ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Even if it is too late to be folded into the project agreement, it does bring the issue to light for the politicians in charge. They failed to account for this need when drawing up the plans, and a good portion of their constituency is unhappy. How they act on that, I can't say, but making them aware is a vital part of the process.

Ok - but what about the general public?  Why are these folks bringing this up now, then, and not 5 years ago during the public consultation meetings?  Did they attend them?  Did they submit their comments or concerns?  Or did they just not care, and are now kicking up a stink?

It's P3 - nothing can be done now without huge costs or delays to the project.  Have to wait until it's done and handed over - then the Region might be able to do something.

Five years ago the detailed designs didn’t exist. How were people to know that existing paths were slated to be eliminated? A similar comment applies to many details, such as the utterly unnecessary fences in Waterloo Park. Some opponents of the project complained about it because of the huge fences that would supposedly be needed; supporters did not, to my knowledge, argue that the fences were OK but rather that they weren’t needed. In fact we are getting unnecessarily large fences without any public debate based upon them.

I personally still support the project even with the bad handling of the park, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize people for not raising every issue years ago at a meeting which didn’t even get to that level of detail. Instead, the technical people associated with the project who actually have knowledge and responsibility for the details should have raised access as an issue and made sure that it was handled appropriately.

We don’t want to get in a situation where supporters of the project implicitly support every decision taken by those in charge, and opponents reflexively oppose every action — every road closure, sign, vehicle choice, and so on. Instead, I am absolutely in favour of the project as a whole, but I think that many many details have been flubbed due to low creativity and an unwillingness to really engage with suggestions from the public. In some cases, as with, apparently, the fences in the park, the fault lies outside of Waterloo Region, of course.