ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Elmira Guy]

CKCO news at noon reported on the broken down car and subsequent traffic tie-up with their usual anti-LRT slant.

Trying to reconcile with myself why I even watch their news at all anymore. It certainly isn't for their reporting of local sports.

I haven't noticed an anti-LRT slant on CKCO. The piece seems to be reporting what happened around a story of interest.

I have found that most, if not all of their stories pertaining to LRT have had a negative, we-told-you-so spin to them. Even when the first LRV arrived their focus was more on the lateness of the arrival rather than being about the good news of it, or even remaining neutral (which is what news reporting should be trying to do).

I note much more positivity/neutrality in LRT related stories on the local CBC news site than I do from either CKCO on-air news or the local CTV news site.

As an LRT supporter I am of course biased and would prefer a positive slant on the part of local news, but I would be quite satisfied with an objective and neutral approach.

[panamaniac]

Aren't we at the point where "for" or "against" LRT is a tad irrelevant?

[Elmira Guy]

/\ I would certainly think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

[danbrotherston]

@panamaniac maybe for waterloo and Brantford certainly not for Cambridge, Hamilton, London, and Mississauga. Even more so this coverage may be important to the success of those projects.

[DHLawrence]

Brantford?

[danbrotherston]

@dhlawrence. Sorry Brampton.

Also I would agree CTV has a generally slightly anti-LRT slant. That's either a reflection of or the cause of the extremely anti-LRT views of their Facebook followers.

[Rainrider22]

Bidding opened up today for Transit Hub


http://www.570news.com/2017/05/03/region...-contract/

[Canard]

Very exciting - can't wait to see what they come up with!

[Viewfromthe42]

...how do you open bidding without publicly announcing whether your consultations yielded requirements that the buildings on site be:
A) Up to 30 storeys
B) 10-15 storeys
C) 4-6 storeys
As these were the options (roughly) that I recall from a consultation on the site plan.

[panamaniac]

...how do you open bidding without publicly announcing whether your consultations yielded requirements that the buildings on site be:
A) Up to 30 storeys
B) 10-15 storeys
C) 4-6 storeys
As these were the options (roughly) that I recall from a consultation on the site plan.

Does any of that constitute "requirements"?  I thought that the scale of development was just conceptual.

[boatracer]

This is just the Qualifications stage.  Applicant teams submit their previous project experience and financial information and will be scored to determine a short list of proponents who will compete in the RFP stage.  Qualification stage closes the end on June, and sounds like short listed teams will be announced by September.

[Markster]

...how do you open bidding without publicly announcing whether your consultations yielded requirements that the buildings on site be:
A) Up to 30 storeys
B) 10-15 storeys
C) 4-6 storeys
As these were the options (roughly) that I recall from a consultation on the site plan.

The height of the buildings is not the hard part.  The hard part is a unified transit centre.

But more to the point, much like a high-end jewelry store, if you have to ask, then you can't afford it.  You need to prove that you are capable of building a unified transit hub with 30 storey buildings on top. The actual size of the hub will be based on market factors, and they want a partner that can handle anything.

Here's the RFQ:
https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....704ea1a5e0

[Viewfromthe42]

If you tell a bidder to come in with what they can give you if you let them build 30 storeys, and then say that they can only build 4, you get an incredibly different set of buildings, because a developer doing the whole site will absolutely give you more features and bang for your buck for every floor of building you give them. But if you don't tell them how much of the profit-generation they can have (aka how many floors can they build), they will tell you what you get for the worst case (6 floors), and you will only get builders who would do the 6 floor one like crap, instead of better builders who could do much better hubs, but would need to know they can sell 30 floors of condos to subsidize a better transit hub. We do not want them going in having to think that they can only build 6 floors potentially, show us what that gets, and then allow 30 storeys, but at that point wind up with none of the hub-design benefits of those 30 floors, because they gave you only what 6 storeys would fund.

[Canard]

   
Lovely deep-blue glass tiles are up on the anchor wall at Waterloo Town Square.  Gorgeousness!

   
Crews are well on their way with the reconfiguration of the access points to the North lot.

[Pheidippides]

I was around there today too and was surprised at how quickly everything is progressing along that stretch.

I was wondering though, why does William have a "no right turn on red sign" and not the big black LED signs to limit turns like at Willis?
Conversely, why doesn't Willis have a "no right turn on red sign"? Why would it be safe to turn right on a red at Willis, but not at William? The visibility is actually better at William.

Also, I think the Willis Way stop's accessibility is lacking. Consider if you are walking west along Willis toward Caroline and the Ion stop. If you need an accessible route to the Ion platform you either need to:
1) Walk 40m north (away from the platform) to Father David Bauer, cross Caroline (unassisted – no signals, although refuge is another 20m north), then walk 75m south back to the platform (~130m total)
or
2) Walk 110m further south (the length of the platform and then some) toward Alexandria and cross Caroline to the platform entrance (~120m total).

There's no accessible route directly across Caroline on the north end of the platform like there is on the south end.