ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[westwardloo]

Personally I think it would be a mistake for the Region to run phase 3 down Ottawa instead of Victoria/ highland. Connecting another line to the Transit Hub would make the most sense, especially if the region is going to foot the bill for the majority of the train station. I think think the east line should run down victoria, with the line splitting at Edna, one tail continues down Victoria and the other tail runs along the highway to the AUD grounds (New Hospital) then runs down Ottawa. Quick sketch of the Idea.

[ZEBuilder]

Personally I think it would be a mistake for the Region to run phase 3 down Ottawa instead of Victoria/ highland. Connecting another line to the Transit Hub would make the most sense, especially if the region is going to foot the bill for the majority of the train station. I think think the east line should run down victoria, with the line splitting at Edna, one tail continues down Victoria and the other tail runs along the highway to the AUD grounds (New Hospital) then runs down Ottawa. Quick sketch of the Idea.

Problem with that is that the MTO owns Victoria from the expressway all the way out past Breslau and there is no way they would allow a LRT. While Victoria may be better going out towards Breslau in terms of densification opportunities with all the commerical space, there is almost no catchment area north of Victoria which means in theory it wouldn't be optimizing the cost, meanwhile Ottawa has a large catchment on both the north and south side of the road so you will get alot of densification but will also get alot more people using it since you have everything from Fairway to Victoria that can feed into the line. Instead of Ottawa to Victoria with a Victoria Line so conceptually from the regions point of view to justify the cost it makes more sense along Ottawa since it is more centrally located. It also allows for a easy way to get into the south end of Breslau which is really a short trip away from the airport.

[danbrotherston]

I think it's important to look at a mix of development opportunity and density. I know Victoria/Highland has a fair bit of density, but the majority of the development opportunity is if we rezone light industrial/commercial into higher density uses. FWIW, it might be better to take the LRT up Shirley as it's less constrained by the railway.

One dream I have for the region is to redevelop a bunch of the malls, for example the Laurentian centre at Ottawa and Alpine is a huge area of surface parking. That could be redeveloped into a fairly significant high density mixed use area (for example, the Laurentian centre is roughly the same size as the Amersfoort city centre).

All that's really needed is a very high frequency connector service to link it to a transit station on the LRT...

[bravado]

Personally I think it would be a mistake for the Region to run phase 3 down Ottawa instead of Victoria/ highland. Connecting another line to the Transit Hub would make the most sense, especially if the region is going to foot the bill for the majority of the train station. I think think the east line should run down victoria, with the line splitting at Edna, one tail continues down Victoria and the other tail runs along the highway to the AUD grounds (New Hospital) then runs down Ottawa. Quick sketch of the Idea.

Problem with that is that the MTO owns Victoria from the expressway all the way out past Breslau and there is no way they would allow a LRT.

Forgive me, but doesn’t the MTO own Hespeler Road too since it’s Highway 24? How do these things intersect between city vs region vs province?

[ZEBuilder]

Problem with that is that the MTO owns Victoria from the expressway all the way out past Breslau and there is no way they would allow a LRT.

Forgive me, but doesn’t the MTO own Hespeler Road too since it’s Highway 24? How do these things intersect between city vs region vs province?
F

The MTOs jurisdiction on 24 is from Simcoe which is done Brantford way to the south end of Cambridge so Hespler isn't MTO jurisdiction which is why the region can put the LRT down it. The section of 24 through Cambridge was downloaded to the municipality in the 1990's.

[ac3r]

The main benefit in using Victoria is the ease of TOD.

Ottawa has a lot of single family, low density neighbourhoods nearby. That will inevitably make redevelopment harder as developers propose new mid rise/towers/skyscrapers but then have to deal with opposition from NIMBYS.

On the other hand, Victoria is largely full of low density commercial development which would be much easier to redevelop (zone changes not taken into account, but that isn't hard to fix). However, the Grand River runs to the north of it. Also there are also not a lot of existing residential areas there, so they would have to bet on rapid redevelopment to justify using Victoria...low density commercial isn't exactly going to pull in a lot of riders to justify the cost. But again, the benefit would be that they could easily promote redevelopment of Victoria itself but can also readjust bus services to nearby areas. For example, running more bus service up Lancaster would open up redevelopment of Northward (largely industrial) but then also connect Bridgeport with better transit, which is itself currently going through densification. Said buses could funnel people down to a Victoria LRT line and that would be great.

However you also have to take into account things like schools, commercial services, emergency services and so on. Victoria isn't covered by those too well, so new schools and commercial services (grocery stores etc) would have to be constructed. Ottawa can be densified and there are existing schools around there to handle new students. The auditorium would also be a perfect place for a new hospital and an LRT on Ottawa would connect that. Going westbound, you can also connect areas like Laurentian Hills which is much more populated than Victoria Hills, Williamsburg, Highland West etc which are closer to Victoria.

Either way, there are a lot of options. My wish is that the region will be smart and scrap the whole Cambridge LRT stuff and just build a second line in Kitchener-Waterloo. Cambridge just isn't important enough. And we see how much NIMBY backlash we get here...Cambridge residents would become livid if developers started proposing skyscrapers across the city.

[Bytor]

That's selection bias. How often do the trams go through and not get hot? The times the do get hit is, what, a millionth of a percent of all trips?

I could have a biased sample, yes.

You almost certainly do, given that, whether it's news or social media, it's the extreme things that get shown or go viral and come to your attention.

I don't have the statistics. But you can't deduce that out of thin air, and definitely can't use that as proof that the opposite is true.

Yes, I can, because the same old same old isn't "news". Basically why you never never see news articles about Toronto trams getting hit by cars, or why you never hear about the roughly 15-20 car accidents that the WRPS tell us happen every day in Waterloo Region.

I said disproportionate, meaning in relation to the total number of both tram and car accidents I've seen in Poland.

Yes, I know that said that about about the dashcam videos that you've, but it changes noting. Just because you, personally, have seen a bunch of these dashcam videos from Poland doesn't say that there is a high rate of such incidents. Only that you saw a couple, clicked like, the algorothm fed you a bunch more, you clicked like again, and then the algorithm fed you a lot of them.

And then you said that because you've seen a bunch of these videos therefore this isn't a good idea, with no apparent reflection on whether or not you had seen a representative example of both trams crossing roundabouts in general or about the specific Polish examples in order to make such a judgement call.

A millionth of a percent of all trips seems very hyperbolic on its own,

Yes, it was hyperbolic, and intentionally so, but still you seem to have missed the point.

But at a fundamental level, I'm not sure why you are arguing in favour of adding complexity (and not the traffic calming kind) to our roadways when alternatives likely exist. Unless you think our current incident rate is within the bounds of acceptable.

I wasn't arguing one way or the other in my response to you. I was pointing out that you don't have the data to argue against it because you were making a judgement based on sensationalised videos specifically farmed to you in order to keep you watching more ads.

You are, essentially, making essentially the same type of argument as the person who does not want to fly because they saw a plane crash or three on the news and assume that flying is therefore dangerous and then going "I don't have the statistics. But you can't just assume that driving is safer than flying" and not doing even minimal due diligence and checking something like deaths per passenger mile.

[the_conestoga_guy]

The main benefit in using Victoria is the ease of TOD.

Ottawa has a lot of single family, low density neighbourhoods nearby. That will inevitably make redevelopment harder as developers propose new mid rise/towers/skyscrapers but then have to deal with opposition from NIMBYS.

On the other hand, Victoria is largely full of low density commercial development which would be much easier to redevelop (zone changes not taken into account, but that isn't hard to fix). However, the Grand River runs to the north of it. Also there are also not a lot of existing residential areas there, so they would have to bet on rapid redevelopment to justify using Victoria...low density commercial isn't exactly going to pull in a lot of riders to justify the cost. But again, the benefit would be that they could easily promote redevelopment of Victoria itself but can also readjust bus services to nearby areas. For example, running more bus service up Lancaster would open up redevelopment of Northward (largely industrial) but then also connect Bridgeport with better transit, which is itself currently going through densification. Said buses could funnel people down to a Victoria LRT line and that would be great.

However you also have to take into account things like schools, commercial services, emergency services and so on. Victoria isn't covered by those too well, so new schools and commercial services (grocery stores etc) would have to be constructed. Ottawa can be densified and there are existing schools around there to handle new students. The auditorium would also be a perfect place for a new hospital and an LRT on Ottawa would connect that. Going westbound, you can also connect areas like Laurentian Hills which is much more populated than Victoria Hills, Williamsburg, Highland West etc which are closer to Victoria.

Either way, there are a lot of options. My wish is that the region will be smart and scrap the whole Cambridge LRT stuff and just build a second line in Kitchener-Waterloo. Cambridge just isn't important enough. And we see how much NIMBY backlash we get here...Cambridge residents would become livid if developers started proposing skyscrapers across the city.

FWIW, the Region has also expressed interest in road-dieting Victoria St N after the construction of the new Highway 7 (whenever that happens). So it seems to me that it would be the perfect time to re-allocate 2 car lanes for a LRT and urbanize the stretch of road from King to Bresleau. Considering how long in advance these things need to be planned, I hope that the Region is thinking about this now.

[KevinT]

Well they had the brilliant job of putting the LRT through a roundabout in Cambridge, so they could just replicate that nonsense here. :'P

I wish we had LRT through a roundabout at Ottawa-Mill.

We can't even keep people from crashing into them at intersections where people are told to stop using giant red lights, signs and even more signs (some illuminated). Hell a lot of people can barely figure out a roundabout. Now combine both trains and roundabounts...no thanks.

Easy, gates at the roundabout entrances. To exit, just exit. There's lots of time...

[ac3r]

Today is the LRT birthday. To honour this event, another collision has disabled it between uptown and the Conestoga terminus.

[KevinL]

Well, it's functional. 

[plam]

Well, it's functional. 

I mean, apparently the old sign didn't actually function on that one occasion.

[ijmorlan]

I mean, apparently the old sign didn't actually function on that one occasion.

A sign that looks like it’s been hit by a truck might actually be more effective than a normal sign.

[ac3r]

RMTransit gave us a shoutout: https://youtu.be/ERBbFqALDdM?t=556

[ac3r]

Does anyone know what the pink stickers on the LRT platforms are for? Not sure if they've always been there and I just haven't noticed them or if they're new. If I had to guess it's to help the drivers line up the doors easier?