ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[jamincan]

Apparently there was a shooting near Charles and Cedar. Apparently service is restored though.

[danbrotherston]

Very strange, the message is still playing, and we see replacement buses running, but southbound trains are still going past

At Grand River Hospital? If so, they could be reversing at KCI.

No, they were running through DTK.

Now the message has changed, to "minor delays" but I've hardly seen any LRVs.

Very strange, it seems related to the shooting last night, but there is no apparent reason that should be causing delays or detours like this. Buses have been detoured (apparently there was a GO bus trying to navigate Eby and Church Sts.) but the tracks are not blocked.

[ijmorlan]

No, they were running through DTK.

Now the message has changed, to "minor delays" but I've hardly seen any LRVs.

Very strange, it seems related to the shooting last night, but there is no apparent reason that should be causing delays or detours like this. Buses have been detoured (apparently there was a GO bus trying to navigate Eby and Church Sts.) but the tracks are not blocked.

Sounds like maybe you caught the end of the disruption. Do you know if the regular traffic lanes of Charles St. were closed? Just speculating, but I can imagine that after shooting they might scan for evidence and wouldn’t want traffic of any kind going through the area where they are looking. If it’s just the LRT then I’m stumped.

[danbrotherston]

No, they were running through DTK.

Now the message has changed, to "minor delays" but I've hardly seen any LRVs.

Very strange, it seems related to the shooting last night, but there is no apparent reason that should be causing delays or detours like this. Buses have been detoured (apparently there was a GO bus trying to navigate Eby and Church Sts.) but the tracks are not blocked.

Sounds like maybe you caught the end of the disruption. Do you know if the regular traffic lanes of Charles St. were closed? Just speculating, but I can imagine that after shooting they might scan for evidence and wouldn’t want traffic of any kind going through the area where they are looking. If it’s just the LRT then I’m stumped.

The regular traffic lanes of Charles were closed when I walked past around 9:45

The confusing part was seeing multiple LRVs traveling south, with passengers, along side the 301R buses. Meanwhile seeing zero northbound trains.  We were out for over an hour from 8:30 - 9:45+, and the shooting was at 2 AM, with sunrise before 6 AM, I understand disruptions having ripple effects, but this really did seem strange.

[Bob_McBob]

Photos show a police SUV blocking the westbound lane of Charles. According to Transsee, there was no ION service in this section today (other than one lone shuttle bus) until 9:00 or 9:20 depending on the direction. 

[Bytor]

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

WATERLOO REGION — A coalition of local academics, nonprofits and municipalities are collaborating on a three-year project to study gentrification and displacement along the LRT.

“There is so much change happening along the LRT corridor,” said University of Waterloo planning professor Brian Doucet, who is heading the project. “A lot has been lost. A lot has been built, and there’s also a lot more to come.”

…

[panamaniac]

Is there a list of low-cost housing that has been lost due to LRT-related development?  I don't think WRC has a gentrification thread.   In Kitchener, the losses seem to me to be fairly limited so far, but I haven't been paying a lot of attention.  There have been a few renovations in DTK, which I suppose would be in the category of "gentrification" (perhaps more than I realized?).  There is also the move of One Roof Youth Services, I suppose.  On the other side, I'm not aware of any proposals for new public housing, new co-ops, or rent-geared-to-income projects in the Downtown area.

Thinking about it, I guess the renovation of the Windemere Apartments at 48 Weber St W would be DTK's biggest example of a gentrification project to date.

[tomh009]

Is there a list of low-cost housing that has been lost due to LRT-related development?  I don't think WRC has a gentrification thread.   In Kitchener, the losses seem to me to be fairly limited so far, but I haven't been paying a lot of attention.  There have been a few renovations in DTK, which I suppose would be in the category of "gentrification" (perhaps more than I realized?).  There is also the move of One Roof Youth Services, I suppose.  On the other side, I'm not aware of any proposals for new public housing, new co-ops, or rent-geared-to-income projects in the Downtown area.

Thinking about it, I guess the renovation of the Windemere Apartments at 48 Weber St W would be DTK's biggest example of a gentrification project to date.

270 Spadina and the Cedar St apartments have also both been renovated. Does that automatically make them gentrified?

As for ROOF, they indicated that their preference was to relocate a little bit away from the downtown core (but still transit-accessible).

[panamaniac]

Is there a list of low-cost housing that has been lost due to LRT-related development?  I don't think WRC has a gentrification thread.   In Kitchener, the losses seem to me to be fairly limited so far, but I haven't been paying a lot of attention.  There have been a few renovations in DTK, which I suppose would be in the category of "gentrification" (perhaps more than I realized?).  There is also the move of One Roof Youth Services, I suppose.  On the other side, I'm not aware of any proposals for new public housing, new co-ops, or rent-geared-to-income projects in the Downtown area.

Thinking about it, I guess the renovation of the Windemere Apartments at 48 Weber St W would be DTK's biggest example of a gentrification project to date.

270 Spadina and the Cedar St apartments have also both been renovated. Does that automatically make them gentrified?

As for ROOF, they indicated that their preference was to relocate a little bit away from the downtown core (but still transit-accessible).

Yes, I thought that One Roof’s move was probably a good move.   270 Spadina certainly seemed like an upgrade, but not related to LRT, istm.  I suppose that, any time somebody buys and renovates a home in the core, it could be considered “gentrification”, especially if it had previously been a more modest rental.  I guess all the new towers in DTK are examples of gentrification, even when nobody is diplaced by the project.

[danbrotherston]

270 Spadina and the Cedar St apartments have also both been renovated. Does that automatically make them gentrified?

As for ROOF, they indicated that their preference was to relocate a little bit away from the downtown core (but still transit-accessible).

Yes, I thought that One Roof’s move was probably a good move.   270 Spadina certainly seemed like an upgrade, but not related to LRT, istm.  I suppose that, any time somebody buys and renovates a home in the core, it could be considered “gentrification”, especially if it had previously been a more modest rental.  I guess all the new towers in DTK are examples of gentrification, even when nobody is diplaced by the project.

I mean I'm not an expert on the topic, but I don't think you can really say that any one project, especially a rennovation is "gentrification" in itself, it's all about the trends (and related to, but I think, not the same as displacement).

A part of the city that sees nothing new and no rennovations, isn't staying the same, it's decaying. An area requires some amount of upkeep in order to be maintained.  Whether that is technically gentrification, I'm not sure what the precise definition is.

I am also not sure that gentrification is as big a problem as say displacement, where people are forced to leave. Limiting housing (as we do with zoning) will almost always cause displacement in a desireable area.

[Bytor]

When we talk about gentrification, it's important that we see the complete picture, and that the picture many of us have of it is at best incomplete and at worst significantly wrong.

http://cityobservatory.org/whats-really-...hborhoods/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015...think.html

[tomh009]

Nope, painting and signage would be really cheap. But I'm not holding my breath, it took years of arguing to get signs on Weber, and I'm not bothering anymore. They won't even put a 25 cent garbage bag on the idiotic pedestrians signal, if they won't do that, I don't expect them to do anything.

I'd like to give this a shot, post-COVID. My efforts may be for naught, too, but sometimes a different person asking for the same thing can make a difference.

The city staff say that they will get signs installed by the end of June. I don't have any details on this signs, so I don't know how effective they will be, but anything will be better than what we have now, and will help mitigate the risk of further similar accidents (caused by bicycle tires being caught in the LRT tracks).

[eh-cun71]

Took a couple of pics as I passed the UW Station bus terminal. Looks like the concrete is down where the busses will stop and some of the roadway was recently paved. Not a lot of visible progress on the pedestrian areas.
Looking east.
   

Looking south
   

[ert86]

Was there am accident that caused a backup up or were they testing 8min headways yesterday. I saw one downtown go by south with another due in 8, I barely missed that one but there were two more after that both 8 min apart.

[midriser]

Was there am accident that caused a backup up or were they testing 8min headways yesterday. I saw one downtown go by south with another due in 8, I barely missed that one but there were two more after that both 8 min apart.

According to GRT's twitter account they were testing ATP and the previously planned 8 minute headways. Judging by the fact that you were seeing 8 minute gaps, it seems at least the headway part was going ok.  

https://twitter.com/grt_row/status/12725...19360?s=21

This would be the second time ATP has been tested during revenue operations, a few weeks ago was the first. There's a reply to the above tweet from a user who has previously identified himself as an LRV operator, and according to him the last test didn't go very well. Hopefully they were more successful this time, as it has been a long wait to get ATP up and running. Four days shy of one year in operation and LRVs are still limited to 50 km/h!