ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[GtwoK]

Queen supposed to be reopening on Friday as well! There's no closure date in sight for Ontario (track-wise), but that'll come soon enough. In 2 or 3 months time, We might have track right from Benton to Water!

[KevinL]

Had a look at the work at Gaukel this morning. The LRT lane is torn up through the intersection:


And they're preparing space further up:


All the way to Ontario:

(Not sure what's under that tarp, but it mus have curing concrete based on the heaters.)

Also checked out the work at Queen:


Looks busy from that angle, but most of it is away from the intersection:

[GtwoK]

Finally, some real progress being made! No doubt thanks to the melting snow today.

I'd hazard to guess the tarp between ontario / gaukel is for a storm drain piece of curbing. They seem to leave those for a while after the normal curbs.

[GtwoK]

Just noticed the new Ion update as of a few days ago. Of note:

Both Gaukel and Ontario will be closed at the same time. That sounds like hell for the bus drivers.
King from Erb to William will be completely closed for 9 MONTHS. Wow.

[Canard]

Yep, we were talking about the King closure a few pages ago. Avril Fiskin confirmed on 570 that when it reopens, it will be 100% complete. So there's that.

[nms]

Let's hope that the businesses on King Street between Erb and William can hold on.

[chutten]

Let's hope that the businesses on King Street between Erb and William can hold on.

With Caroline open from Erb, all of the parking lots west of King are still available. So long as there is West-East pedestrian access, I think they should do just fine.

[GtwoK]

Caroline/Erb is scheduled to re-close in February, though. The only vehicle access will be from North of King, and from Erb and Bridgeport. Quite limiting to people coming form Kitchener, though University students should be fine.

[timc]

Caroline/Erb is scheduled to re-close in February, though. The only vehicle access will be from North of King, and from Erb and  Bridgeport. Quite limiting to people coming form Kitchener, though University students should be fine.

If Caroline/Erb is going to be closed, and King is closed from Erb to William, how do you get to the Uptown parking lots? My google power is failing me, because I can't find anything about Caroline re-closing.

[Canard]

The uptown parking lots are accessible from Caroline, so if you're coming from Waterloo you just go down Regina and curve around William and come up Caroline. (I hope I have those road names right!)

[GtwoK]

Yep, you've got that right. The being said, I'm sure they must have thought it through more than just allowing traffic form the one obscure side; there will probably be left turning traffic from Caroline N onto Erb, allowing access from the Erb entrance.

[alexsmith]

Does anyone know how GRT is going to deal with all the students from the McCormick 200 Ixpress stop? There is no planned Ion stop there, and the 9 will not be able to handle the increase in riders. The 200 can barely handle the current amount of riders during peak hours as it is, and a large majority of the riders are getting on/off at the McCormick stops in the morning/evening. The 9 might be able to handle the addition of the WLU (the Ion won't service WLU), but it couldn't handle both WLU and UW students, which it does service.

This seems like the perfect spot for a stop, tons of riders, access from both Albert and Parkside, space to build it. It wouldn't function as a commuter stop, but the Northfield and R&T stops can act as the commuter stops because there is space for parking.

And just to make sure people don't think I am being selfish and just fighting to get a stop near me, I am going to be finished school and off doing my Ph.D. (hopefully outside of Canada) before the Ion is finished.

[KevinL]

I imagine some kind of shuttle would likely get set up for peak demand here. I don't feel an Ion stop is warranted though.

[timc]

Does anyone know how GRT is going to deal with all the students from the McCormick 200 Ixpress stop? There is no planned Ion stop there, and the 9 will not be able to handle the increase in riders. The 200 can barely handle the current amount of riders during peak hours as it is, and a large majority of the riders are getting on/off at the McCormick stops in the morning/evening. The 9 might be able to handle the addition of the WLU (the Ion won't service WLU), but it couldn't handle both WLU and UW students, which it does service.

This seems like the perfect spot for a stop, tons of riders, access from both Albert and Parkside, space to build it. It wouldn't function as a commuter stop, but the Northfield and R&T stops can act as the commuter stops because there is space for parking.

And just to make sure people don't think I am being selfish and just fighting to get a stop near me, I am going to be finished school and off doing my Ph.D. (hopefully outside of Canada) before the Ion is finished.

I think this would have been a good spot for a station. There are a lot of people that live near McCormick, including many students and lower-income people that really need public transit. Maybe GRT could modify routes to connect from the current McCormick stop to the R&T Park and/or Northfield stations.

I think it would have been idea to put ION stations at McCormick, Columbia, and University Avenue. But I understand that there was some politics involved with the locations that were chosen.

[chutten]

I can definitely see a re-routed 201 iXpress stop there with connections at the Conestoga Mall, Northfield, and R&T Park ION stations... but I don't think that such a reroute off of Columbia and King would happen.  

Maybe some mythical Weber iXpress would route West across Bridgeport then North along Albert to Bearinger. Then AMCC, Northfield ION, King @ Northfield, Conestoga ION, and done?