ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

They only share track from Waterloo Town Square to Northfield. There are places where there is effectively a single level crossing but the tracks themselves are completely isolated (e.g. Hayward).

When I say something can be done, I don’t always know who has to give permission. I’m pretty sure some of my complaints relate to safety paranoia from people within the Region (e.g. limiting to 50km/h along King St.); while others might relate to various regulatory authorities. I think a full discussion, with facts, would be very interesting.

I’m not sure about when gates should drop, but I think they should rise no later than as soon as the train clears the crossing. Actually I think a case can be made for having them rise as soon as the front of the train reaches the far side of the crossing. The idea is that the gates should be a warning that a train is coming; if the crossing is actually occupied by a train, no gates are needed as drivers are expected to avoid obstructions in the roadway. In multi-track situations, this would mean that people would know whether a second train was approaching by whether the gates go down again.

I wish trains travelled at 50km/h. In practice speeds are typical 30-40 km/h. And that's well below the speed limits, which are also often below 50km/h at 35-45km/h.

Safety paranoia is exactly the word I am looking for.

That being said...I'll give you that the chances of injuries or deaths would be higher if LRVs were routinely going 55km/h instead of 40km/h on that segment, given how many collisions there have been.

Of course, I wish safety paranoia was applied in any way to driving. Like...we'll do anything to ensure the safety of drivers the LRV hits, EXCEPT for restricting or enforcing their driving in any meaningful way. Like, we outright refuse to install cameras and ticket every single illegal left, but we will delay millions of passengers billions of minutes over the entire lifetime of the transit system to ensure that when a driver does make an illegal left they're less likely to die.

I will say that drivers are starting to get a clue about the existence of the LRT....or to put it more specifically, all three of the vehicles parked on the tracks for my 15 minute journey reversed off of the tracks when the train dinged at them.

I realize this is actually wrong. Safety paranoia doesn't actually describe what is happening...it's actually about liability. The reason the trains are so heavily restricted is because the engineers are believe they could be liable if things go wrong. Unlike with cars, where drivers are the ones who will be liable.