ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Somebody mentioned cheaping out on ION, but I’m not sure if everybody understands that going underground is almost certainly not feasible.

IDK why everyone keeps saying this. I have a PhD in architecture so I know a lot about engineering. It would have been entirely feasible to do cut and cover underground sections where necessary and without spending a too much money. It would have cost more than what we paid, but it would have paid for itself very quickly. There are no engineering challenges that could not have been overcome. I know everyone points to the water table but there are cities next to oceans that can build underground or run train tunnels under rivers and lakes. It's not hard.

Right, it’s not hard, just expensive (in particular, dealing with water).

Even building the Gotthard Base Tunnel wasn’t really hard per se, just a stupendous amount of work.

The region was simply adamant to get it built ASAP, meaning that was not in the budget they decided to allocate though we could have easily reallocated money to it in order to tunnel or elevate it where needed. But we didn't, so as a result we have a "rapid" transit system that in many places travels slower than one can walk, that vehicles often drive into - with a cement truck derailing the entire thing, having to stop at red lights, to a wee bit of ice shutting the entire system down.

The slow travel is due to safety paranoia, not due to cost cutting. It could run faster if we would just decide to do so.

To be fair, I don’t know if it’s local safety paranoia that could be fixed by changing personnel at Grandlinq, or if it’s imposed by regulators. But I find it unbelievable that, for example, the slow speeds southbound approaching Erb St. or when running parallel to Courtland are really justified by any realistic safety concerns.

If anybody actually knows anything about the slowdowns, I’m all ears — but I will be asking probing questions about the information and won’t quietly accept any bafflegab.

[…]

Of course it's too late to do anything, but that won't stop me from ranting on about how the region handicapped itself by designing the LRT the way they did... :'P And indeed, it was the cement truck at fault here. But it wouldn't have crashed into it if the LRT ran underground here. Ideally, I would have began tunneling it at perhaps Borden Station...then have back above ground at Grand River Hospital Station (just to save money - and because cut and cover makes that easy) then tunnel it again before Allen and bring it back up after Waterloo Public Square where it runs along the Laurel Trail. And then bam, you've got a light-metro that doesn't have to worry about traffic or signals or pedestrians and which can run much faster. And sure, it would have cost an extra couple hundred millions of dollars but that efficiency would have paid for itself.

You do know where Laurel Creek runs through Uptown? You might actually be able to convince me that a grade separation at Agnes St. is not totally unrealistic (my biggest concern would be where the sewer line is), but threading a rail tunnel around the creek definitely moves it into the expensive megaproject category (relative to the size of our city).