06-27-2019, 11:44 AM
(06-27-2019, 08:05 AM)SammyOES Wrote: I’m not sure you guys realize how many people not in KW are trying out the ION this week. I know a bunch of people from Guelph that have come out and a few people from London as well.
Good to hear. One of the many reasons I long hoped that our system would be built is that it would be an example. A lot of the anti-LRT rhetoric has been based on incorrect facts. While many are just denialists, I believe there are many people who could go either way and seeing what LRT is actually like will help people to realize that it is a good thing. If the debate can be on issues like where it makes sense to take traffic lanes for LRT and what is affordable rather than on bogus nonsense like how horrible it would (n’t) be to have a train drive past the patio of a restaurant or how dangerous it is (n’t) to board from the middle of the street, we will all be better served.
The restaurant patio example is straight from a ridiculous deputation given by a former mayor of Waterloo to Regional Council. She suggested that restaurant patios on King St. would be useless with a train right next to them. Absurd, of course, given the implication that it would be A-OK to have a regular traffic lane full of cars, trucks, and buses roaring by constantly, some of them driven by random idiots, but an electric LRV every few minutes would destroy the ambience. But there it is. You can probably still find it in the Region’s video archive from 2011.
I also remember an exchange in the Record letters. Somebody claimed people would have to load dangerously from the middle of the street like a streetcar. Leaving aside the question of whether streetcar loading practices are dangerous, as everybody knows Ion loads from a platform. So another person replied to the first letter pointing out that Ion would load from a platform. Then the first person doubled down! Apparently they thought their preconceptions, not derived from actual knowledge, took precedence over true facts. I don’t know how such a person gets through the day: what if they get it in their head that Zehr’s is poisoning them or something?
Quote:I don’t blame Conestoga Mall for not giving up their parking spots for free. Although I think a better business decision would have been to embrace the free week. Advertise to people they could come and park this week only and then make it clear that once regular service starts they aren’t a park and ride.
That would have been a great idea. Avoid the negative headlines now but maintain control over parking longer term.