Waterloo Region Council Election Discussion

[Pheidippides]

The first two of these are so absurd that I almost think it’s not so much that there is no access, but rather that the access is inaccessible, specifically to people requiring level access. I mean all that’s missing at either location is a curb cut and maybe some paint to indicate a pedestrian crossing; certainly I expect people to access those stations at the ends we’re talking about (I refuse to call them the “wrong” ends, because that would be obviously incorrect).

At UW, if the south end had just been done the same as the north it would be fine — path between the tracks to the next crossing. This would also avoid LRT passengers having to walk down the multi-use trail, which is going to be a mess whenever passengers have just gotten off the LRT.

"it would be fine" is exactly the point. The fact is that it isn't fine as it is currently built. The station was not thought through from the point of view of the end user's experience and as a result a flawed station approach was built.

For the majority, yes those changes are subtle and probably will not make a huge difference in potential ridership, and there will be an impact, but it is more than an accessibility issue (which on its own should be important enough to everyone - we may not all be pushing a stroller one day and we are old enough not to need help crossing a busy street any more like older child testing their independence taking the Ion alone for the first time, but we will all get old and/or end up in wheelchairs and will want a passable, safe, and direct route to the stations). It is the whole snow clearing debate again, just because it is not a problem for you doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

The impact of urban design and how we interact with our world is much bigger than that.

It isn't just the lack of curb cuts, you could go all the way back to the station placements forcing people to walk further/take a longer bus ride to get to a station and not facilitating easy bus transfers (e.g. RT, UW, and WLU/Waterloo Park not being at major crossroads (i.e. north side of Columbia, north side of University, north side of Erb respectively). It is the lack of signal prioritization near stations like Allen where you need to push a beg button to get the light to change to access the platform or other lights where there are advanced turning phases that force pedestrians to wait (in the elements). It is the poles and utility boxes in the middle of sidewalks for no reason. It is the lack of crossing assistance at Willis Station (no crosswalk paint, no pedestrian light, a constant flow of traffic (albeit at a reasonable speed - only because it is so busy), and the aforementioned lack of curb cuts). It is the lack of cycling lanes near or connecting to stations, and dearth of cycling parking near stations.

Individually they are small, for most people, but taken together they add up and contribute to the inertia that the population has to over come to make Ion successful; and yes, some people will not use Ion because the cost of overcoming that inertia is too high.