07-08-2019, 12:17 PM
(07-08-2019, 10:27 AM)tomh009 Wrote: On top of the tunneling costs, underground stations (and their associated access, using escalators and elevators) would have added huge costs to the project.
What we have is very much appropriate for Waterloo Region. We also have the option of giving trains traffic light priority should that make sense in the future.
Excellent point, and this is also the main reason why elevated (including monorails) wasn’t going to happen here.
I agree that what we have is very appropriate. In the future, however, is where the real benefit of LRT will arrive: Flexibility! We could run essentially an interurban to Elmira; or another line down Fischer-Hallman; or streetcar operation in downtown Kitchener or elsewhere (mixed traffic); or even a subway in some part of the system if the Region grows way beyond what anybody is imagining now. Whatever is appropriate at the time and in the place can be done as an extension of a single system.
Although the current OMSF can only handle approximately double the current fleet size as to storage, I suspect it could handle a significantly larger fleet as to operations and maintenance: I’m pretty sure they have most of the maintenance bays mostly to allow them to do all the things they need to be able to do, not because they really expect to work on 4 or more vehicles all at once with 14 in the entire fleet. So significant extensions would be possible with only the addition of storage tracks somewhere.