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+--- Thread: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit (/showthread.php?tid=683)
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - DHLawrence - 11-15-2017
Looks expensive, but that section is going to cost a fortune anyway.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - KevinL - 11-15-2017
Mixed-traffic is only floated for Eagle South, as in south of King Street. It's a narrow residential street there.
One of the resons I think it should run elsewhere. I like Q-G-R.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - dunkalunk - 11-15-2017
Apart from the fact that the City of Cambridge has identified Hespeler Road as an intensification corridor, and council approved a route with a station at Eagle and Preston back in 2011, what exactly makes a station at Eagle/Pinebush so special to keep? The cost of the required grade separation at Eagle Street hasn't gone away. It's really odd that more-direct "indirect" routes such as Bishop or Coronation can't be considered in light of this.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - DHLawrence - 11-15-2017
King-Coronation is a nonstarter. If you think the backlash was ugly for the routing through Eagle South, just wait till you try to run it through downtown Preston. Running on Bishop would cut off a good part of the Hespeler Road area from the route; you'd cross the road from untouched strip malls to condos.
With the river so close, a grade separation on Eagle is going to be a challenge. Wouldn't surprise me if they end up having to make it a level crossing and restricting CP operating hours to nighttime. Ditto the Q section parallel to Chopin; that's a tight space.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - Canard - 11-15-2017
I'm fine with the mixed-traffic option for Eagle; it's done elsewhere (GCLR comes to mind, for a short section), but when I suggested this a year ago everyone had a meltdown nooooooooooooo
Also love elevated, because I like trains in the air. But I always wonder why people are somehow OK with LRT way up in the air, with the absolutely massive overhead guideway, but hate on monorail endlessly.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 11-15-2017
Oh nooooooo ... not the monorail vs LRT discussion again!
Seriously, I don't think people HATE monorail. But most people would say that the LRT is a better fit for us. Anyway, it's what we have now, there is no going back for at least the next few decades!
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - yige_t - 11-15-2017
(11-15-2017, 09:19 PM)Canard Wrote: I'm fine with the mixed-traffic option for Eagle; it's done elsewhere (GCLR comes to mind, for a short section), but when I suggested this a year ago everyone had a meltdown noooooooooooooThe Region has already made huge compromises for Stage 1 - curbside ROW, one-way loop through Downtown and Uptown - and we'll be living with these mistakes for a long time. I hope the Region takes no concessions this time. One major accident on the 401 during rush hour and Eagle Street would be jammed all the way between Preston and Hespeler Road, with LRT service disruptions felt all the way up in Waterloo.
A full BRT on Hespeler Road + bypass shoulders on Hwy 8/401 would be faster than a mixed-traffic LRT through Preston. If we must bring LRT to Cambridge, make no compromised and have dedicated ROW for the entire route.
Because really, are we extending LRT just for the sake of building more "rail", or do we want to actually bring bringing faster, better "transit" to Cambridge?
Quote:CanardBecause it makes zero sense to spend $ billions to build a monorail for a route with only ~3,000 pax/day?
Also love elevated, because I like trains in the air. But I always wonder why people are somehow OK with LRT way up in the air, with the absolutely massive overhead guideway, but hate on monorail endlessly.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - Canard - 11-15-2017
What? Where did the 3 000 passengers per day come from? Is that what the ridership to Cambridge will be?
If your statement is "it makes zero sense to spend billions to move 3 000 passengers a day" and that's the figure for Cambridge... well, that's exactly what we're discussing. Because it most certainly will be at least a billion.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 11-15-2017
(11-15-2017, 09:24 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Oh nooooooo ... not the monorail vs LRT discussion again!
Seriously, I don't think people HATE monorail. But most people would say that the LRT is a better fit for us. Anyway, it's what we have now, there is no going back for at least the next few decades!
I think you’re right. And never forget that monorail has to be entirely grade-separated: there is no option to have street-running or dedicated-lane segments, or level crossings where they would be convenient (and extremely safe by the standards of transportation systems).
The elevated segment being discussed for our LRT is a relatively short segment in a specific location; for those who think elevated is unsightly, I believe it is next to a highway, away from urban areas. By contrast, a monorail would have been elevated right through Uptown and Downtown. As it happens I personally think a monorail doing that would look amazing, but for anybody who thinks of elevated as unattractive there is a big difference between an all-elevated system and a short elevated section of a mostly ground-level system.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 11-15-2017
(11-15-2017, 10:13 PM)yige_t Wrote: The Region has already made huge compromises for Stage 1 - curbside ROW, one-way loop through Downtown and Uptown - and we'll be living with these mistakes for a long time. I hope the Region takes no concessions this time. One major accident on the 401 during rush hour and Eagle Street would be jammed all the way between Preston and Hespeler Road, with LRT service disruptions felt all the way up in Waterloo.
I don’t believe the proposed shared traffic segment is on the busy part of Eagle St. Do you think the quiet residential part of Eagle St. would get jammed up in the scenario you describe?
About that curbside ROW: does anybody understand why they did that? It seems that they do that almost everywhere that there is a single track running down a street. But why should a single track be at the curb when a pair of tracks are almost always in the middle?
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - dunkalunk - 11-15-2017
Side-running LRT can have a narrower overall right-of-way than median-running due to lane width requirements for emergency vehicles, and the requirement to keep two-way traffic on all streets. It also makes putting in station platforms a lot easier. Not that I necessarily agree that splitting the route downtown was a good idea. We would have been better converting Charles or Duke to one-way operation. Maybe in a future rebuild.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - KevinL - 11-15-2017
My future rebuild scenario for Downtown has LRT on a pedestrianized King, all the way through. I think it'll be ready for it, 30 years from now.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - DHLawrence - 11-16-2017
To be clear you mean King in Kitchener, correct? We have another King Street on the go in this thread.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - Canard - 11-16-2017
I agree, our household has always thought it should have gone straight along King, between Victoria and Frederick, and turned King into a vehicle-free zone. Other cities do this all the time.
RE: ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit - KevinL - 11-16-2017
Should have specified Downtown Kitchener, apologies.