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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Printable Version

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RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - clasher - 10-06-2017

Set up photo-radar and start making money off these people.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - NotStan - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:39 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 09:32 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: The left turns should not be permitted here at any time, and people shouldn't need a sign to realize this. 

I agree that people should not be able turn left there.  But is there a no-left-turn sign there or not?  If there isn't, left turns are allowed by default.

A big problem is that left turns at this intersection have been permitted "forever" until just a short time ago and drivers have little indication that a change has occured.  They should be putting up the new starburst signs as well as having pavent markings and perhaps even a messageboard to let people know this change has occured.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - timc - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:39 AM)tomh009 Wrote: I agree that people should not be able turn left there.  But is there a no-left-turn sign there or not?  If there isn't, left turns are allowed by default.

Yes, there is a sign. And it has been subject of at least one story on CTV.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:39 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 09:32 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: The left turns should not be permitted here at any time, and people shouldn't need a sign to realize this. 

I agree that people should not be able turn left there.  But is there a no-left-turn sign there or not?  If there isn't, left turns are allowed by default.

I am being a bit overly generous here, yes, a no-left turn sign is needed for left turns to actually be prohibited, but at an intersection with only one through lane, on a major road, a left turning vehicle will be holding up a whole line of cars.  That does feel uncomfortable for drivers (which often leads to dangerous aggressive turns) and drivers in that situation should think about whether turns are allowed here or not.  

They are still legally permitted.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:33 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 11:21 AM)BrianT Wrote: I see Grandlinq working on the tracks or catenary nearly every day on one section or another. If people park illegally, they would either have to order them all towed away when they need to do something or they can't get their work done.

This.

I also fundamentally believe we can't encourage bad behaviour, or currently-illegal-but-not-yet-as-consequential-as-it-will-become behaviour. The idea of "oh the trains aren't here right now, and I don't see a GrandLinq crew here at this exact instant, I can park here" is the same mentality of someone who parks illegally in an accessibility parking space. And both are wrong. And with several thousand parking spaces in uptown, there is zero excuse.

Welcome to every driver who parks in a bike lane.  

I've biked up behind a driver who was parking in a bike lane, and getting out of their car, and when I objected they said with a straight face "nobody is using it".  Hard not to feel invisible at that point.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - SammyOES - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 10:58 AM)Canard Wrote: What do you propose we do at this point, SammyOES?

I was actually wondering about what we COULD HAVE done differently to be in a better spot now, and not talking about what we should be doing now. But I forgot that these types of discussions go poorly on here... so I won't bring it up again.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - SammyOES - 10-06-2017

One last futile try...

(10-06-2017, 11:33 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: I also fundamentally believe we can't encourage bad behaviour, or currently-illegal-but-not-yet-as-consequential-as-it-will-become behaviour.

I think my point was that the behaviour could have been left as not illegal when it was in fact not consequential. No parking signs covered up with black bags. Signs saying that parking is temporary. Whatever it is. When there was work that needed to be done, they could have signed it as such.

The point being people are pretty good about obeying laws they understand and pretty poor at obeying laws they think are pointless. And I wonder if we've created bad habits by actually getting people use to being able to break "the law" w/o consequence. It's hard to signal to people at this point that circumstances have changed and there actually are consequences to not obeying the law.


(10-06-2017, 11:33 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: The idea of "oh the trains aren't here right now, and I don't see a GrandLinq crew here at this exact instant, I can park here" is the same mentality of someone who parks illegally in an accessibility parking space. And both are wrong. And with several thousand parking spaces in uptown, there is zero excuse.

It's not. Because people parking on the tracks have known that they have almost 0 chance of inconveniencing someone or causing any issues. We know this because its been happening all along. People know that handicap people exist in the world and could need that parking at any given moment. And so its only the real jackasses that park there anyway.

Anyway, probably futile, and sorry for bringing it up...

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Coke6pk - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:21 AM)BrianT Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 10:54 AM)SammyOES Wrote: Oh, come on.  Its nothing the same.  We knew months ago that it would be months before the tracks were going to be used.

I see Grandlinq working on the tracks or catenary nearly every day on one section or another. If people park illegally, they would either have to order them all towed away when they need to do something or they can't get their work done.

This Tim Hortons isn't on Fire... So I'll just park in the Fire Route. 

There are No Parking signs posted, so it should be enforced as such, with or without trains. 

Coke

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 11:57 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 11:33 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: This.

I also fundamentally believe we can't encourage bad behaviour, or currently-illegal-but-not-yet-as-consequential-as-it-will-become behaviour. The idea of "oh the trains aren't here right now, and I don't see a GrandLinq crew here at this exact instant, I can park here" is the same mentality of someone who parks illegally in an accessibility parking space. And both are wrong. And with several thousand parking spaces in uptown, there is zero excuse.

Welcome to every driver who parks in a bike lane.  

I've biked up behind a driver who was parking in a bike lane, and getting out of their car, and when I objected they said with a straight face "nobody is using it".  Hard not to feel invisible at that point.

“I’m using it. [keys car]”

I wouldn’t convict, if I were on the jury.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ijmorlan - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 07:39 AM)SammyOES Wrote: I'm really skeptical of the idea that we should have been fighting to apply the LRT traffic rules like "no parking on tracks" or "no left turns" (in some places) before the LRT testing began.  It's sort of like making kids obey rules when there's no reason and you're not going to enforce it - it just breeds bad habits.

If instead we'd covered up all the signs with black bags, and then taken them off a week before the test train starts running with extra temporary signs saying that trains are starting to run, I think it would have gone better overall.

That actually would have been a really good idea. A clear end of the construction period, followed by an in-between period when extra parking is allowed (mostly because why not, rather than because it’s really needed), then a clear beginning to the train-running normal state.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 12:40 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(10-06-2017, 07:39 AM)SammyOES Wrote: I'm really skeptical of the idea that we should have been fighting to apply the LRT traffic rules like "no parking on tracks" or "no left turns" (in some places) before the LRT testing began.  It's sort of like making kids obey rules when there's no reason and you're not going to enforce it - it just breeds bad habits.

If instead we'd covered up all the signs with black bags, and then taken them off a week before the test train starts running with extra temporary signs saying that trains are starting to run, I think it would have gone better overall.

That actually would have been a really good idea. A clear end of the construction period, followed by an in-between period when extra parking is allowed (mostly because why not, rather than because it’s really needed), then a clear beginning to the train-running normal state.

This could have worked if there was a "construction 100% done, train not yet running" state, but we haven't had that yet, minor finishing work is still being completed.  I still don't know if I think it's a good idea.  We shouldn't be training people to park on tracks IMO.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Markster - 10-06-2017

I really empathize with SammyOES's point

It's kinda like the "Road Closed" signs that littered the city in 2014 that were clearly spurious.  They breed a culture of ignoring the signs.  It's ideal to tailor the restrictions to some level of reasonableness. Though, I get that it's an administration nightmare to keep changing the rules.

Having permitted parking on the LRT tracks in Uptown could have been a nice consolation to the businesses there.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Markster - 10-06-2017

There's a bit of a discussion on Urban Toronto about how small KW is to be getting an LRT, and how that compares to Calgary and Edmonton.
I ended up crunching some numbers:


The interesting thing to compare would be Population per System Length
Code:
Edmonton 1978:           478,000 / 6.9 km  = 69275 people / system km
Edmonton 2017:         1,062,643 / 24.3 km = 43730 people / system km
Calgary 1981:            593,000 / 12 km   = 49416 people / system km
Calgary 2017:          1,392,609 / 59.9 km = 23248 people / system km
Waterloo Region 2017:    583,500 / 19 km   = 30710 people / system km
Kitchener-Waterloo 2017: 309,654 / 19 km   = 16297 people / system km


RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - SammyOES - 10-06-2017

Thanks for making me feel better guys. I was kind of cranky this morning. Smile

In terms of the "Population per System Length" a cool metric would be the population within X meters of the system.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 10-06-2017

(10-06-2017, 01:28 PM)Markster Wrote: There's a bit of a discussion on Urban Toronto about how small KW is to be getting an LRT, and how that compares to Calgary and Edmonton.
I ended up crunching some numbers:


The interesting thing to compare would be Population per System Length
Code:
Edmonton 1978:           478,000 / 6.9 km  = 69275 people / system km
Edmonton 2017:         1,062,643 / 24.3 km = 43730 people / system km
Calgary 1981:            593,000 / 12 km   = 49416 people / system km
Calgary 2017:          1,392,609 / 59.9 km = 23248 people / system km
Waterloo Region 2017:    583,500 / 19 km   = 30710 people / system km
Kitchener-Waterloo 2017: 309,654 / 19 km   = 16297 people / system km

Are the Calgary and Edmonton numbers for the city or the metropolitan area?