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[neonjoe]

I don't know what transit system you are referring to. The ION is certainly not dirty. That you call it that shows that you do not ride it. It may be not as fast as we like, but it is certainly not unreliable, barring idiot motor vehicle drivers who crash into it and the occasional ice storm. I doubt that the many people who use it every day would characterize it the way you do. The bus network is very good. I have stops for three routes within a block of my apartment, and a fourth an extra 5 minutes walk away. While I prefer to ride my bike most of the time, I use GRT regularly and have never had any problems with it.

This is copium.

If our transit system was actually fast, reliable and clean then more people would actually use it. But the majority don't because by and large it's awful. It's a last resort for most people and it's delusional to try and argue otherwise.

Mentioning a subway is just silly. In our context it’s the kind of thing that anti-transit people bring up to avoid progress being made on reasonable transit projects.

It's not silly and it will become necessary. But keep in mind, I'm talking about the far future here when the Region of Waterloo has, say, 2 or 2.5+ million people living here. At that point, street running LRT systems like ours are not going to be sufficient for the needs of the people who live here. They can only do so much and at some point the region is at the very least going to require underground, trenched or elevated LRT lines so that it can operate more as a light metro the way it does in Calgary, Ottawa or Edmonton.

https://www.grt.ca/en/about-grt/performa...sures.aspx
Ridership has been increasing, the busses and LRT are packed on most days. The limiting factor right now isn’t cleanliness but speed as well as our built urban form. For a small-mid size system specifically in a region with multiple disconnected cores our transit system fairs very well based on North american standards. It could be better, but it’s definitely not terrible.