Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

Putting the tracks on the bridge is a bad idea for many reasons. They've already spent a ton of money on the plans so far, I'd hate to see them ignite even more of our tax dollars. They would have to re-engineer the plans already made. I imagine it would also require expropriating a bunch of property in order to do that. It would result in a lot more work, likely slower speeds and mixing with traffic. The plan they have now - to go above Fairway Road, run parallel to Highway 8, down Preston Heights over the Speed River and onward makes the most sense. It'll be costly - over 4 billion - but it will be one of the fastest parts of the LRT system due to it having its own elevated track and right of way beside the highway (at least until Preston Station where it'll unfortunately have to operate in and as vehicular traffic). Going down King Street and over the bridge would be slow due to the tight turns it'd need to make and then the gradients along the Grand River Valley.

Let's try to not cheap out on it again...

Just to clarify, I meant putting separated tracks on a replacement bridge. I recognize that it would be an awful idea for a million reasons to plop tracks onto the existing bridge. 

This is all pie-in-the-sky anyway. I just want to plant to idea into the brains of whatever Region officials are lurking this forum

I believe at one point, they considered converting the existing bridge into a cycling bridge and building a new combined road/LRT bridge.