(06-28-2021, 06:10 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Again, a bridge is also going to be massively expensive. The cheapest possible crossing being built at 7/8 and Strasburg is projected to cost 7 million. This is a significantly larger project, with ramps at least twice as large. So the idea that a tunnel would be too expensive, pretty much means there is never going to be a bridge either.
As for whether the amenities are worth providing access to...leaving aside the hundreds of units of housing that you ignored, I think it's entirely unreasonable for us to judge that a plaza isn't worth providing access to. Even if YOU don't like the stores there, others may, and those stores may also change. As for distance, it would be a 20 minute walk...which is a perfectly reasonable walk out to a restaurant for dinner (there's a second plaza as well with a restaurant, tims, etc).
It's the developers money though, so it doesn't really matter what it costs.
I'm not sure why a connection to a couple hundred single family homes matters either. There's got to be <100 homes there even when you include the townhouses. Overall, I get your logic in providing more connections to things, but you have to look at it from an investment point of view a project developer takes. They're not going to have any interest in connecting this site to a plaza and some homes in addition to Northfield Station. Northfield Station makes sense to provide a connection to since this opens up access to the rest of the city without the need for a car. The fact they're even proposing a bridge is unique. Most developers aren't interested in infrastructure beyond the actual project site. If this was a City of Waterloo or Region of Waterloo bridge/tunnel proposal, they'd be more likely consider more connections to things, but a private developer is usually not going to burden themselves with this. This bridge would just be a bonus feature for people who live in the condos to get hop on the LRT a bit easier, not to make it easier to get to Pizza Pizza or your friends house on Albert Street or whatever.