ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[Bytor]

I do disagree with the idea that Cambridge doesn't warrant an LRT by itself. In the Canadian context, sure, it shouldn't have one. But we've all seen enough NJB videos to know that we shouldn't be striving to meet "Canadian" standards. I think having some sort of robust transit backbone could do wonders for the city.

Any claim like that should really be caveated by "yet", because Cambridge will eventually need an LRT by 2030 if we return to the 5-7% annual average yearly growth and the roughly 10% average of the ION aBRT route.

We can look at transit systems across North America and their operating costs, and in general we find that an LRT becomes cheaper to operate than a bus route for the same volume between 5,000 and 10,000 riders per day on average, centred at around 7,000/day. It generally comes down to local costs to make the difference.

When you consider that catenaries have an expected lifetime of 50 years, and rails that of 70-100 years, but the $4M/km BRT lanes will need to be frequently rebuilt due to wear and tear (c.f. how often the Charles St. terminal lanes were redone), construction cost equivalency is reached at around 40 years. Add on the more expensive operations and that drops down to almost 30 years.

But people asserting that Cambridge doesn't need an LRT have not truly thought things out to any level of detail like that.

[Bytor]

Some news today in the Record about Phase 2 and the upcoming business case - expected to be ready "end of 2025."

https://archive.is/VUc4R


I've personally wondered about option 4 (assuming it still follows the original Hespeler Rd alignment) as a possible interim option, with a BRT link between Preston and Fairway. At this point, I'd be happy to even see a full BRT system. It would at least reserve the space for upgrading to rail in the future while also making Hespeler Rd a more livable space.

How could there be a separated Cambridge line? You'd have to build a second maintenance building in Cambridge somewhere, which would be another large land acquisition and then the cost to actually build the thing. I'd love to see the breakdown of cost on that option vs the original Cross-The-Grand plan.

"If approved, Phase 2 construction could start in 2032 and would likely take five or six years." So looking at 2037/38 as our best-case scenario, which is EIGHTEEN YEARS after the completion of Phase 1 (June 2019). Was there ever any indication that it would take so long? If they are serious about doing a Phase 3, I sincerely hope that we get started on the proposals long before Phase 2 is underway.

Yes, in multiple ways. 

The first was simply that the Region itself had said that construction was not planned to start before 2028, though nothing more specific was said.

The second was how long would it take for the ridership on the relevant bus routes to get to the point they would be over the threshold that would make LRT operations cheaper than that of a bus route with the same number of people.

That works out to somewhere between 2030 (2000-2013 GRT average annual growth rate of ~7.1%) to 2038 (2000-2019 GRT average annual growth rate of ~4.8%).

[Bytor]

Some news today in the Record about Phase 2 and the upcoming business case - expected to be ready "end of 2025."

https://archive.is/VUc4R

The business case will now also consider several scenarios:

• the original full proposal to extend the Ion 18 kilometres from Fairway station in Kitchener to downtown Galt;
  
• a shorter route from Fairway to Pinebush Road for $2.9 billion,
  
• a mid-length route from Fairway to the Delta in Cambridge for $3.9 billion;
  
• a stand-alone Cambridge LRT from Preston to downtown Galt with a bus link to Fairway;
  
• bus rapid transit, where buses would travel from Fairway to downtown Galt on dedicated lanes and have traffic signal priority.
  

I've personally wondered about option 4 (assuming it still follows the original Hespeler Rd alignment) as a possible interim option, with a BRT link between Preston and Fairway. At this point, I'd be happy to even see a full BRT system. It would at least reserve the space for upgrading to rail in the future while also making Hespeler Rd a more livable space.

Given that the Region was willing to waste money researching Jan Liggett's ridiculous on the face of it southern terminus at Dundas & Main even though the conclusion surprised nobody but her, part of me is suspicious that including option 4 was done for a similar reason.

That is, as a sop to a certain type of Cambridge politician (Liggett, Doug Craig, others), and as a way of going "I told you so" when it turns out to be just as expensive as the Fairway to Pinebush option thanks needless duplications like the OMSF. Again, probably to the surprise of only Liggett, Craig, and the like.

[danbrotherston]

I do disagree with the idea that Cambridge doesn't warrant an LRT by itself. In the Canadian context, sure, it shouldn't have one. But we've all seen enough NJB videos to know that we shouldn't be striving to meet "Canadian" standards. I think having some sort of robust transit backbone could do wonders for the city.

Any claim like that should really be caveated by "yet", because Cambridge will eventually need an LRT by 2030 if we return to the 5-7% annual average yearly growth and the roughly 10% average of the ION aBRT route.

We can look at transit systems across North America and their operating costs, and in general we find that an LRT becomes cheaper to operate than a bus route for the same volume between 5,000 and 10,000 riders per day on average, centred at around 7,000/day. It generally comes down to local costs to make the difference.

When you consider that catenaries have an expected lifetime of 50 years, and rails that of 70-100 years, but the $4M/km BRT lanes will need to be frequently rebuilt due to wear and tear (c.f. how often the Charles St. terminal lanes were redone), construction cost equivalency is reached at around 40 years. Add on the more expensive operations and that drops down to almost 30 years.

But people asserting that Cambridge doesn't need an LRT have not truly thought things out to any level of detail like that.

This is fair, but somewhat overstated...the ION aBRT is not a Cambridge exclusive route, many of those boardings are in Kitchener at Sportsworld and Fairway, and it forms a greater regional connector. I don't think anyone here opposes an LRT that actually connects the region.

However, Cambridge itself is less than 140k. It would be the equivalent of Kingston ON getting an LRT (and Kingston is much less poly centric, and much older, meaning it has a larger, denser centre). This isn't unprecedented internationally, but like I said, I think significant other changes are needed at the same time...

[Bytor]

Yes, ION 302 is not solely a Cambridge route, but neither is the only ridership on it inter-city ridership. The bulk of it's ridership is intra-Cambridge in the same way that few ION Stage 1 riders do Fairway to Conestoga, or that few riders on any bus route go end-to-end.

What makes an LRT replacing a bus route warranted is the ridership on that bus route. and whether it has reached or surpassed the level at which and LRT would be cheaper to operate per ride than a bus route with the same number of riders. With zero cȟanges to what Cambridge is today.

Being able to afford it is a different thing and more of a subjective political consideration rather than an objective metric like ridership. By that, even Waterloo Region didn't warrant an LRT, and only very large and rich cities would be able to.

There are other things one could use to say that an LRT s warranted, like long-term sustainability, positive public health effects in how better transit promotes more walking, and so on, but those are all harder to quantify and more nebulous and as a result never as convincing to the skeptics as the simple bare fact of what costs more to operate.

[mgregorasz]

Some news today in the Record about Phase 2 and the upcoming business case - expected to be ready "end of 2025."

https://archive.is/VUc4R


I've personally wondered about option 4 (assuming it still follows the original Hespeler Rd alignment) as a possible interim option, with a BRT link between Preston and Fairway. At this point, I'd be happy to even see a full BRT system. It would at least reserve the space for upgrading to rail in the future while also making Hespeler Rd a more livable space.

How could there be a separated Cambridge line? You'd have to build a second maintenance building in Cambridge somewhere, which would be another large land acquisition and then the cost to actually build the thing. I'd love to see the breakdown of cost on that option vs the original Cross-The-Grand plan.

"If approved, Phase 2 construction could start in 2032 and would likely take five or six years." So looking at 2037/38 as our best-case scenario, which is EIGHTEEN YEARS after the completion of Phase 1 (June 2019). Was there ever any indication that it would take so long? If they are serious about doing a Phase 3, I sincerely hope that we get started on the proposals long before Phase 2 is underway.

The separated line was Pam Wolf's idea of trying to reduce the cost of Phase 2, while the BRT option was from Doug Craig because he doesn't believe that Cambridge will ever get LRT.

[ac3r]

"If approved, Phase 2 construction could start in 2032 and would likely take five or six years." So looking at 2037/38 as our best-case scenario, which is EIGHTEEN YEARS after the completion of Phase 1 (June 2019). Was there ever any indication that it would take so long? If they are serious about doing a Phase 3, I sincerely hope that we get started on the proposals long before Phase 2 is underway.

An opening a near 2 decades after the completion of the first LRT Line is absurd. Goes to show how truly awful public projects are in this part of the world.

They could have built it all in one go, having it terminate at Fairway yet continued the construction process to Cambridge and not only be nearly finished by now, but would have spent billions less than it has been projected to cost due to rising construction costs and inflation.

[tomh009]

Indeed. Tampere, Finland built their LRT (about 17 km, very similar to ours) and completed the project in 2021, two years after us. They are expecting to have a 7 km extension ready for operation by the end of this year ... and, yes, they are also dealine with bridges and grades, roughly as challenging as ours.

[tomh009]

The separated line was Pam Wolf's idea of trying to reduce the cost of Phase 2, while the BRT option was from Doug Craig because he doesn't believe that Cambridge will ever get LRT.

So, both driven by Cambridge, once again. And Craig is potentially right, Cambridge might never get the LRT, because they have a great difficulty in saying the word "yes".

[danbrotherston]

The separated line was Pam Wolf's idea of trying to reduce the cost of Phase 2, while the BRT option was from Doug Craig because he doesn't believe that Cambridge will ever get LRT.

So, both driven by Cambridge, once again. And Craig is potentially right, Cambridge might never get the LRT, because they have a great difficulty in saying the word "yes".

At a certain point, negativity becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

But also...it is hard to see it playing out differently.

[SF22]

I kind of want the Region to go "Okay, if you don't want an LRT, then we'll just move to planning Phase 3" and I bet you'd see something for University or Victoria or Ottawa get planned and approved SO fast.

[danbrotherston]

I kind of want the Region to go "Okay, if you don't want an LRT, then we'll just move to planning Phase 3" and I bet you'd see something for University or Victoria or Ottawa get planned and approved SO fast.

I would take that bet...

If we skipped phase 2 (which isn't necessarily the worst idea in terms of transit planning, but politically, completely untenable), yes, there are plans to put an LRT on one of those roads.

But if you think that the people in Kitchener are less curmudgeonly and NIMBYist than Cambridge, well...you're wrong. You only need to go to any meeting about any development to see just how obstructionist the people in the city can be. Yes Cambridge's arguments often circle around "Cambridge victimhood" which doesn't exist in Kitchener, but this type of obstructionism is simply based on what excuses one can come up with...older upper middle class white people have no end of reasons why they are being oppressed.

So yeah, you're going to have exactly the same obstructionism going towards this, while you also have Cambridge now (reasonably) demanding that the plan include them.

[Acitta]

I kind of want the Region to go "Okay, if you don't want an LRT, then we'll just move to planning Phase 3" and I bet you'd see something for University or Victoria or Ottawa get planned and approved SO fast.

I would take that bet...

If we skipped phase 2 (which isn't necessarily the worst idea in terms of transit planning, but politically, completely untenable), yes, there are plans to put an LRT on one of those roads.

But if you think that the people in Kitchener are less curmudgeonly and NIMBYist than Cambridge, well...you're wrong. You only need to go to any meeting about any development to see just how obstructionist the people in the city can be. Yes Cambridge's arguments often circle around "Cambridge victimhood" which doesn't exist in Kitchener, but this type of obstructionism is simply based on what excuses one can come up with...older upper middle class white people have no end of reasons why they are being oppressed.

So yeah, you're going to have exactly the same obstructionism going towards this, while you also have Cambridge now (reasonably) demanding that the plan include them.

As an older, but not middle class white person, I feel oppressed by not being able to take the ION from Kitchener to Galt.

[Bytor]

Indeed. Tampere, Finland built their LRT (about 17 km, very similar to ours) and completed the project in 2021, two years after us. They are expecting to have a 7 km extension ready for operation by the end of this year ... and, yes, they are also dealine with bridges and grades, roughly as challenging as ours.

To be fair, part of our cost here in North America is that we just don't have the local/regional/national expertise for building rail like places in Europe do. It doesn't account for why Stage 2 has that horrible $4.5B eval rather than $1.5B, but it would explain the difference between $1.5B and $1.1B.

Even aside from the P3 to build and operate ION, almost none of the stuff before that was done by Regional Staff, but by hiring external consultants instead, so we didn't build any local expertise to put that into development and procurement for Stage 2 to keep the costs down. 

Currently, only one Region staffer is working on Stage 2, and whatever external consultants they let him hire, so we're not doing any better this time and will have no clue on how to reasonably reduce costs without reducing functionality.

[westwardloo]

Indeed. Tampere, Finland built their LRT (about 17 km, very similar to ours) and completed the project in 2021, two years after us. They are expecting to have a 7 km extension ready for operation by the end of this year ... and, yes, they are also dealine with bridges and grades, roughly as challenging as ours.

To be fair, part of our cost here in North America is that we just don't have the local/regional/national expertise for building rail like places in Europe do. It doesn't account for why Stage 2 has that horrible $4.5B eval rather than $1.5B, but it would explain the difference between $1.5B and $1.1B.

Even aside from the P3 to build and operate ION, almost none of the stuff before that was done by Regional Staff, but by hiring external consultants instead, so we didn't build any local expertise to put that into development and procurement for Stage 2 to keep the costs down. 

Currently, only one Region staffer is working on Stage 2, and whatever external consultants they let him hire, so we're not doing any better this time and will have no clue on how to reasonably reduce costs without reducing functionality.

This is a great point. We have a major lack of knowledge when it comes to transit infrastructure and expansion in Canada/ North America. It definitely doesn't help that we have some of the most stringent rail regulations in the world and just hire external consultants for everything.  I know the staffer, they are a really good person and a hard worker, but one staff member to planning a 4 billion dollar extension is pretty sad.

It's too bad liability is such a massive issue now a days and the Region is adamant about never becoming a constructor for legal reasons.  In a dream world we would have a full time construction crew of transit experts constantly building 1-2 km of transit lines per year with a mandate for 1 station to come online each year. It would be a rock first couple years, but with in half a decade we would have