ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[BuildingScout]

There's also little reason to build LRT or any mass transit on the Iron Horse trail, there's not really any destinations or trip generators along most of its length that aren't better served by King Street.

You are missing two very good reasons to build on the iron horse trail: it would be way cheaper and it already has the right of way.

I do agree with the rest of your comments, but again, is not like King St was ripe with possibilities either. In both cases most of the users will be there because the LRT was built there and not elsewhere. The same projects would have taken place along any routing of the LRT.

[KevinL]

New utility poles have gone up along Charles near Cedar - you can clearly see how much wider Charles will need to be for the stop there:

[Canard]

So you build an elevated train so it doesn't hurt the traffic but put a park under it, which takes over the car lanes anyways.

Nice shot, but you completely twisted what I meant around.

When elevated is built above roads, it can take away no lanes of traffic below (or sidewalk, or cyclist paths, or Kale shops) as the pylons take up as much space as a garbage can. When it's not above roads, and just over regular land, parks can be built under it, with paths, etc...

LRT can never do this because it is at-grade. It's not that complicated to understand.

I was in Dallas this week. They have the largest LRT system in North America.

I'll be in Dallas and Houston myself in a few weeks, and while I'm looking forward to riding Dallas and Houston's system to see their implementation of LRT, I'm more excited about visiting Los Colinas to check out their APT, as well as the underground WEDWay system at Houston Intercontinental.

[rangersfan]

Council defers Grandlinq noise exemptions starting in March

March 4, 2015 | JamesJackson | Waterloo Chronicle | LINK
City council has deferred a noise bylaw exemption request from Grandlinq pending more information on the potential impact on local communities.

The exemption is required for construction of the new light rail transit project and is expansive. It runs from March 1 to Dec. 31, 2015 and would permit construction 24 hours per day, seven days per week near Conestoga Mall, along the Waterloo Spur line, Caroline Street and King Street.

“Of the four sections, three of them wind along uptown urban neighbourhoods, so I’d like to see a little more around what this is going to look like and how this is going to effect (those neighbourhoods),” said uptown Coun. Melissa Durrell in moving the motion to defer the request at last week’s council meeting.

Staff will prepare a report for March 9 outlining in greater detail the noise impact of the work and potential ways to mitigate it.

The city’s bylaw department has the power to issue or deny such noise exemption requests without council’s approval but Jim Barry, director of bylaw enforcement, said staff opted to bring this most recent request from Grandlinq to councillors because of its all-encompassing nature and the prolonged timeline of the request.

“We can grant up to six months, and this request extended beyond the six months,” Barry said. “When we’re looking at a request that spans more than six months, (and) spans multiple neighbourhoods across the city, that’s where we have to take a step back and say we have to come up with something better to mitigate any issues.”

In a letter to the region, Grandlinq indicated it wanted to begin work on March 15 and will provide notification to residents and businesses within 125 metres of all after-hours work.

The protocol being developed by Grandlinq and the city will include details of how far in advance notices of overnight work would be distributed, confirm that community members are aware of ways to contact Grandlinq if there are any problems, and ensure impacts to community events are considered when confirming construction dates.

The work that is expected to take place includes, but is not limited to: concrete placement of tracks, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, the removal and replacement of sewer and water utilities, track installation and aggregate and asphalt placement.

In an email to the Chronicle, Avril Fisken, communications consultant with AECOM, the firm responsible for the project’s detailed design, said the city’s deferral will not impact the project’s construction schedule.

The sections where LRT work is scheduled to occur include:

• King Street from Conestoga Mall to Northfield Drive

• Northfield Drive from Davenport Road to the Waterloo Spur

• The Waterloo Spur from Northfield Drive to Erb Street

• Caroline Street from Erb Street to Allen Street

• King Street from Erb Street to Allen Street

• Allen Street from Caroline Street to King Street

• King Street from Allen Street to Union Street

[plam]

When elevated is built above roads, it can take away no lanes of traffic below (or sidewalk, or cyclist paths, or Kale shops) as the pylons take up as much space as a garbage can.  When it's not above roads, and just over regular land, parks can be built under it, with paths, etc...

LRT can never do this because it is at-grade.  It's not that complicated to understand.

I don't think it's bad to take away lanes of traffic. There are other routes that one can take if one is driving a car. Why should we privilege automobile traffic on King Street? Automobile traffic is low-efficiency and erects a barrier for people trying to be on the street in any other form. Bike lanes and sidewalks both have far more capacity than road lanes.

[clasher]

There's also little reason to build LRT or any mass transit on the Iron Horse trail, there's not really any destinations or trip generators along most of its length that aren't better served by King Street.

You are missing two very good reasons to build on the iron horse trail: it would be way cheaper and it already has the right of way.

I do agree with the rest of your comments, but again, is not like King St was ripe with possibilities either. In both cases most of the users will be there because the LRT was built there and not elsewhere. The same projects would have taken place along any routing of the LRT.

I dunno if the right-of-way is big enough for the double tracks in all places but I guess the additional land would be cheaper to acquire than the land needed along King Street.

I think a lot of people taking route 7 and the ixpress will become LRT users so most of them are already on King Street and going to destinations close to King.

[nms]

Council defers Grandlinq noise exemptions starting in March


March 4, 2015 | JamesJackson | Waterloo Chronicle | LINK
City council has deferred a noise bylaw exemption request from Grandlinq pending more information on the potential impact on local communities.

The exemption is required for construction of the new light rail transit project and is expansive. It runs from March 1 to Dec. 31, 2015 and would permit construction 24 hours per day, seven days per week near Conestoga Mall, along the Waterloo Spur line, Caroline Street and King Street.

“Of the four sections, three of them wind along uptown urban neighbourhoods, so I’d like to see a little more around what this is going to look like and how this is going to effect (those neighbourhoods),” said uptown Coun. Melissa Durrell in moving the motion to defer the request at last week’s council meeting.

Staff will prepare a report for March 9 outlining in greater detail the noise impact of the work and potential ways to mitigate it.

The city’s bylaw department has the power to issue or deny such noise exemption requests without council’s approval but Jim Barry, director of bylaw enforcement, said staff opted to bring this most recent request from Grandlinq to councillors because of its all-encompassing nature and the prolonged timeline of the request.

“We can grant up to six months, and this request extended beyond the six months,” Barry said. “When we’re looking at a request that spans more than six months, (and) spans multiple neighbourhoods across the city, that’s where we have to take a step back and say we have to come up with something better to mitigate any issues.”

In a letter to the region, Grandlinq indicated it wanted to begin work on March 15 and will provide notification to residents and businesses within 125 metres of all after-hours work.

The protocol being developed by Grandlinq and the city will include details of how far in advance notices of overnight work would be distributed, confirm that community members are aware of ways to contact Grandlinq if there are any problems, and ensure impacts to community events are considered when confirming construction dates.

The work that is expected to take place includes, but is not limited to: concrete placement of tracks, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, the removal and replacement of sewer and water utilities, track installation and aggregate and asphalt placement.

I wonder what other bylaw noise exemptions will be required between now and project completion to keep this "on time and on budget"?  It might have been helpful to show two different budgets to citizens and politicians:
- Option A will be cheaper, but it will make your neighbourhood a living hell all day, every day for three years and then you'll have shiny new LRT;
- Option B will be more expensive, but your neighbourhood will only be a living hell during daytime hours, five days a week for three and half-years and then you'll have a shiny new LRT.

As an aside, I would have thought that 24-hour operation would have been more expensive given that top-up pay would likely be required for overnight or weekend work.

[zanate]

There's also little reason to build LRT or any mass transit on the Iron Horse trail, there's not really any destinations or trip generators along most of its length that aren't better served by King Street.

You are missing two very good reasons to build on the iron horse trail: it would be way cheaper and it already has the right of way.

I do agree with the rest of your comments, but again, is not like King St was ripe with possibilities either. In both cases most of the users will be there because the LRT was built there and not elsewhere. The same projects would have taken place along any routing of the LRT.

If construction price is the object, we could build LRT even cheaper next to Ira Needles. But would it be successful?

The problem with the IHT is that it skirts around our densest downtown. The place with the greatest capacity for generating transit demand, completely missed? That would be tragic. It's 1km or so from King Street in downtown to the Iron Horse. That's beyond even the expanded distance of 800m for higher order transit stations that we expect people to tolerate walking to. The Duke and Weber side of downtown are even further out.

Despite the cost savings of reduced utility relocation, you'd face some real challenging construction problems anyway. You still need to build grade-separated crossing of the CN line. The awkward angled crossings at Victoria/Strange, John/Park, and Courtland/Stirling would be like Erb & Caroline times three.

This isn't to say that the current alignment is perfect. We've done a real disservice to uptown and (especially) downtown users by directionally splitting the route, for the sake of saving two-way traffic on all streets. Human Transit nails the problem with this: if you look at the area that's within a certain distance of both directions of a line, spreading out one-way splits reduces coverage:




As for the elevated vs. street level, I think street level transit integrates better with what's around it, but I don't really have a problem with elevated, and the Canada Line looks pretty amazing! But this information suggests that it could cost twice as much as the current ION phase 1. If that's true, I think it's safe to say that an elevated rail system in Waterloo region would never get off the ground. So to speak.

[MidTowner]

Thanks for the link to the excellent explanation, zanate. The utility of the Ion in downtown Kitchener has indeed been reduced by the split. I like how

Elevated transit is by definition further from destinations and less accessible than street-level transit. I'm sure it's called for in some places. But in an area without much congestion, it's just prioritizing ease of car travel over all other modes.

[Canard]

We have track!

[rangersfan]

Been waiting many years to see that!!

[Markster]

You should hurry up and crosspost that to Urban Toronto!

[Canard]

Already did! I try to make sure our ion thread there stays on the first page

[Markster]

The new 200m rails next to the existing 20ft sections is quite the contrast.

[panamaniac]

Where are the rails manufactured?