GO Transit

[SF22]

The current Shirley Ave (Not Drive) portion of that road from Riverbend to Approx Waterloo Brewing was built by the MTO. It has MTO light standards. The rest of the road is a COK street.

It was built meeting regional standards.

If the region had prioritized and required sidewalks it would have sidewalks.

Oh no, it's better than that. There IS a sidewalk, it just happens to be on the other side of the 4-lane-plus-turning-lane road from where all the businesses are. Also, good luck crossing those 5 lanes during rush-hour traffic, with nothing better to help you than a pedestrian island in front of Bingeman's.

...I feel like we have very much veered off the topic of 'GO Transit,' here.

[the_conestoga_guy]

With the climate situation we are in, any planning that assumes continued increases in motor vehicle traffic is ill considered.

But mostly I want to focus on the part I bolded. In fact, building a superhighway has no connection at all to making Victoria St. better. All that is needed to get the traffic off Victoria St. is to make slight adjustments near the intersection of Shirley Dr. with Victoria St., and near the intersection of Shirley Dr. with Bingeman’s Centre Dr.; Widen Shirley Dr. to 4 lanes between these intersections, and widen Highway 7 to 4 lanes all the way to Guelph. Install a centre median and roundabouts. Re-work the freeway interchange at Wellington St.

Yes, there is a cost to existing addresses on the highway. You don’t build an entire superhighway just to avoid impacts on a couple of dozen or so properties.

This gives you a continuous 4-lane road from Guelph to the expressway, all north of the railway track. Victoria St. would now end in a T-junction with the combined route more or less where Shirley Dr. ends at Victoria now. The existing Victoria St. bridge over the Grand River would continue to serve the improved Highway 7.

The new road would be designed to move traffic, while Victoria St. could be re-planned as an urban street with low traffic speeds and only one lane in each direction. This plan would save most of the cost of the new freeway and while expanding the road to Guelph to 4 lanes would be an expansion in road capacity, it wouldn’t have the same negative effect as building a superhighway. The difference could be used to put in place excellent rail transit between KW and Guelph.

The most frustrating thing for me about the superhighway discussion is that essentially nobody has even mentioned the possibility of improving the existing road. It’s basically superhighway or nothing when we all know that even if one takes as a given that roads need to be improved there is a lot of space between a 2 lane road and an actual superhighway, and the difference is a huge amount of money.

I'm not convinced that this wouldn't just create a new stroad on Bingeman Centre Drive. It's already wide and fast, and I can just see more sprawling businesses popping up along the length of it. Is that really a net positive?

In somewhat related news, the old David's Fries building is demolished now. I was driving and didn't have the chance to slow down and look, but did Joseph & Company get removed from this space as well? Their driveway pops out literally right next to the tracks, so I wouldn't be surprised if something changes there as well.

If the scrapyard does get removed, I'd love to see the space reclaimed to make a bike/pedestrian connection between Wellington/Breithaupt/Patrick Streets (on Google Maps, you can see how this used to be where the spur line branched off to go towards Woodside Park), with a bridge over the tracks to connect with Victoria. That would give active transportation users a connection that's separate from the Lancaster crossing. Pair that with a signalized pedestrian crossing on Victoria halfway between Lancaster and Edna (at Locust or Filbert), and suddenly you've got a nice little link made that could hook up with the upcoming Lancaster St bike lanes, which will start at Wellington when built. Maybe a MUT could follow the old rail line up across Wellington (repurpose the old train bridge into a cool pedestrian space) to connect with Guelph St at Maple. Opportunities!

I believe that the existing scrap yard intends on staying in this location, and is actually expanding to include the Fry shack. Their driveway will be moved off of Lancaster and onto the adjacent side street.

On a related note, the neighbouring property at 40 Lancaster St W is up for sale, so there really is a big parcel that could be assembled if someone wanted to buy it and turn it into something that could improve the area.

[Waterlooer]

New GO Bus route from KW to Guelph to Hamilton. Starts April 8th: https://www.gotransit.com/static_files/g...m=referral

[KevinL]

FINALLY. Took them long enough!

I see it's weekdays only for now, but hopefully enough ridership will add weekend trips too.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, this is great news...it covers both Guelph and Hamilton--two destinations I've been advocating for for years and years.

[panamaniac]

It seems a bit odd to me to route via Guelph rather than via Cambridge, but anything that works, I guess.

[danbrotherston]

It seems a bit odd to me to route via Guelph rather than via Cambridge,  but anything that works, I guess.

I mean...I think the point is to achieve all three of a KW<->Guelph, KW<->Hamilton, and Guelph<->Hamilton routes. It's not a terrible compromise.

An ambitious agency would create all three routes, but we're not ambitious on transit.

This is a reasonable compromise I think...more coverage (and presumably higher frequency) in exchange for longer trips. It's probably the right choice. Compromising frequency would have been worse, and compromising coverage (not servicing Guelph) would probably have been worse too, but I reserve the right to change my mind after seeing the schedule.

[bravado]

Ah, delicious mediocrity...

[KevinL]

 I reserve the right to change my mind after seeing the schedule.

There is a schedule in the linked PDF, I've copied it over.

[danbrotherston]

 I reserve the right to change my mind after seeing the schedule.

There is a schedule in the linked PDF, I've copied it over.

Thanks Kevin.

Ooof... 2:15-2:35 total trip time, that is a pretty long schedule. Mapping it out on Google maps suggests that even driving that route would take around 1:45-2:15 depending on traffic.

FWIW....Aldershot seems unnecessary, since their servicing the Hamilton GO station anyway. But even if they wanted to do Aldershot, they should do it after Hamilton GO I think.

That being said, it's at least an hour drive to Hamilton GO from UW anyway, so it's not entirely unreasonable.

As an aside, their scheduling is shit. Part of it is because of traffic...which we should just solve...but I digress...the inconsistency in the schedule means it's more difficult for riders to just know when their bus leaves, now I have to check to see if it's 6, or 5:55, or 5:50 or 5:45...but obviously unless we're willing to fix traffic, then that's really hard to achieve.

Whatever, I think this is a huge win...but only because the bar is incredibly low...

[neonjoe]

Aldershot has VIA

[dunkalunk]

Also saw a news release today about expanded weekend Kitchener line service, although that's not the interesting part to me. https://www.metrolinx.com/en/news/change...e-in-april

Because you can only have a train-bus if you have a train to connect to (apparently), they are also extending Route 30 service to hourly on weekend. This means that I can finally get home from the GTA on a Saturday in less than 3 hours and am not forced to ride the congested milk run Route 25.

https://www.gotransit.com/static_files/g...ABLE31.pdf

[Acitta]

 I reserve the right to change my mind after seeing the schedule.

There is a schedule in the linked PDF, I've copied it over.

Why Victoria & Frederick rather than the GO station or other location close to downtown?

[neonjoe]

There is a schedule in the linked PDF, I've copied it over.

Why Victoria & Frederick rather than the GO station or other location close to downtown?

So it doesn’t have to double back after coming off the highway…

[dunkalunk]

Why Victoria & Frederick rather than the GO station or other location close to downtown?

So it doesn’t have to double back after coming off the highway…

It could go down Weber just like the 25, not sure why not.