ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

Pretty in depth discussion with two interviews about the costs of the Waterloo ION transit project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uttoyAX4ntc

Unfortunately, didn't really touch on the Cambridge extension.

Unfortunately none of the factors they identified as being the reason for the economical cost of Phase I apply to the Cambridge extension.

I'm in favour of the Cambridge extension, but if residents generally think it's too expensive, and we could get support for a much cheaper line from Central Station to the airport, or along University Ave, I'd be in favour of getting that done along the lines of Phase I.

I think is an aspect driving the cost in Cambridge that was mentioned. Specifically that everyone is on board and pushing in the same direction. I think a lot of the cost is being driven by changes that are made at the behest of people who simply don't want the transit line built. IMO ignoring those people is the right thing to do, pandering to them actually helps them, because it makes it more expensive and thus less likely to be built, without actually getting them on board (because their objection was never "it's here" and instead was "it's everywhere"). And yeah, I realize it's not black and white, that these changes do move the margins of support (a few people in the middle move to supporting, a few opponents move to the middle) but these are always cost trade offs, and when you are spending money to appease these few people on the margins, you're also making the system harder to build because of cost, while not making the system more valuable (or sometimes even less so often).



But that issue only got a passing reference, so I think it's reasonable to have missed it.

That said I'm sure there are many other facts both legitimate (you have to cross the rivers) and illegitimate (the public sector is charging more for risk today) that make the project cost more. It's also a shame that the Cambridge section of the project delivers less value (at least to start) than the Kitchener/Waterloo segment. Politically I don't know how viable it is to skip Cambridge, but from a pure economic value proposition, it probably makes sense to deliver more transit lines in KW than to go to Cambridge right now. Not that I'm saying that's the right decision or even that "economic value" should be a primary indicator in decision making (I mean, plenty accuse me of being a liberal, but I'm not).