ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[ac3r]

Considering the project to Cambridge is at least a decade away from being completed - if not longer - by the time we need to invest in another line in the region, the ridership may be high enough to warrant something on Homer Watson or at least on the west side of the city.

[Bytor]

I don't know why we keep saying that Homer-Watson doesn't warrant an LRT line.

Nobody's say that though. What's being said is that Homer Watson doesn't warrant as an LRT line yet. That is an important distinction.

If Homer-Watson doesn't than Sportsworld absolutely does not.

Unfortunately that's incorrect.

First is the some ridership metrics. More riders go through the Sportsworld corridor to Cambridge than through the Homer Watson corridor to Conestoga College.

The second would be number of commercial/job destinations within walking distance from the proposed Sportsworld Station. There is very little of that along Homer Watson., and with the exception of Green Valley Drive, the residential areas withing 800m walking distance of Homer Watson are around 10-15pp/ha, so very non-dense.

At this point in time there is a paucity of high value destinations between Block Line or Fairway Stations and Conestoga College, so even by itself Sportsworld is the better choice, and it becomes exceptionally better as it is the shorter route from Fairway to Preston.

But in that case there are more people and jobs along Homer-Watson.

No, there are not.

[taylortbb]

First is the some ridership metrics. More riders go through the Sportsworld corridor to Cambridge than through the Homer Watson corridor to Conestoga College.

I think you're missing the point about ridership following from where service is. More riders go through Sportsworld because it's currently the route all the bus services take. From Cambridge you can either go via Sportsworld, or take the 203 to 201 with a transfer at Conestoga College. The 203 doesn't serve nearly as many areas as the 302, so it's not really directly comparable. If we re-routed the 302 to take Homer Watson then passenger counts at Spotsworld would drop sharply.

I do actually think the Spotsworld routing likely makes more sense. A fast transit service between Kitchener and Cambridge serves a lot of need. Maybe the Homer Watson routing would make sense in a world where the Milton GO train got extended to Cambridge, and then up the tracks between the cities to Kitchener, creating a Milton-Kitchener line loop. That however isn't the world we live in (or will live in within the next few decades).

But the point about ridership at Sportsworld is valid. You have to look at the origin/destination pairs (of the whole trip, not just boardings). There's not a lot of trips that start or end at Sportsworld, so the ridership through there depends more heavily on where the service runs between the destinations people actually travel between.

[danbrotherston]

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.
...

I don't understand this argument. There are not sufficient people living, working, and going to school in the Highway 8 corridor either. In fact, there are fewer people doing that in the Highway 8 corridor than in the Homer-Watson corridor, many fewer.

The ONLY reason there are more people boarding/alighting in the Sportsworld corridor is because there is a bus interchange there which the LRT station will be nowhere near. As a result, the bus interchange station has to move (not that it's current location is of any value). Which means those boardings/alightings will move with the station. That station could just as easily move to somewhere on Homer-Watson, where the LRT would then benefit from BOTH the existing ridership as well as the increased jobs/population density along the corridor.

[danbrotherston]

I don't know why we keep saying that Homer-Watson doesn't warrant an LRT line.

Nobody's say that though. What's being said is that Homer Watson doesn't warrant as an LRT line yet. That is an important distinction.

If Homer-Watson doesn't than Sportsworld absolutely does not.

Unfortunately that's incorrect.

First is the some ridership metrics. More riders go through the Sportsworld corridor to Cambridge than through the Homer Watson corridor to Conestoga College.

The second would be number of commercial/job destinations within walking distance from the proposed Sportsworld Station. There is very little of that along Homer Watson., and with the exception of Green Valley Drive, the residential areas withing 800m walking distance of Homer Watson are around 10-15pp/ha, so very non-dense.

At this point in time there is a paucity of high value destinations between Block Line or Fairway Stations and Conestoga College, so even by itself Sportsworld is the better choice, and it becomes exceptionally better as it is the shorter route from Fairway to Preston.

But in that case there are more people and jobs along Homer-Watson.

No, there are not.

Yes there are...aside from the College which has tens of thousands of students (not all at the Doon campus), the doon area has many many times the population of Deer Ridge/Pioneer Tower. The Doon area also has several higher density developments where Deer Ridge/Pioneer Tower is exclusively low density.  Sportsworld has more commercial developments yes, but Doon is not entirely devoid of such developments, just fewer, and less car dependent as they are smaller (not many folks are going to take the LRT to costco).

But feel free to provide evidence proving I am wrong.

And as I explained in the previous comment, the existing ridership at Sportsworld is captive, they are almost exclusively transfers and can just be moved anywhere that is more convenient (and in fact, do not occur at the proposed location of the LRT station).

[Bytor]

[quote='dunkalunk' pid='90625' dateline='1618361158']
I'm mostly seeing the increased development potential and technical feasibility of a Homer Watson alignment over anything else.
[quote]

Problem is, at this point it is only potential. The residential areas alongside Homer Watson within 800m walking distance are low density (10-15ppl/ha), and there's no big job nodes, either. There's a paucity of high value nodes between Block Line or Fairway Station and Conestoga College, and redevelopment will take decades to change that, too long for ION Stage 2.

[quote='dunkalunk' pid='90625' dateline='1618361158']
If our trains have a maximum speed of 90km/h (iirc) then why do we have a 4km stretch adjacent to a major highway buffered by environmentally sensitive lands and a major highways that can never be developed? In addition to the 1km long elevated structure over Grand river floodplain.
[quote]

Because it's also the shortest route. If you want ION to be a practical form transportation between Kitchener and Cambridge, you need to shorten it where reasonably possible to reduce trip time. The Homer Watson route to Conestoga College and then to Preston is a third again as long, and if you're imagining stops along Manitou, Homer Watson, and Fountain, that trip time increases even more.

Also, that 4km stretch isn't as bad as it seems. Northfield to R+T is 5km.

[dunkalunk]

Problem is, at this point it is only potential. The residential areas alongside Homer Watson within 800m walking distance are low density (10-15ppl/ha), and there's no big job nodes, either. There's a paucity of high value nodes between Block Line or Fairway Station and Conestoga College, and redevelopment will take decades to change that, too long for ION Stage 2.

Because it's also the shortest route. If you want ION to be a practical form transportation between Kitchener and Cambridge, you need to shorten it where reasonably possible to reduce trip time. The Homer Watson route to Conestoga College and then to Preston is a third again as long, and if you're imagining stops along Manitou, Homer Watson, and Fountain, that trip time increases even more.

Also, that 4km stretch isn't as bad as it seems. Northfield to R+T is 5km.

Northfield to R+T is closer to 2km.

I get the directness argument, although we have also diverted stage 1 and stage 2 (to Hespeler Rd) in part for the sake of increased development potential. If it were all about transportation, we'd continue to run buses along Highway 8/401.

[Bytor]

Considering the project to Cambridge is at least a decade away from being completed - if not longer - by the time we need to invest in another line in the region, the ridership may be high enough to warrant something on Homer Watson or at least on the west side of the city.

The 301 has a week day ridership of ~3,000 and with the southern half of the former 200 it has a yearly growth rate that will like get it to rough 8,000/day in 10 years. The 206 (which Stage 2 will draw from in part) has ~2,200/day, but is too early to tell annual growth trends.

The 201's ridership south of Ottawa disappears dramatically, and the 10 is only at ~1,800/day and dropping since a peak in fall 2018. Unless something changes drastically, ridership into Pioneer Park and lower Doon down to Conestoga College is not going to be anywhere close to warranting an LRT. The 10 needs to double it's boardings and be showing an average 10% annual growth trend for 5+ years to be where the 302 was just prior to the pandemic. It needs to hit 13k/day to be as heavily used as the 7 was.

As a comparison, the 201 in September 2018 had ~7,100/weekday compared to the 200's ~10,000/weekday.

[dunkalunk]

I'd need to see the origin-destination pairs for Route 200 south of Fairway.

[jamincan]

Keep in mind that although it doesn't serve it well, the Sportworld stop does provide a connection to the employment area along Maple Grove east of Hwy 8.

[ijmorlan]

The people behind T4ST and individuals like Lee Ann Mitchell are still out there, even if they are not vocal right now.

Ah yes, Taxpayers 4 Sh**ty Transit, now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time.

[ac3r]

The 301 has a week day ridership of ~3,000 and with the southern half of the former 200 it has a yearly growth rate that will like get it to rough 8,000/day in 10 years. The 206 (which Stage 2 will draw from in part) has ~2,200/day, but is too early to tell annual growth trends.

The 201's ridership south of Ottawa disappears dramatically, and the 10 is only at ~1,800/day and dropping since a peak in fall 2018. Unless something changes drastically, ridership into Pioneer Park and lower Doon down to Conestoga College is not going to be anywhere close to warranting an LRT. The 10 needs to double it's boardings and be showing an average 10% annual growth trend for 5+ years to be where the 302 was just prior to the pandemic. It needs to hit 13k/day to be as heavily used as the 7 was.

As a comparison, the 201 in September 2018 had ~7,100/weekday compared to the 200's ~10,000/weekday.

Thanks. Ultimately, it'll definitely be a long time before we see any concrete plans for rapid transit on the west side of the city that would connect the Doon area. The next LRT line they build will likely be something simple going East-West to service the Victoria and Highland corridors but even that will likely be 20-25+ years out. Highland is densely populated residential and Victoria has a lot of potential for redevelopment so it makes the most sense to me. It also leaves open a connection to both the suburb of Breslau, Breslau GO station and YKF which would be important connections for long-term regional growth.

[kalis0490]

a loop ion/streetcar , Conestoga mall to king /university, meeting the  ion at the track at uw and curving north and south would be good

[Bytor]

This made from the data that GRT finally handed over a few months ago, containing per-route monthly numbers for riders & boardings for January, 2016 to December, 2020.

Based on discussion with Blair Allen who indicated that GRT boardingss on Saturdays are usually two-thirds of a weekday and Sundays are half, the weekday boardings is calculated from the monthly number as

Code:

weekday_boardings = monthly_boardings / (weekdays + saturdays*0.67 + sundays*0.5)

[bgb_ca]

This made from the data that GRT finally handed over a few months ago, containing per-route monthly numbers for riders & boardings for January, 2016 to December, 2020.

Based on discussion with Blair Allen who indicated that GRT boardingss on Saturdays are usually two-thirds of a weekday and Sundays are half, the weekday boardings is calculated from the monthly number as

Code:

weekday_boardings = monthly_boardings / (weekdays + saturdays*0.67 + sundays*0.5)

Wow. Not hard to tell that ridership fell off a cliff after March 2020. (Coincidentally, that was the last month that I bought a monthly pass myself).

I would be interested in seeing this chart again next year once we reach heard immunity and things return to "normal"