05-15-2016, 07:32 AM
(05-15-2016, 07:15 AM)Canard Wrote: What type of connection is planned between the top end of the Spur Line Trail, and the bottom end of the Laurel Trail (from Regina, through Waterloo Town Square, over to Erb/Caroline)? Right now, it's a bit disjointed because of the construction (but this actually makes it a little easier, not having to deal with traffic on King).
Minor correction to your question: Laurel trail right now already runs down the train tracks, through the space between the buildings, across the creek bridge, then up to Erb St and along the creek to Weber. There is also a branch off to Waterloo City Hall. It’s not clear to me exactly what the official status is, but the section from Regina to the creek may be both Spur Line and Laurel. Now to my answer:
Not clear. This is another bit of botched planning. The right solution is for Laurel trail to continue on the North side of the freight tracks all the way to King. Unfortunately gauntlet track apparently isn’t good enough for this location so the freight track will be occupying the space that should be occupied by the trail immediately West of King.
For King to Regina they should embed the tracks and simply make the entire space between the buildings be the path (and the freight track; use gap fillers to reduce the risk to bicyclists). There’s probably some sort of rule that makes sense in other contexts (not this one, with slow rare freights running only after midnight) that forbids that, but they could still build it that way and have it be that “officially” the trail goes around the buildings immediately next to the parking garage.
I would also have shifted the freight tracks slightly to the South between Regina and Willow. This would have allowed the trail to stay on the North side all the way from Waterloo Park to Kitchener (OK, maybe with a gap at Len’s Mill Store!). This might sound radical but now that I’ve seen how much (temporary) shifting around of tracks they did to build the LRT I think it’s a perfectly reasonable proposal, if we really believe that active transportation infrastructure matters.