ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Bob_McBob]

I saw yet another signal malfunction at University Ave yesterday. Lights and bells going, arms attempting to go down, up, down, up, left, right, AB... traffic backed up to Seagram, but even the buses were driving through.

[ijmorlan]

I noticed they put up a big sign telling people not to exit that way. But due to the width of the street in that particular block, I think it's all they could do.

We’ve discussed this before. There was plenty of space to have an exit, if one just didn’t take as a given that motor vehicle traffic needs 2 lanes in each direction. Of course now that it’s built wrong, it’s expensive to fix properly. I still think it probably could be fixed without moving the tracks but any revision to a street is expensive and requires a substantial construction period.

As long as they restrict themselves to posting signs for legal liability but take no real steps to enforce such a bogus rule it’s not too bad (except for the general principle of reducing respect for the social order which makes our society possible; not the blind following of rules, but the careful making of rules to everybody’s benefit).

[ijmorlan]

I saw yet another signal malfunction at University Ave yesterday. Lights and bells going, arms attempting to go down, up, down, up, left, right, AB... traffic backed up to Seagram, but even the buses were driving through.

I wonder if the buses got special permission? Once I saw that and in one direction traffic was flowing threw OK; a little slow, because people were slowing and watching, but not completely jammed up. In the other direction there was a bus in each lane and nothing was moving.

[danbrotherston]

I saw yet another signal malfunction at University Ave yesterday. Lights and bells going, arms attempting to go down, up, down, up, left, right, AB... traffic backed up to Seagram, but even the buses were driving through.

I wonder if the buses got special permission? Once I saw that and in one direction traffic was flowing threw OK; a little slow, because people were slowing and watching, but not completely jammed up. In the other direction there was a bus in each lane and nothing was moving.

If the gates are up, which I assume they were, if the buses were able to drive through, then legally ringing bells are to be treated as a stop sign.

[danbrotherston]

I noticed they put up a big sign telling people not to exit that way. But due to the width of the street in that particular block, I think it's all they could do.

We’ve discussed this before. There was plenty of space to have an exit, if one just didn’t take as a given that motor vehicle traffic needs 2 lanes in each direction. Of course now that it’s built wrong, it’s expensive to fix properly. I still think it probably could be fixed without moving the tracks but any revision to a street is expensive and requires a substantial construction period.

As long as they restrict themselves to posting signs for legal liability but take no real steps to enforce such a bogus rule it’s not too bad (except for the general principle of reducing respect for the social order which makes our society possible; not the blind following of rules, but the careful making of rules to everybody’s benefit).

This is a 100% correct way to describe the situation.

The person who made this decision should not be allowed to build transit infrastructure--at least not without more education.

[ijmorlan]

I wonder if the buses got special permission? Once I saw that and in one direction traffic was flowing threw OK; a little slow, because people were slowing and watching, but not completely jammed up. In the other direction there was a bus in each lane and nothing was moving.

If the gates are up, which I assume they were, if the buses were able to drive through, then legally ringing bells are to be treated as a stop sign.

But what is transit authority policy? For years they stopped at all railway crossings, even though it is (as I recall) only required by law where there is a crossbuck but no gates (or is it no lights, not no gates?).

Today I observed this again. I was walking south along the tracks (that is, on the path next to the tracks ). A train came through shortly after I crossed. The bells stopped briefly then started again. Then I heard a weird grinding sound. One of the gates was moving up and down near the top end of its swing. It did this again, apparently under motor control as far as I can tell, several times, then eventually froze almost all the way up. So the traffic light was showing a green, gates were up (except for one that was not quite up), but lights and bells were going.

Traffic moved through slowly; reactions seemed to vary from “not going to go” to “what’s a train?” I think at least one bus just sat there. I was curious so I stayed. After a few minutes the next train came so the gates went back down. This time when they went up it was fine so traffic returned to normal fairly quickly.

The first and most obvious recommendation is that transit bus drivers should be clearly told that if they have a green and the gates are up at the LRT track, then flashing red lights are a stop sign. It’s simply ridiculous for them to sit there blocking traffic for 5-10 minutes. Having them phone control before going through wouldn’t be a bad idea — LRT drivers could be told and could watch extra carefully.

Next, they need to be tracking these incidents. Maybe they already are; I hope so, because with the amount of wires and equipment they installed and how long it took it would be completely absurd for there not to be a computer somewhere logging every activation and deactivation of lights, gates, etc.

And finally, they need to find reliable equipment. As others have pointed out, this should be mature technology. Note that the failure here is of the actual electromechanical device which is the gate, not the larger software-controlled system.

[danbrotherston]

If the gates are up, which I assume they were, if the buses were able to drive through, then legally ringing bells are to be treated as a stop sign.

But what is transit authority policy? For years they stopped at all railway crossings, even though it is (as I recall) only required by law where there is a crossbuck but no gates (or is it no lights, not no gates?).

Today I observed this again. I was walking south along the tracks (that is, on the path next to the tracks ). A train came through shortly after I crossed. The bells stopped briefly then started again. Then I heard a weird grinding sound. One of the gates was moving up and down near the top end of its swing. It did this again, apparently under motor control as far as I can tell, several times, then eventually froze almost all the way up. So the traffic light was showing a green, gates were up (except for one that was not quite up), but lights and bells were going.

Traffic moved through slowly; reactions seemed to vary from “not going to go” to “what’s a train?” I think at least one bus just sat there. I was curious so I stayed. After a few minutes the next train came so the gates went back down. This time when they went up it was fine so traffic returned to normal fairly quickly.

The first and most obvious recommendation is that transit bus drivers should be clearly told that if they have a green and the gates are up at the LRT track, then flashing red lights are a stop sign. It’s simply ridiculous for them to sit there blocking traffic for 5-10 minutes. Having them phone control before going through wouldn’t be a bad idea — LRT drivers could be told and could watch extra carefully.

Next, they need to be tracking these incidents. Maybe they already are; I hope so, because with the amount of wires and equipment they installed and how long it took it would be completely absurd for there not to be a computer somewhere logging every activation and deactivation of lights, gates, etc.

And finally, they need to find reliable equipment. As others have pointed out, this should be mature technology. Note that the failure here is of the actual electromechanical device which is the gate, not the larger software-controlled system.

This is true, I have no idea what policy is, I only know that the HTA says that ringing bells and lights are equivalent to a stop and yield, not a stop and wait like gates are.

This confirms my earlier speculation. It is utterly absurd that this is not a solved problem, the fact these gates do not function correctly is just as unforgivable as the fact that there are missing pedestrian accesses to our stations, and that our payment system does not function (in fact stole ~2.75 from me today).  Frankly, I'm starting to worry that things we cannot obviously know are wrong, will be wrong with our system.  When engineers and implementors fail so broadly, it gets increasingly hard to have confidence.

[Bob_McBob]

Still no ETA for ATP implementation.

https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/12...2189026306

[ac3r]

It's a bit annoying when a company/organization can't be more transparent about things. Unless they really don't have any clue themselves, I don't see the harm in saying "we are estimating 2 more months" or something - but then again, after years of delays on the entire LRT, I guess they may think it's better to stay silent until it's ready rather than disappointing us if they offer an ETA and fail to meet it.

[MidTowner]

It's a bit annoying when a company/organization can't be more transparent about things. Unless they really don't have any clue themselves, I don't see the harm in saying "we are estimating 2 more months" or something - but then again, after years of delays on the entire LRT, I guess think it's better to stay silent until it's ready rather than disappointing us if they offer an ETA and fail to meet it.

Maybe this is the case. Maybe they don't have any real clue because they're not being very ambitious on trying to get it resolved, and so the timeline could be very long, indeed. Though, it's already been over six months.

[timc]

It could be that there are higher priority issues being worked on that keep pushing back a fix for whatever the ATP problem is.

[danbrotherston]

It could be that there are higher priority issues being worked on that keep pushing back a fix for whatever the ATP problem is.

They could also be transparent about that too.

[Bob_McBob]

They could also be transparent about that too.

Exactly. We shouldn't have to sift through council meeting agendas for scraps or rely on local media to force the release of information with FOI requests. The region has been tight lipped since the beginning and nothing has changed.

[ijmorlan]

They could also be transparent about that too.

Exactly. We shouldn't have to sift through council meeting agendas for scraps or rely on local media to force the release of information with FOI requests. The region has been tight lipped since the beginning and nothing has changed.

I said it during construction and I think it’s still valid now: they should have somebody write a blog about what is going on. They could take questions from the public, talk to the relevant people inside the organization, and distill it into articles that keep us all up to speed on progress. This could also serve the function of keeping the different parts of the organization informed of the work being done by the other parts.

Done properly, it would be at a medium to high level of detail: more than is appropriate for actual press releases, but still at the level that more than one or two super nerds would be interested in. It would also serve as an educational resource because we would get a window on just what all that maintenance expense is actually buying. I know I’d be interested — I know that there are lots of pieces of equipment installed beyond just the tracks, but I don’t feel that I have a good understanding of what specifically is in those signal huts, for example.

[KevinL]

Yeah, the lack of a dedicated social media office for this is very unfortunate. Many organizations see great returns from having such a role; it's too bad that wasn't put through here.