ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[jgsz]

I don't think it suffers from having the printed signage English-only; the 'fares' iconography above it shows its purpose, and I trust there will be a choice of languages on the interactive screen which can then guide the user in their native tongue.

I think there are likely more speakers of Asian languages in the region than those with French as a first language, for the record.

If there’s a choice of languages, why not have a menu of a dozen languages?

[danbrotherston]

@Jgsz

Internationalizing software into more languages has a cost. Aside from actually translating strings, different languages with different length words will result in bugs in some languages, so , all languages must be tested individually.

[KevinL]

If there’s a choice of languages, why not have a menu of a dozen languages?

There may well be! We haven't seen the software in action, yet.

[plam]

The official bilingualism regulations are a federal jurisdiction, and only apply to federal services, institutions, and employees.  Each province is free to implement their own bilingualism regulations, and to date only New Brunswick is "officially" bilingual. Ontario has regulated bilingual "regions" (like Ottawa, Sudbury, and Welland) where funding for schools, cultural programs, and the like apply, but Waterloo Region isn't one of them.  So, the Region isn't technically obligated to provide any French services or signage.

A good example:  VIA is federally regulated/owned, and is bilingual; GO Transit, provincially regulated/owned, is not.

(I didn't actually know any of that - that's from my husband, a Franco-Ontarian, with some input )

(I think it would have been a nice gesture to have both, though.)

GO Transit has bad French translations, yes. Waterloo does have French school boards and one has a right to send one's children to French school if one's first language is French or one was educated in French in Canada at the primary level or if the child has already gone to French school.

[jeffster]

@Jgsz

Internationalizing software into more languages has a cost.  Aside from actually translating strings, different languages with different length words will result in bugs in some languages, so , all languages must be tested individually.

I guess they'd have to figure which languages are used the most. English, for obvious reasons, followed by French, for obvious reason also, then any additional languages. Perhaps simplified Chinese and perhaps Spanish as well.

I remember having to do some translated work done. So I went to an "expert" to help with it. She was French born and raised. Not being fluent in French at all, I ended up googling her translation. It was all pretty good, however, she had one word totally wrong (with totally different meanings). I had said "past" and it needed translating to French. For some reason, and I guess by sounding out "past" she translated it as "passed", but obviously in French.

English is a funny language, I'd imagine that translating it into any proper language will be difficult for sure.

[welltoldtales]

Noticed a bunch of trucks going up and down the line today. Maybe more testing?

[Canard]

No testing on the line at all this week.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Yeah, they are doing some sort of concrete work at King/Union. A tent and generator went up in the past couple of days.

[Pheidippides]

I bit of a slow week for Ion news...
...will another train show up in the Lancaster Yard tomorrow afternoon?
...any bets on what next week's report will reveal/recommend?

My guess on the report is:
-a goal start date of labour day weekend September 2018 without the full complement of vehicles
-a splashy Ion-related photo-op/open house before the provincial election so we can be reminded of who chipped in and so that any local politicians can kick off their re-election campaigns (or cut one more ribbon before not-running again in October 2018)
-an actual start date of first weekend of January 2019


Also, something to fill the time with...my son seems to think the new GRT pens they've been handing out at public events look like the front of the Ion...by design of coincidence I think if I squint hard enough he might be right.

   
   

[Canard]

...will another train show up in the Lancaster Yard tomorrow afternoon?

I doubt it. As of last night, it was still sitting, loaded and ready to go, in Millhaven.

[Bob_McBob]

There is a tent and heater set up along the track right in the middle of the intersection at King and Northfield. I'm not sure if they're doing this one in stages because of the impact on traffic or if it's just a small part of the curve affected. I drove through there on Northfield earlier and the lane reduction was really slowing down traffic.

[danbrotherston]

...

-an actual start date of first weekend of January 2019

...

Given that trains are basically finished now and that tracks were completed last year, a launch a launch data of 2019 would be a completely failure in my mind.  

I think a spring launch should have been possible if fire had been put to the butts of those on the project.  But probably not possible now, but if they cannot manage to actually launch in September, I'll very rather disappointed.

But hey, I've been disappointed before.

[Canard]

My hope: if there is a major delay to service start announced in that in the Planing and Works meeting, I also hope that a fully open and honest account of the reasons for the delay (from a technical standpoint) are made public.

[MidTowner]

Given that trains are basically finished now and that tracks were completed last year, a launch a launch data of 2019 would be a completely failure in my mind.  

I think a spring launch should have been possible if fire had been put to the butts of those on the project.  But probably not possible now, but if they cannot manage to actually launch in September, I'll very rather disappointed.

But hey, I've been disappointed before.

I wouldn't be surprised by January, but winter is really an unfortunate time to start up service. I'm curious what Pheidippides has in mind when he talks about service without the full complement in Labour Day.

Obviously the provincial government would have loved to have Ion running well before June. I wonder what forces it might have been able to bring to bear (I mean informally) to make that happen. There certainly will be some announcement about completion and launch before the provincial election, but I wouldn't be able to guess how lame it will be.

I don't think it would be especially surprising to have a 2019 launch date. That's not even a year-and-a-half late from the original target. And the "spring 2018" expectation always seemed fairly wishy-washy and unrealistic.

[danbrotherston]

Given that trains are basically finished now and that tracks were completed last year, a launch a launch data of 2019 would be a completely failure in my mind.  

I think a spring launch should have been possible if fire had been put to the butts of those on the project.  But probably not possible now, but if they cannot manage to actually launch in September, I'll very rather disappointed.

But hey, I've been disappointed before.

I wouldn't be surprised by January, but winter is really an unfortunate time to start up service. I'm curious what Pheidippides has in mind when he talks about service without the full complement in Labour Day.

Obviously the provincial government would have loved to have Ion running well before June. I wonder what forces it might have been able to bring to bear (I mean informally) to make that happen. There certainly will be some announcement about completion and launch before the provincial election, but I wouldn't be able to guess how lame it will be.

I don't think it would be especially surprising to have a 2019 launch date. That's not even a year-and-a-half late from the original target. And the "spring 2018" expectation always seemed fairly wishy-washy and unrealistic.

A year and a half late on a 3 year project is terrible.  It might not be unprecedented, but that doesn't make it better.

A year late still is quite disappointing.  The "spring 2018" did seem wishy-washy, but why was it unrealistic.

What exactly are they doing right now?  What were they doing through November, December, January.  It's not like I don't have sympathy for people and visiting their families, but I've worked through holidays to meet deadlines on less important projects, the region should have for this. Regardless of who's responsible.

Still, I guess we will see April 18th.