ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[Bytor]

But why would you consider supporting a Homer Watson route as NIMBYism?? 

Because it gets used to argue in bad faith. It's used to appear to people who are nominally pro-LRT but don't know very much about the project or pay much attention to it and thus do not understand why the NIMBY's proposed route is inferior. It is hoped that enough of those "soft LRT" people will say "Hey, if we've got this alternate route that won't do ${flimsyButUnexaminedDamageClaim} and is just as good, why not do that instead" such that politicians will feel that support for the better, proposed route is lacking thus not greenlight the expensive project.

It is a divide and conquer strategy done not get the alternate route built instead, but to try and make sure that nothing gets built at all.

We'd be running the LRT through an area where people live , work and are educated, not avoiding such areas. 

Sure, but not one where sufficient people living, working and going to school take public transit to warrant an LRT at this time. Maybe in the future, but not now nor in the near term.

At the moment Sportsworld is simply a failing commercial wasteland (though the LRT may help revive it).

And yet ridership through there is higher than ridership to lower Doon and Conestoga College.

It might by the wrong opinion or choice, but not NIMBYism.  

Trying to push a Homer Watson route to Conestoga College over the current proposed route is NIMBYism when it's used in bad faith as described above.

I work at the college and there is a hell of a lot of cars in the parking lots of the two Campuses that this route would pass.  A direct LRT connection would encourage more people (both from KW & Cambridge) to opt for transit.  It would certainly encourage me to use it more frequently, heading to Conestoga from Downtown.  Obviously this isn't going to be an option for Phase 2 anymore, but why not Phase 3?  In the meantime, maybe we could help build the case by running a Fountain/Homer Watson express running from Preston Station to the Block Line Station).

OK. But get more of them riding the bus, first, because, as mentioned above, not enough of them are riding the bus to make a conversion to LRT worthwhile.

For example, get route 10 from ~1,800 weekday riders to 3,000+ with a nice solid history of 5-10% annual growth such that's it's reasonable to say that a decade after that 3,000/day milestone it would probably reach 7,000+/day such that it's time to start planning for an LRT.

LRTs are expensive and have higher fixed cost than bus and as such are not really a viable alternative until you have several thousand daily riders. And while having to Conestoga College one may encourage more people to use transit, it won't encourage quadruple the people to use it when ION Stage 1 only managed a 40% jump in the Central Transit Corridor through K-W which is a much denser than the Homer Watson corridor in terms of both jobs and residents.

I'm not saying that I am opposed to a Homer Watson LRT route. What I am opposed is the current use of it as a bad faith alternative to a route that will obviously be needed much sooner. Some day, sure, but that's a ways off.