ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[nms]

The Region effectively committed to going to Cambridge next when they forced Cambridge taxpayers to contribute to the Ion service (and gave them a 'temporary' bus rapid transit service) and exempted the Townships from paying for anything transit related except by special levy. If Council had instead included all taxpayers when it came to paying for transit, they would better be able to expand transit to where it was needed the most rather than being limited to areas where the perception was that the taxpayers were either 'paying for it' (and therefore owed the next round of service improvements) or 'not paying for it' (and therefore, don't give us transit, because we don't want to pay for it).

[ac3r]

That's true. Even without that, I think they'd expand it to Cambridge regardless. It's the second largest city in the region in both population and area with a huge manufacturing/industrial economy that pumps money into the region. Yet, it remains very disconnected from Kitchener and Waterloo, especially when it comes to transit. It may have seemed like Cambridge didn't want the LRT but I sense that those opposing voices were amplified louder than they actually were. When I was working at the UW School of Architecture for a short time, many of the students were investigating the viability of an LRT here (in the region and Cambridge) and a surprising amount of people in the community were for it because the only way between the cities is by car or two single bus routes.

[danbrotherston]

That's true. Even without that, I think they'd expand it to Cambridge regardless. It's the second largest city in the region in both population and area with a huge manufacturing/industrial economy that pumps money into the region. Yet, it remains very disconnected from Kitchener and Waterloo, especially when it comes to transit. It may have seemed like Cambridge didn't want the LRT but I sense that those opposing voices were amplified louder than they actually were. When I was working at the UW School of Architecture for a short time, many of the students were investigating the viability of an LRT here (in the region and Cambridge) and a surprising amount of people in the community were for it because the only way between the cities is by car or two single bus routes.

You are certainly right that those who oppose get amplified. But I'd say it isn't "disconnected" by transit, it's disconnected by geography, it's physically far away, but does have transit connections. The LRT won't do a whole lot to change this either, it's still far away.

I *don't* think that Cambridge would have been the next best route to serve if we looked independent of the politics. Yes, it does contribute significantly to the economy, but manufacturing/industry is not a transit friendly land use, factories (today) are spread out, and most do not even have sidewalks.

That being said, I wonder if anyone considered a disconnected LRT section within Cambridge.  Obviously this would be more expensive per km as a result of duplicate maintenance facilities, but I'd be curious about the value prospect over the current proposal.

[ac3r]

I suspect it would have cost a lot more to build an independent LRT system. It would require another maintenance facility as you mention as well as an entirely separate fleet of LRVs. While I don't have any cost estimates, it seems as if it would not be that expensive to connect the two cities with an LRT as we are going to do. The elevated sections are super easy to construct and they won't have to worry about digging up existing streets and underground infrastructure (gas, water, sewerage, storm drains, telecommunications etc). It will simply be track running on concrete viaducts until it hits Preston, then it's a fairly straightforward route to its terminus in Galt. Since they know the topology of the route, it would have been easy to engineer these elevated sections so connecting the cities won't be that hard.

Manufacturing might not be transit friendly, but nonetheless a lot of employees still use transit. At least this way, people can get around the region faster. If you can cut 15, 20 or 30 minutes off a trip that opens up a lot of doors for people in regards to employment or even things like education.

[Acitta]

That being said, I wonder if anyone considered a disconnected LRT section within Cambridge.  Obviously this would be more expensive per km as a result of duplicate maintenance facilities, but I'd be curious about the value prospect over the current proposal.

A disconnected LRT would mean two transfers to get from KW to Galt. You would have to transfer to a bus at Fairway and then transfer to the LRT station in Preston to get to Galt. Transfers increase transit time. With the current plan is completed you will be able to travel from Conestoga Mall to Downtown Cambridge without a transfer. I would go to Cambridge more often if I could do that now.

[Rainrider22]

That being said, I wonder if anyone considered a disconnected LRT section within Cambridge.  Obviously this would be more expensive per km as a result of duplicate maintenance facilities, but I'd be curious about the value prospect over the current proposal.

A disconnected LRT would mean two transfers to get from KW to Galt. You would have to transfer to a bus at Fairway and then transfer to the LRT station in Preston to get to Galt. Transfers increase transit time. With the current plan is completed you will be able to travel from Conestoga Mall to Downtown Cambridge without a transfer. I would go to Cambridge more often if I could do that now.

I agree...

[danbrotherston]

That being said, I wonder if anyone considered a disconnected LRT section within Cambridge.  Obviously this would be more expensive per km as a result of duplicate maintenance facilities, but I'd be curious about the value prospect over the current proposal.

A disconnected LRT would mean two transfers to get from KW to Galt. You would have to transfer to a bus at Fairway and then transfer to the LRT station in Preston to get to Galt. Transfers increase transit time. With the current plan is completed you will be able to travel from Conestoga Mall to Downtown Cambridge without a transfer. I would go to Cambridge more often if I could do that now.

I mean, I understand what I am proposing.

What I am arguing is that the "Spending two hours on the LRT to go between Conestoga and Ainsle" is a very small use case.

I am quite certain that the ION will have more riders WITHIN Cambridge, than between Cambridge and Kitchener, but I don't know by how many.

[kalis0490]

Several proposals have are on the way in Hespeler  with over 2000+ units . The Smart centres property is the only proposal near an ion station.
Should ion extend to Hespeler along queen st / fergus sub to Hespeler centre?. Should there be a guelph dmu stopping in Hespeler. Hespeler has has the most number of new proposals these days in Cambridge. Theres lots of in construction/ finished projects like  riverbanks lofts.

[ac3r]

The LRT would never go up Queen Street, the Hespeler area doesn't have enough people to warrant that. And then...it wouldn't serve downtown Cambridge itself (aka old Galt) which is what is necessary. LRTs need to have large numbers of ridership projections to warrant the cost and construction. Running it down Hespeler Road was the best option for Cambridge because the potential for future development along that road is massive, whereas you can't redevelop much in Preston or Hespeler as it's all single family homes. They wouldn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an LRT just to service a couple apartment buildings.

[Bytor]

Several proposals have are on the way in Hespeler  with over 2000+ units . The Smart centres property is the only proposal near an ion station.
Should ion extend to Hespeler along queen st / fergus sub to Hespeler centre?. Should there be a guelph dmu stopping in Hespeler. Hespeler has has the most number of new proposals these days in Cambridge. Theres lots of in construction/ finished projects like  riverbanks lofts.

There's minimal ridership in Hespeler. The 203 has less than a 1,000 riders a day on average and because of the high fixed costs, LRTs are more expensive than busses until somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 riders a day, depending on local variables (like employment and electricity vs. diesel costs, for example).

Maybe in the future, though. Proponents of a Hespeler LRT should get back to us when a route through the Hespeler core has hit 3,000 or more riders a day with a history of strong, year after year growth for several years. Then we can start planning.

[kalis0490]

Yeah, the hespeler extension idea was a just a fun thing based on the fact that theres decent proposals there. Preston on the other hand hasn't really had any big proposals even though the lrt runs there. The problem in kw is that the routes with the most ridership are ion/7 followed by the 8 and 12 which all are north south parallel routes where it doesn't make much sense to add a redundant ion service now.   a 201/202 hybrid alignment for rapid transit is most likely as Ive said before. Hespeler will most likely be served by the hypothetical guelph train.

[KevinL]

Consultation responses are in, and are unsurprisingly mostly positive or very negative.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...plans.html

[Bytor]

Consultation responses are in, and are unsurprisingly mostly positive or very negative.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...plans.html

And many of the negative ones are either just crazy angry with no real objections, or they are uninformed with things like different route proposals, claims that the LRT in K-W is always empty, and so on.

The purely environmental concerns ones are sort of reasonable, but al lot of them are also on the uninformed side since they complain about things like effects of build bridges when the functional design plans have shown that the bridges will not have any pylons in the river.

The funniest one has got to be number 6, who appears to think that Stage 2 is already under construction and that the Region shouldn't be doing it during a pandemic.

https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/livin...ndence.pdf

[ac3r]

EngageWR will be taking feedback on this until May 6th: https://www.engagewr.ca/Stage2ION/survey...iew-period

[danbrotherston]

I love how reliable elite projection is.

"If you have to build more LRT, it should go to the airport".

Translation:

"I don't like investing in transit because I would NEVER use it, ....well...maybe it would be convenient to take to the airport, so clearly it makes sense to build a high capacity transit service to an airport with 3 flights on a busy day".