ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

It not being full, does not make it a failure. Nurnberg Germany is a completely different city, it is entirely unfair to compare a city like that to our city which has just built it's first rapid transit line, that was operating only a year.

Saying it's a failure because 100,000 people didn't sell their cars the moment it was built is absurd, change takes time, but that change was happening far more rapidly as a result of the LRT than it was before, and more, it was happening faster than it was expected to as a result of the LRT.

Indeed, a transit system which is, on average, half full is doing very well at using its capacity efficiently. Compare that to the road network, which probably has an overall utilization of maybe — I’m guessing — 5%. Consider all those wide neighbourhood streets which are essentially deserted overnight and which even during rush hour only have a few dozen vehicles go through as residents arrive or leave; and even major roads are nearly empty much of the day.

Based on the graph somebody else posted, the LRT is doing very well at being used efficiently — it tops out at near capacity, and is over half usage for many hours of the day, only tailing off near the beginning and end of service. Some commuter services top out at around 50% usage because they basically just take people into the city in the morning and out in the afternoon; GO used to be mostly like this, although it’s getting better. What we’re seeing with the LRT is almost as far from a commuter service as is possible.

This discussion reminds me of a poorly informed proposal I saw around the time of the LRT debate from somebody who just wanted to buy a bunch of buses. They were proposing — no kidding! — 5 different sizes of vehicles, essentially to ensure that no transit vehicle ever drove across the city at less than full capacity. Of course, they were completely ignoring the 0% capacity on any vehicle that is parked in the garage, not to mention numerous other problems associated with such a diverse fleet.

… It's as slow as a worm trying to crawl across a sidewalk on a sunny day in July ….

This part is true. I and others have already complained about this. I’m not sure if we need to wait for less paranoid system managers to fix this or if there are external rules the transit system operator is forced to follow which enforce the paranoia.