ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

I do disagree with the idea that Cambridge doesn't warrant an LRT by itself. In the Canadian context, sure, it shouldn't have one. But we've all seen enough NJB videos to know that we shouldn't be striving to meet "Canadian" standards. I think having some sort of robust transit backbone could do wonders for the city.

Any claim like that should really be caveated by "yet", because Cambridge will eventually need an LRT by 2030 if we return to the 5-7% annual average yearly growth and the roughly 10% average of the ION aBRT route.

We can look at transit systems across North America and their operating costs, and in general we find that an LRT becomes cheaper to operate than a bus route for the same volume between 5,000 and 10,000 riders per day on average, centred at around 7,000/day. It generally comes down to local costs to make the difference.

When you consider that catenaries have an expected lifetime of 50 years, and rails that of 70-100 years, but the $4M/km BRT lanes will need to be frequently rebuilt due to wear and tear (c.f. how often the Charles St. terminal lanes were redone), construction cost equivalency is reached at around 40 years. Add on the more expensive operations and that drops down to almost 30 years.

But people asserting that Cambridge doesn't need an LRT have not truly thought things out to any level of detail like that.

This is fair, but somewhat overstated...the ION aBRT is not a Cambridge exclusive route, many of those boardings are in Kitchener at Sportsworld and Fairway, and it forms a greater regional connector. I don't think anyone here opposes an LRT that actually connects the region.

However, Cambridge itself is less than 140k. It would be the equivalent of Kingston ON getting an LRT (and Kingston is much less poly centric, and much older, meaning it has a larger, denser centre). This isn't unprecedented internationally, but like I said, I think significant other changes are needed at the same time...