02-29-2024, 03:40 PM
Yes, ION 302 is not solely a Cambridge route, but neither is the only ridership on it inter-city ridership. The bulk of it's ridership is intra-Cambridge in the same way that few ION Stage 1 riders do Fairway to Conestoga, or that few riders on any bus route go end-to-end.
What makes an LRT replacing a bus route warranted is the ridership on that bus route. and whether it has reached or surpassed the level at which and LRT would be cheaper to operate per ride than a bus route with the same number of riders. With zero cȟanges to what Cambridge is today.
Being able to afford it is a different thing and more of a subjective political consideration rather than an objective metric like ridership. By that, even Waterloo Region didn't warrant an LRT, and only very large and rich cities would be able to.
There are other things one could use to say that an LRT s warranted, like long-term sustainability, positive public health effects in how better transit promotes more walking, and so on, but those are all harder to quantify and more nebulous and as a result never as convincing to the skeptics as the simple bare fact of what costs more to operate.
What makes an LRT replacing a bus route warranted is the ridership on that bus route. and whether it has reached or surpassed the level at which and LRT would be cheaper to operate per ride than a bus route with the same number of riders. With zero cȟanges to what Cambridge is today.
Being able to afford it is a different thing and more of a subjective political consideration rather than an objective metric like ridership. By that, even Waterloo Region didn't warrant an LRT, and only very large and rich cities would be able to.
There are other things one could use to say that an LRT s warranted, like long-term sustainability, positive public health effects in how better transit promotes more walking, and so on, but those are all harder to quantify and more nebulous and as a result never as convincing to the skeptics as the simple bare fact of what costs more to operate.