ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

It seems like the proper solution would be to consider that section equivalent to street running, sign the hell out of it and acknowledge that the risk is quite manageable for a pedestrian path with the level of use the spur actually gets.

This would be my suggestion except that I don't think it will work for bikes, because riding along the tracks, even embedded in asphalt is really risky, especially in a confined corridor.  You could possibly split bikes from peds at the intersection further back, but there still must be accommodation for people on bikes who aren't comfortable riding on the road.

Also, there's railway rules and all that jazz, quite frankly, I'm already impressed they managed to get the spur line trail within the rules without a big fence.

Put the pedestrian path in the middle, between the rails and extending out to approximately the ends of the ties. Put bicycle lanes outside of that. Mark clearly. Done.

And/or use gap fillers to fill in the flange space.

This is a problem that can be solved technically fairly easily, with some creativity.

In the event bureaucrats (Transport Canada) get in the way, officially have the trail detour to the path immediately north of the parking garage from King to the laneway. In any case, install an excellent crossing of King St. right at the tracks.

Also, leave space in the design for the path to run immediately north of the tracks from King to Erb/Caroline. Oops, they screwed that up! Oh well.

If somebody had been really interested in excellent bicycle infrastructure, the tracks could have been shifted slightly south from King to the bridge crossing the creek. Then the path could have been on the north side of the tracks from Seagram all the way down to Breithaupt St., with no places where crossing the track was necessary (unless you count the squeeze between King and Regina).

One more comment: the Laurel Trail officially runs/ran next to the tracks between King and Regina. It was cleared of snow right up to and including last Winter and was shown as a trail on the City's map. I don’t see why the slight route adjustment being done now needs to interfere with the routing of the trail. I assume this was done in the 80s or early 90s and was apparently fine at the time so it should be allowed to continue, especially now that the spur line will be getting precisely no traffic at all except in the early morning hours. I find it hard to believe that even the paranoids at Transport Canada would have a problem with this.