ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ac3r]

Quite true. The dirt doesn't really care how long it has to wait for the dump truck.

*blinks*...did ac3r really compare transit riders with...*checks notes*...dirt?!

I mean, even for them, I doubt that was the intention, but wow.

In any case, for transit riders, more frequent it always better. Other things can also be benefits, but there is basically no frequency high enough that more frequent won't be better.

That wasn't the comparison I was going for haha. I just meant that sometimes it's more beneficial to move more of something all in one go and that's particularly important when it comes to transit. I only mentioned dirt because I had been watching a TV documentary about the construction of a dam.

What I mean is convenience is of course a huge consideration when it comes to transit and of course having more frequent trains and buses is great but there is way more to consider. Keolis/RoW/GRT specifically studied this which is why you can look at the documents about when and how they plan to improve service in the future, both by improving headway and capacity. There are actual mathematical formulas used in this field that were created just to perfect the balance between both frequency and capacity. So while it's true that for transit riders more frequency is - I won't say better, because that is in fact false, but more convenient - that frequency doesn't matter if they're going to be inconvenienced by other factors.

Between Mill and Block Line alone trips could shave several minutes. The creek bridge and the run along Hayward are taken far too slowly and seem to have been set to some absurdly conservative limit for no clear reason.

They should also signalize the pedestrian crossing behind the Fairway shops and put in lift arms, that would save the trains going slower there.

I'll always be perplexed at this no matter what reasoning they may eventually provide. The speed just makes no obvious sense.

The northbound train leaving Block Line grinds to a very slow halt soon after leaving the station, almost like they're worried it'll tip over or derail if they go faster than 1 infant crawling per hour. But then any southbound train that approaches Block Line moves at a faster speed on the exact same track, so it surely can't be the grade or anything. And unless the Flexity Freedom's are even worse than we thought, surely they could take those actual tight turns to get across Hayward much faster than they do. I've been on plenty of trains, trams and streetcars that can make similarly tight turns a bit faster.

But then again this particular stretch of track is where I find the LRVs most often do that weird...thing...where they'll be moving along, they start vibrating and shaking like crazy, you hear the "bzzzz" noise of the traction sand being sprayed while the driver also lowers the throttle before speeding up again, almost as if they've got weird weight issues that are result in peculiar physics of the trains. This weird shake and brake happens all over the route and it's incredibly annoying, but it definitely occurs here more often than other places. It has me wondering if Metrolinx/TTC will regret using these on Line 5. The Valley Line in Edmonton should be opening this Saturday so it will be interesting to see what the broad public response will be to these trains because so far we're still the only ones using them here and they have not been very good all things considered.