ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

I guess that's why no subway station in the world is a success....

Honestly, this is ridiculous, grade separated stations are expensive, but in no way impossible or difficult to do well. Obviously also possible to do poorly, as are at grade stations, the station at Block Line being an excellent example (it's terrible as is, utterly idiotic), and ironic that you bring up social safety given that the alignment on Block Line has probably the most dangerous situation in the city.

It's bizarre to be having this discussion, one venue over you'll find people explaining how at grade transit is always garbage. I've not taken the extreme view in either direction, instead basing my opinion on context. This bridge is already grade separated, the context leads to a grade separated station, nothing else.

Maybe you have never spent any time in Toronto, or any subway station for that matter, but two big differences: 1) Subway stations tend to be busy, even at slow times. The presence of other people is a deterrent. This isn't the case for Ion much past 8 or 9 PM. I know this because I have lived in Toronto, and I have used the Ion. One is always busy, one isn't. 2) There tends to be staff, security or police at subway stations. This doesn't seem to be the case for the Ion, as our stops are really no different than bus stops.

Putting the station down in the yards not only would have been more expensive but also not friendly at all for users. It would have been further for everyone to use. AODA compliance would have been a nightmare, not only would you need functioning elevators, you'd also need a ramp as back-up. Hindsight also suggests that it may have been a risk, with people taking shortcuts and cutting holes in fences, or by-passing fences that would need to have been built to keep people off of the yard tracks. While I have only seen minimal activity in the yards, it is there, and some idiot is bound to be run over by a slow moving train.

You do know that anyone that wanted to use the Ion from Homer Watson or Fallowfield area would have had to cross the bridge anyway, then backtrack toward Homer Watson and down stairs, a ramp, or an elevator. Not sure how you figured it would be closer to them.

It's almost like you didn't do any research on this.

Oh spare me, I've been in plenty of empty subway stations, not to mention GO stations and MiWay stations--you want to see empty stations go ride MiWay...and I do in fact see tons of security folks at ION stations, more than I've ever seen in a TTC station.

I've now explained a third time, so I'm just going to be blunt, it isn't farther for "everyone"...it's closer for everone to the west. I even gave you a map.

AODA compliance is not a "nightmare" any more than it is in any other grade separated station, and it's achieved easily through elevators. You do not need ramps as backup, no other system has that as a requirement to meet AODA compliance, not TTC, not GO Transit, not Ottawa Transit, not MiWay, so stop inventing requriements to try and make something appear to be impossible which has been done in a half dozen cities all over Ontario to say nothing of the rest of the world.

On tresspassing, people tresspass for a reason, if the station is designed to accomodate pedestrian movements, people will not tresspass...pretty simple. All of the tresspassing we have seen has been as a result of system design not accounting for pedestrian movement. Nobody is going to break into the railyard from the station, because if they wanted into the rail yard, it isn't in any way protected by fencing today.

As for backtracking let me be blunt, it's like you haven't even bothered to read to anything I wrote. How do you need to backtrack if the stairway goes straight into the station from the bridge...