-21-2019, 09:36 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: [quote='jeffster' pid='71606' dateline='1563739381']

I know in some Euro countries fines are based on income. That said, if they can't afford the fine, they shouldn't drive. Just have the fines posted for the illegal maneuvers.

I guess my point is, if a $100 fine was a crushing financial blow, then what about maintaining your vehicle? New brakes, for example, would cost a lot more that $100. Though I do suppose some people don't care if they run their car into the ground literally, hopefully they don't kill any innocents on the way.

As for people with holes in their pockets, I suppose you could have a escalating fine based on plate number. Though if the police decide to enforce at some point, then start giving people points, eventually they'd be off the road.
Talking to some police officers in Europe, they said a fine can run as much as month wages. If you don't pay the fine in 90 days, the car is impounded until the fine, towing and storage is paid.

Our fines need to be raised from 50-100% along with points been added to various offences.

You have drivers driving with no points on the roads today, let alone insurance. Once a driver reach zero points, their car is impounded until they have points to use the car again. If they get caught using someone else car, time to spend time behind bars.

Getting drivers off the road is very hard to do and enforce unless more teeth are added to the code to do so.

All transit vehicles and school buses need cameras on them to record all infractions with someone making a copy of the infractions to be past onto the driver and the courts as well issuing the ticket for it.
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From the CBC: Some ION stations are unsafe and inaccessible, accessibility consultant says...

The article actually only mentions Fairway Station. The consultant suggests that paint is all that is needed to make it accessible, but I would respectfully question that (without being any kind of an expert, or differently abled). I think it will be hard to make it accessible given the location of the station vis a vis the mall. I see no easy solution.

It's hard for me to know what the accessibility issues are at the other stations; the design issues that affect everybody have been discussed here already. These seem like easy fixes to me for the most part, with a few exceptions.

On the topic of Willis Way, what staff relayed to plam is true, when motor traffic gets a red at Erb it really can back up to the station. But a crosswalk could be installed with a sign- 'DO NOT BLOCK CROSSWALK'- same as at many intersections. People would still cross outside the crosswalk (they're doing it at many points now), but that's no big deal, either: Caroline should be slow enough for that to be pretty safe.
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(07-22-2019, 08:56 AM)MidTowner Wrote: On the topic of Willis Way, what staff relayed to plam is true, when motor traffic gets a red at Erb it really can back up to the station. But a crosswalk could be installed with a sign- 'DO NOT BLOCK CROSSWALK'- same as at many intersections. People would still cross outside the crosswalk (they're doing it at many points now), but that's no big deal, either: Caroline should be slow enough for that to be pretty safe.

Also there is an existing crosswalk just north of Father David Bauer, much closer to Erb, which is apparently not a problem. In any case, it’s not acceptable to have no crossings between Erb and Alexandra, so there have to be crossings and traffic (and the traffic engineers) just have to deal with it.

Somebody was also talking about the left turn lane. It starts north of the station platform — at the place where you would cross from the platform to the east side sidewalk, there is no left turn lane.
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The Fairway issue is twofold. One is the access to the bus platforms by Leon's; the only official path is way down toward Wilson and people try to shortcut across the busy roadway in between. The Region has plans to build a new crosswalk there (and presumably put a gap in the glass wall on the southern platform to access it).

The other is to access the mall. While the old bus platforms are still in place by The Bay, the pedestrian path is disjointed and poorly marked. This will change when the mall gets around to rebuilding the parking and roadways there.
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(07-22-2019, 08:56 AM)MidTowner Wrote: From the CBC: Some ION stations are unsafe and inaccessible, accessibility consultant says...

The article actually only mentions Fairway Station. The consultant suggests that paint is all that is needed to make it accessible, but I would respectfully question that (without being any kind of an expert, or differently abled). I think it will be hard to make it accessible given the location of the station vis a vis the mall. I see no easy solution.

And neither the region or the city can go and paint lines or put signs on private property. The onus is on Cadillac Fairview to make this work.
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There was some sort of a disruption on the line between Northfield and Conestoga yesterday afternoon. I assumed a crash, but I can't find any info online- anyone know any details?

Shuttle buses were running between the two stations. The GRT supervisor on site was busy guiding people from the platform to the stop, so I didn't ask what had happened.
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Was that during the time Conestoga had a power outage?
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I hadn't heard about that. This was around 3:30.
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(07-24-2019, 07:22 AM)MidTowner Wrote: There was some sort of a disruption on the line between Northfield and Conestoga yesterday afternoon. I assumed a crash, but I can't find any info online- anyone know any details?

Shuttle buses were running between the two stations. The GRT supervisor on site was busy guiding people from the platform to the stop, so I didn't ask what had happened.

There was a collision reported in the area where the tracks cross over to Conestoga Mall around 2:15pm yesterday, but I don't know if involved the train.
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