ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Be careful you're not trespassing or violating any safety rules. Fences and detours are put in place for reasons!

[panamaniac]

I saw someone crossing the tracks at Waterloo St a couple of days ago. It looked like you just need to deke around a short section of fencing.

[tomh009]

Be careful you're not trespassing or violating any safety rules. Fences and detours are put in place for reasons!

Last time I was there, there wasn't even a "sidewalk closed" sign, at least on the pharmacy building side of the street.

[Canard]

Just what GrandLinq needed, the night before the bridge is to come out... more rain! Can't these poor guys catch a break?

The area between the dams was still partially flooded yesterday when I was there.

[ijmorlan]

A twitter posting (not mine) with recent pictures showing the additional pipes that have been installed:

https://twitter.com/HAL8950/status/622815643520208896

Today, an unusual Sunday daylight hour train went through Northbound about 2PM and returned Southbound about 5:30PM. Presumably the last trains across the old bridge, assuming the bridge demolition goes ahead tomorrow. I hoped to get photos, but only managed to get a couple of the Northbound train immediately after it crossed the bridge, and a few shots of the Southbound train as it crossed Willow St.

[Drake]

I am hearing that there will be a big curb built along the center of Northfield drive. This will protect the LRT from regular traffic. I am also hearing that this will run essentially in front of the firedepartment's driveway. If I understand it, this is a problem as the FD will need to travel West towards Parkside and then do a U-Turn in order to respond to anything East of them.

This story sounds ridiculous. Has anyone else heard this?

[Canard]

Of course. All LRT track that will operate near roads or in medians will be elevated 10 cm or so, and not at grade. The only time it is flush with the pavement of the road surface is at intersections. It's not going to be like Toronto's streetcars where the track is flush with the road surface.

It will be like this:



Standard practice for Light Rail. Ideally the curbing is not so high that an emergency vehicle can't hop it, however.

[KevinL]

The fire station is west of the rail corridor; I don't see how they won't still be able to make a left turn out of their driveway as there will be no LRT tracks on that part of the road.

[Markster]

I can't imagine that this would be an unmountable curb, at least at the firehouse.

[Canard]

I've watched SUV's drive over them making illegal U-turns in various cities (Houston, Toronto on Queens Quay, etc.) - it's definitely mountable. It was even discussed during early public meetings that emergency vehicles (Ambulance and Police, mainly) could use the ROW as a method of bypassing traffic in extreme situations (obviously would have to radio LRT control and shut down all train movement temporarily).

[ookpik]

Light rail headquarters taking shape in Waterloo 

By this time next summer, the heart of Waterloo Region's light rail transit system should start beating in Waterloo.


That's when 100 workers are expected to start moving into the "operations maintenance storage facility" on Dutton Drive. They'll start testing and fine tuning the computer-controlled command centre, getting ready for trains to start running sometime in 2017 between Conestoga Mall in Waterloo and Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener.

[Canard]

Fantastic article!

Old wooden bridge is completely gone! Crews hauling it away. Pics to come.

[Drake]

Thanks for the follow up comments re the WFD.

[Canard]

Photos from late afternoon:

   

   

   

   

   

[Canard]