ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Utter nonsense.

https://www.operationlifesaver.ca/

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. I’m aware of that web site, and it is on the whole a good one. In particular, people should not play on train tracks, and this is a message that needs to be promoted because there are locations that are dangerous if one doesn’t realize that a train might actually come.

That has little to do with the question at hand, however, which is the comparison between the danger of crossing a road with lots of traffic and the danger of crossing 2 LRT tracks with a train every few minutes with good visibility.

Frankly, I think the root of our disagreement here is that for some reason you refuse to actually think about rail safety, instead retreating to blind application of rules. Easy to do for somebody who, like me, is rich enough to have a car and be able to spend time blathering on an online forum such as this. Meanwhile, the people affected by the unconscionable failure of the Region and Grandlinq to build appropriate crossing infrastructure have done what they need to do to live their daily lives. At present (and future planned) traffic levels what they are doing is not unsafe, and is probably safer than walking a long way around right next to busy roads full of idiot drivers. Many of these people are probably working 3 minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet, so those of us who are fortunate enough to have middle-class salaried jobs should be slow to judge.

I’ll add that I thought the CTV coverage was actually pretty good. The people they interviewed clearly had thought about the safety implications. One said that they look both ways before crossing, and another was concerned about somebody tripping and injuring themselves on the tracks. With the current state of the crossing, tripping-related injuries are probably a bigger hazard than being hit by a train.