07-20-2024, 06:00 AM
(07-20-2024, 01:51 AM)coriander Wrote:(07-17-2024, 03:26 PM)ac3r Wrote: I know they were looking into the potential of modifying or closing any of the at-grade crossings in this area. An engineer I'm friends with told me about this maybe a year or two ago, but I guess nothing really evolved out of the idea. I hope they figure something out, though. It makes no sense to have a commuter train line into a region that'll have a million people soon enough, having to slow down for at-grade crossings. Imagine anywhere in the GTA having to deal with that?
It probably won't ever happen though just because this is Waterloo Region. This place LARPs as a big city, but can't act like one.
There is a desire to build very nice infrastructure, but really if it is just the service we are thinking about there should be no problem with running even very frequent trains over a grade crossing. Yes, it will result in traffic interaction, but the trains may have total priority and for motor traffic it is really not huge; this isn't a collector arterial. Trains run at speed through grade crossings; if we are to economically build out the mainline rail network it would be advantageous to save on expensive grade separations. Many Japanese rail lines with much more service than even GO's 18 tph LW peak plans end up just fine with numerous grade crossings.
This is very on point.
The city I live in now has a level crossing for one of our main rail lines that sees around 12 trains per hour, and this isn't a minor road, we're talking a major roadway into the city. Near me there is another level crossing that sees around 10 trains per hour. The funny part is ProRail (the rail operator) built a pedestrian underpass nearby for cycling and walking, but the only road crossing is still a level crossing. The main reason for this is that the road crossing would be problematic to grade separate because it's in the village centre, but it's still funny that the main cycle route is separated but the nearby car route is not.