Cycling in Waterloo Region

[KevinL]

As I've said before, a lot of the LRT's design problems are due to it only being in preliminary design before it was handed over to the contractors to complete, and there being little to no public input into that process. If the general thrust of GrandLinq's plans had been open to public comment, many of these points could have been resolved before cast in concrete.

[jamincan]

I believe the turn radius of the LRVs was at least one factor in why it swaps from centre- to side-running so often.

[danbrotherston]

Frankly, I've said it a few times but I strongly believe that the engineers who designed that should lose their licenses.

Not sure if it's the engineers that are at fault. More or less the brain trust, or lack of, with government officials. What I would have liked was for the LRT to choseb 1 side of the street it was going to function on, either the centre, or in the right lane. Not both. Obviously this criss-crossing, especially at King and Moore is causing serious issues.

What I would like to know is if at some point if someone had asked the question: "How will this affect cyclists? Will it have a negative effect on them?" For some reason, I have to believe this question *was* asked, and brought up, but was ignored. It's like the hydro corridor beside Fairway Rd. How did that get missed? I know I brought it up with an MPP, but nothing came of that, clearly.

In this case it absolutely is the engineers. Region staff identified this issue before, and provided a mediocre, but sufficient mitigation. In a rare case, region staff idd i in fact bring up the question, and did in fact, propose a solution--as you point out, most of the time, this does not occur, as it did not with the hydro corridor.

The engineers responsible for actually building the design were instructed to design a MUP along the tracks. However, their design is beyond incompetent, it does not in any way achieve the goals, and they should be liable for the harm that results from their professional negligence.

Having the LRT remain on one side or the other would also have been an acceptable option, I don't know why they did not do it that way, and I don't really care, the point remains that I, as a resident, was satisfied this issue was handled acceptably by the proposed design, and it is the incompetence of the engineering which has caused it to be a problem.

As I've said before, a lot of the LRT's design problems are due to it only being in preliminary design before it was handed over to the contractors to complete, and there being little to no public input into that process. If the general thrust of GrandLinq's plans had been open to public comment, many of these points could have been resolved before cast in concrete.

So, I am not sure I agree with this, and for several reasons, but first I will play a little devils advocate. If the standard public engagement processes were followed, chances are, the LRT would not be running today, those processes are incredibly lengthy and impose enormous delays on projects, and it certainly would also have increased the costs, and would have introduced additional opportunities to kill the project at a political level. Whether it was cancelled, or merely delayed, I can see why it makes sense to go with the process we used.

It is a shame that the engineers involved did not set reasonable priorities, or build competent designs for the parts they were entrusted to do so on. Ultimately, this does stem from a regional prioritization of vehicles over all other modes, they followed regional designs and specifications, and were aware of what designs would be acceptable to regional staff (I believe there was back and forth with regional staff on design issues during the process). There is plenty of blame to go around.

That being said, I do not believe a public process would have helped much (maybe it might have solved some things, but not all) a few reasons why:

The Traynor issue was in the original design that was sent to the public, and according to folks here it was raised and ignored. The type of people who were impacted by it, are generally left out of public consultations to a significant degree. More, just general policy of the region is that these paths are unofficial and irrelevant. Again, the root problem was not the LRT, but the intention of the region to expliclty not design for pedestrian access. The informal paths were a workaround that people used because they needed to, but explicitly against regional (and city) policy.

So many parts of the design were simply broken because the region is broken, public consultation on a specific project isn't going to change that....

Regional PICs aren't really....meaningful. I'm going to be blunt here, I don't think regional engineers care about PICs. They may use it a little to gauge public response to issues, and decide what types of proposals to put in front of council, but I doubt very much they listen to specific issues much. For them, I believe it is a hurdle they must jump over, not an opportunity to improve their designs.

Now I have no doubt this would be incredibly hurtful and unfair to some regional engineers, but this is my perception after visiting numerous PICs and having this experience. Yes, they may feel differently, and some may even act differently, but this is my experience broadly.

Finally, straight up, the LRT was too politically charged to have a rational conversation about with the public. If they hosted more PICs, there would just be thousands of comments of screaming people screaming that it's evil...any useful comments would be utterly lost in that noise.

I don't have solutions to the problems of public engagement, it is a hard problem and some in our region do it much better than others...the regional transportation department is not one of those organizations that does it better.

[jeffster]

--snip--

Forgot to add one point -- by having the LRT on one side only, you'd only need one set of doors, on one side only. This means you have a lot more seating. The LRT that I have been on in Toronto only opens on one side (passenger side). As far as I know, they don't have the same issues that the ION has regarding cyclists.

[danbrotherston]

--snip--

Forgot to add one point -- by having the LRT on one side only, you'd only need one set of doors, on one side only. This means you have a lot more seating. The LRT that I have been on in Toronto only opens on one side (passenger side). As far as I know, they don't have the same issues that the ION has regarding cyclists.

That's definitely an improvement, although you do lose flexibility in that if you buy single side door LRVs, your system must only ever use platforms configured the same way in every expansion.

I'm not sure which LRT you are referring to in Toronto? Their streetcars absolutely do have issues with cyclists.

Edit: Even Toronto's segregated street cars have segments which cross roads at very oblique angles:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.6363151,-...a=!3m1!1e3
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.636534,-7...a=!3m1!1e3

But AFAIK not with a similar grade as our LRT.

[ijmorlan]

Forgot to add one point -- by having the LRT on one side only, you'd only need one set of doors, on one side only. This means you have a lot more seating. The LRT that I have been on in Toronto only opens on one side (passenger side). As far as I know, they don't have the same issues that the ION has regarding cyclists.

This is easier said than done. Just deciding on centre or side running on the road segments is nowhere near enough. You would need loops at the end stations, and the choice of side for the platforms would then be forced for every single stop in the system, no matter where it is and no matter what the local context is. Additionally the reverse running on the Waterloo Spur would at best be made much more complicated.

There is a reason why LRT and subways almost always have doors on both sides.

The Toronto system that has doors only on one side is the streetcar system, which is not normally referred to as an LRT (although there is no bright line between them, so I can’t say you’re outright wrong to use that term).

All that being said, I haven’t a clue why single track = side running in our road-running sections. The only exceptions to this rule are two blocks on Benton/Frederick, where the single track is in the centre, and at Central Station where the double track spreads to the curbs.

[ijmorlan]

Now I have no doubt this would be incredibly hurtful and unfair to some regional engineers, but this is my perception after visiting numerous PICs and having this experience. Yes, they may feel differently, and some may even act differently, but this is my experience broadly.

I have to admit that when I hear some of the things I’ve heard people suggest at PICs, I would be pretty jaded as an engineer. I’ve heard some pretty lunatic ideas. For example, I don’t remember if I noticed this at a meeting or only in the letters to the editor, but the idea of building the entire LRT as an elevated system (because it would be so much cheaper, or some such) is in this category. Note: the general concept of elevated sections is not lunatic, but pretending that it would be cheaper is.

On the other hand, any job that involves meeting with the public comes with a broad spectrum of experiences. Customer service people at every retail store are required to cheerfully handle returns and take complaints even though some of the people who come through the door need refresher courses in basic logic, courtesy, and fairness. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask engineers to actually engage with the ideas presented and use some creativity and actual critical thinking to evaluate them, rather than just smiling and nodding and ultimately ignoring them.

There is support for this view from examples like the Traynor crossing, where it is indisputable (because it’s been built finally) that a mistake was made; and furthermore it’s equally indisputable (due to the existence of Google Maps) that a proper study would have determined the need for the crossing before construction began. In other words, at least some necessary public input has in fact been ignored by those whose job it is to take it into serious account.

[danbrotherston]

Now I have no doubt this would be incredibly hurtful and unfair to some regional engineers, but this is my perception after visiting numerous PICs and having this experience. Yes, they may feel differently, and some may even act differently, but this is my experience broadly.

I have to admit that when I hear some of the things I’ve heard people suggest at PICs, I would be pretty jaded as an engineer. I’ve heard some pretty lunatic ideas. For example, I don’t remember if I noticed this at a meeting or only in the letters to the editor, but the idea of building the entire LRT as an elevated system (because it would be so much cheaper, or some such) is in this category. Note: the general concept of elevated sections is not lunatic, but pretending that it would be cheaper is.

On the other hand, any job that involves meeting with the public comes with a broad spectrum of experiences. Customer service people at every retail store are required to cheerfully handle returns and take complaints even though some of the people who come through the door need refresher courses in basic logic, courtesy, and fairness. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask engineers to actually engage with the ideas presented and use some creativity and actual critical thinking to evaluate them, rather than just smiling and nodding and ultimately ignoring them.

There is support for this view from examples like the Traynor crossing, where it is indisputable (because it’s been built finally) that a mistake was made; and furthermore it’s equally indisputable (due to the existence of Google Maps) that a proper study would have determined the need for the crossing before construction began. In other words, at least some necessary public input has in fact been ignored by those whose job it is to take it into serious account.

Yup, I generally agree. I still take exception to the Traynor crossing being found in a "proper study"...but that originates from the idea of what "proper" study is.  I think most here that a proper study should include the needs of all users of any infrastructure, but in the region, it generally does not. You are assuming that the region would have considered a significant number of people walking somewhere as justification to implement infrastructure for walking.

That being said, I agree with the rest, we should expect better, but I do acknowledge that it would be extremely difficult to get the Traynor viewpoint visible in a PIC, again, the people it impacts the most are the least likely to be at a PIC...some individuals/organizations are better at getting input from these groups, but it isn't trivial, it takes both will and skill.

[ijmorlan]

That being said, I agree with the rest, we should expect better, but I do acknowledge that it would be extremely difficult to get the Traynor viewpoint visible in a PIC, again, the people it impacts the most are the least likely to be at a PIC...some individuals/organizations are better at getting input from these groups, but it isn't trivial, it takes both will and skill.

This is why I say it’s on the Regional staff and engineers. It should not have taken an organized group to get Traynor fixed. A single person coming to a PIC and asking casually about crossing the tracks should have led staff to look into the matter and realize they were about to close a major traffic route inadvertently, not retreat behind “it’s not an official right-of-way”. This is their job.

[timc]

What I would like to know is if at some point if someone had asked the question: "How will this affect cyclists? Will it have a negative effect on them?" For some reason, I have to believe this question *was* asked, and brought up, but was ignored. It's like the hydro corridor beside Fairway Rd. How did that get missed? I know I brought it up with an MPP, but nothing came of that, clearly.

King Street as reconstructed for ION was not designed for cycling. See also, for instance, the meandering white lines near the curb that have the appearance of bike lanes, but are not.

[Bytor]

As I've said before, a lot of the LRT's design problems are due to it only being in preliminary design before it was handed over to the contractors to complete, and there being little to no public input into that process. If the general thrust of GrandLinq's plans had been open to public comment, many of these points could have been resolved before cast in concrete.

I completely disagree with your characterisation.

We had 10 years worth of public input on the project and two, perhaps three municipal elections where it was the newsmaking topic. Functional design plans came out ion 2011 and were updated in 2014 for the contract.

[Bytor]

How did that get missed? I know I brought it up with an MPP, but nothing came of that, clearly.

I think that's your problem. You brought it up with a person with only limited and tangential association with the project and therefore no link to design. You should have brought it up with your Regional councillors and with the project staff who were available at the various PCCs.

[tomh009]

There would have certainly been enough space to make a larger island, whether narrowing the sidewalks, narrowing the lanes or (preferably) both.

   

[danbrotherston]

There would have certainly been enough space to make a larger island, whether narrowing the sidewalks, narrowing the lanes or (preferably) both.

Or even just the boulevard, they didn't even move the curb on the other side, they merely rebuilt it to make it less convenient for pedestrians and cyclists.

This is the region for you...even in the most obvious cases--the busiest trail in the city they go for maximum mediocrity when forced to do more than the nothing they wish to do.

[ijmorlan]

I think that's your problem. You brought it up with a person with only limited and tangential association with the project and therefore no link to design. You should have brought it up with your Regional councillors and with the project staff who were available at the various PCCs.

Utter nonsense. We’ve been over this many times. The Traynor situation should have been obvious to the designers to start with, and the community made a big noise over it starting many years prior to opening of the LRT. It is not the fault of random residents that they didn’t know exactly which buttons to push to get the designers to do what they should have known to do on their own.

OK, not 100% nonsense, because the MPP is not the most on-point person with whom to bring up the issue; but this sort of victim blaming is not helpful.