10-04-2025, 10:32 AM
Let's dive into this one a bit more...and please understand, I'm coming from a place of pro-LRT/modernization of the Region. I work with people all over the province and I have been anointed a very community based promoter of where I live. I feel like that's important to tell everyone here but in living, contributing and raising a family here, I hope im allowed to critique it. It's not a slight on anyone, or any persons that came here temporarily and decided to stay and make a life for themselves.
My brain isn't big enough to break out a 2 meter squared topical map and plot stuff out, crunch numbers and math whiz you, so I'm tapping on AI to help.
The numbers are outdated, but tbh, these are probably closer to peek height figures vs today, IF the international students are taken into account.
Based on a 250-metre walking catchment around ION stations, an estimated ~4.7% of Kitchener+Waterloo residents live within a 250 m walk of an ION station.
Breakdown (best-effort estimate):
Waterloo: ~6,600 residents ≈ 5.5% of the city.
Kitchener: ~11,300 residents ≈ 4.4% of the city.
(Combined population used: Kitchener 256,885 and Waterloo 121,436 — 2021 Census).
I consider UP TO A 250M walk to a LRT station reasonable. No connections, no massive distance to get to, what should be a defacto, public transit system, either.
>> Even using generous assumptions that the LRT corridor serves everyone living within a 250-metre walk, fewer than one in twenty residents of Kitchener–Waterloo (≈4.7%) live within that walkable catchment. That shows the LRT’s footprint is narrow — it serves dense urban cores (university, hospital, downtown) but does not directly serve the much larger suburban resident base.
My brain isn't big enough to break out a 2 meter squared topical map and plot stuff out, crunch numbers and math whiz you, so I'm tapping on AI to help.
The numbers are outdated, but tbh, these are probably closer to peek height figures vs today, IF the international students are taken into account.
Based on a 250-metre walking catchment around ION stations, an estimated ~4.7% of Kitchener+Waterloo residents live within a 250 m walk of an ION station.
Breakdown (best-effort estimate):
Waterloo: ~6,600 residents ≈ 5.5% of the city.
Kitchener: ~11,300 residents ≈ 4.4% of the city.
(Combined population used: Kitchener 256,885 and Waterloo 121,436 — 2021 Census).
I consider UP TO A 250M walk to a LRT station reasonable. No connections, no massive distance to get to, what should be a defacto, public transit system, either.
>> Even using generous assumptions that the LRT corridor serves everyone living within a 250-metre walk, fewer than one in twenty residents of Kitchener–Waterloo (≈4.7%) live within that walkable catchment. That shows the LRT’s footprint is narrow — it serves dense urban cores (university, hospital, downtown) but does not directly serve the much larger suburban resident base.