07-28-2024, 03:54 PM
(07-24-2024, 06:43 PM)bravado Wrote: Just to be fair, just because we specifically can't do something because of corruption and waste and incompetence, doesn't mean that the idea is bad. Lots of places could have done the ION "the right way" and on-budget. We should have, but I know full well why we didn't/couldn't.
The ION is a big compromise that is in no way capable for the future, but the alternative was literally nothing, so I get it. I'm still just kinda sick of accepting mediocrity for the same price tag as excellence.
Very few places of K-W's mid-2010s size, or smaller, have done things the "right" (i.e. best, or automated light metro?) way, let alone those with transit usage as low as K-W's. When they did, the per-kilometre costs were at minimum double that of iON. Far more have built tramways roughly comparable to the iON; they are all over France.
Of course, KW is growing much more quickly than any small French or Italian city is, or could hope to. It is also growing far more quickly than it expected to ten years ago. With clairvoyance perhaps it would have been appropriate to build something much nicer. In its absence, this is not especially bad in any way, excepting, of course, speed limit and frequency woes.