ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[zanate]

I for one don't care about overhead wires, and I don't think existing wires should be buried without a good reason. Needing to make room for a sidewalk on Caroline seems like a good reason. If this is needed, why didn't it go into the original project plan? Change orders are expensive.

Two quotes from the report:

In many locations along the LRT, burial of the hydro system is required to achieve adequate separation from existing buildings and/or other overhead electrical services; burial in these locations is the responsibility of the Region of Waterloo. For the LRT Uptown segments where the burial of the hydro system is not an LRT requirement, there is an opportunity for the City to enter an agreement with Waterloo North Hydro for a cost-effective solution.

In conjunction with LRT, the City’s share of the cost is estimated to be $1,088,000 to bury the hydro system and install decorative streetlights on Caroline Street from Allen Street to Erb Street. If the City were to initiate the burial of hydro and install decorative streetlights on this same stretch of road as a stand-alone project, the costs would be approximately $2,800,000 to $3,472,000 (based on preliminary estimates from Waterloo North Hydro). In conjunction with LRT, the City’s cost is estimated to be $1,088,000.

So in summary: burial is not required, even if it's desirable. So it's not part of the project. However, if the city wants, the burial can still be achieved for about 1/3 of the usual cost, so I don't thing there's a big penalty for discussing it now.

There's plenty of things that the LRT project could have had built into it, like full hydro burial along the route, catenary-free operation, or greenways. The approach to the project included a lot of "value engineering" back in the heady days of 2009-2011, where staff looked for ways to bring the costs of the project down. So you strip out the optional extras and fight hard against scope creep.

While there's things I would have liked to have seen as part of this project, I think this was the right decision here. I've mentioned that before: this project came pretty close to not happening a number of times, and scope management to control costs is a big reason (in my opinion) why it has survived.

Maybe if ION and intensification helps build a better sense of city and civic pride, we might see future projects aim higher. That's a big difference between here, and (say) Ottawa, and that difference is reflected in our respective LRT projects.