King-Victoria Transit Hub

[neonjoe]

There's some drilling going on today, but one truck belongs to A&B Rail so I'm unsure if it's related to this project or if they're just doing something else.

Probably got to show some progress before DoFo comes to town in Sept for his rally!

[ac3r]

Regional councillors approve $19.75 million land deal for new transit hub: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/the-missing...-1.6758684

Hopefully a sign that they'll get to work on this.

[Square]

So this might start?, Phase 1 anyway. lol

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....2055a22fc3

[westwardloo]

So this might start?, Phase 1 anyway. lol

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....2055a22fc3

haha Phase 1 is costing more than they originally budgeted for the whole site and all we are getting is a bus loop, shelters and a pedestrian bridge. Oh and we have to preserve a "Heritage" structure because apparently the rumplefelt building is architecturally significant to our region. The kicker is this phase is expected to take 4 years haha. 

Phase 2 will cost us 200 million by the time they get funding. It will provide no retail space, no housing, no commercial space and no covered platforms. It probably won't be constructed until 2030.   

This project was a great idea horribly implemented by the Regions "Engineers".

[danbrotherston]

So this might start?, Phase 1 anyway. lol

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....2055a22fc3

haha Phase 1 is costing more than they originally budgeted for the whole site and all we are getting is a bus loop, shelters and a pedestrian bridge. Oh and we have to preserve a "Heritage" structure because apparently the rumplefelt building is architecturally significant to our region. The kicker is this phase is expected to take 4 years haha. 

Phase 2 will cost us 200 million by the time they get funding. It will provide no retail space, no housing, no commercial space and no covered platforms. It probably won't be constructed until 2030.   

This project was a great idea horribly implemented by the Regions "Engineers".

At this rate by 2040 it's going to cost us a million dollars to re-stripe a bike lane.

[neonjoe]

This is for the stuff surrounding Metrolinx portion of the project which I would assume needs to be done first or at least at the same time.
Theirs includes anything in the rail corridor such as the platforms and the Waterloo St active underpass..

[the_conestoga_guy]

Small update on this project. It appears that Metrolinx is expecting to begin their RFP process "Upcoming Q4 2024".

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/uploa...y_2024.pdf

[SF22]

Small update on this project. It appears that Metrolinx is expecting to begin their RFP process "Upcoming Q4 2024".

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/uploa...y_2024.pdf

The work as described in the document: 
King Victoria Transit Hub: Construction of a GO station that is part of multi-modal transportation hub in the Waterloo Region Construction of track realignment, station platforms, tunnels and associated civil works to support a Region-led initiative for a new multi-modal transit hub in Waterloo Region.

There are also separate listings for track, bridge and platform work to be done in Guelph, and track/signals work in Acton.

Related: I would really love to see street/track grade separation done at the Bingeman Centre Dr and Lancaster St crossings (much like what was done at Weber St back in 2014-ish) so that the trains can carry a faster speed into the city and trim a couple extra minutes off the travel time, but also because I think it would allow for GRT to run buses down Lancaster and connect through to Victoria, to improve north-south connectivity. I imagine that they won't do it right now because that crossing closes for extended periods of time when they're moving cars around the rail yard, and the buses would never run at reliable times.

[the_conestoga_guy]

Small update on this project. It appears that Metrolinx is expecting to begin their RFP process "Upcoming Q4 2024".

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/uploa...y_2024.pdf

The work as described in the document: 
King Victoria Transit Hub: Construction of a GO station that is part of multi-modal transportation hub in the Waterloo Region Construction of track realignment, station platforms, tunnels and associated civil works to support a Region-led initiative for a new multi-modal transit hub in Waterloo Region.

There are also separate listings for track, bridge and platform work to be done in Guelph, and track/signals work in Acton.

Related: I would really love to see street/track grade separation done at the Bingeman Centre Dr and Lancaster St crossings (much like what was done at Weber St back in 2014-ish) so that the trains can carry a faster speed into the city and trim a couple extra minutes off the travel time, but also because I think it would allow for GRT to run buses down Lancaster and connect through to Victoria, to improve north-south connectivity. I imagine that they won't do it right now because that crossing closes for extended periods of time when they're moving cars around the rail yard, and the buses would never run at reliable times.

I definitely agree with the grade crossings, especially at Lancaster. I'd love to have an idea of what the Region's plan is for Victoria in the long-term once the new Highway 7 is constructed. It seems that the interchange on Wellington/Shirley will be treated as the "main" interchange for the centre of the city, and Victoria could receive a road diet with BRT lanes. So adding the grade separation at Lancaster will help to solve a bottleneck for moving traffic from downtown to the highways.

As for the Bingemans grade separation, I think it would be worth doing. But if costs force us to choose between the two, I'd take Lancaster 100% of the time.

[danbrotherston]

There's plans for something to happen at Lancaster, they were talking about it when I was there, but I don't expect it to be in a relevant time frame...decades probably.

[the_conestoga_guy]

There's plans for something to happen at Lancaster, they were talking about it when I was there, but I don't expect it to be in a relevant time frame...decades probably.

Based on the Region's budget, it appears that this is the last year that they're putting money towards the "Lancaster - Railway Grade Separation Study". I would expect that they won't make an official decision until after this study wraps up and is presented to council.

I'd love it if the Region was proactive about this sort of thing. This separation should be in place before the transit hub and the new highway 7 are completed. I could also see the fire department advocating for this separation since their trucks cross it regularly when leaving Station No. 2.

Page 50/159
https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/regio..._Book_.pdf

[ijmorlan]

Related: I would really love to see street/track grade separation done at the Bingeman Centre Dr and Lancaster St crossings (much like what was done at Weber St back in 2014-ish) so that the trains can carry a faster speed into the city and trim a couple extra minutes off the travel time, but also because I think it would allow for GRT to run buses down Lancaster and connect through to Victoria, to improve north-south connectivity. I imagine that they won't do it right now because that crossing closes for extended periods of time when they're moving cars around the rail yard, and the buses would never run at reliable times.

I would rather see the Lancaster St. crossing simply closed to motor vehicles, and the 2 new grade-separated crossings that are supposed to be built as part of the highway project completed. Just we sometimes build bridges in places where nobody crosses, sometimes the right way to deal with congestion in a location is to close that link and route the traffic elsewhere.

[tomh009]

I would rather see the Lancaster St. crossing simply closed to motor vehicles, and the 2 new grade-separated crossings that are supposed to be built as part of the highway project completed. Just we sometimes build bridges in places where nobody crosses, sometimes the right way to deal with congestion in a location is to close that link and route the traffic elsewhere.

What are the traffic counts like on Lancaster? My recollection from the time that I commuted along Lancaster was that it was fairly busy, but that's very much anecdotal.

Are you thinking to shift that traffic to Margaret?

[ijmorlan]

I would rather see the Lancaster St. crossing simply closed to motor vehicles, and the 2 new grade-separated crossings that are supposed to be built as part of the highway project completed. Just we sometimes build bridges in places where nobody crosses, sometimes the right way to deal with congestion in a location is to close that link and route the traffic elsewhere.

What are the traffic counts like on Lancaster? My recollection from the time that I commuted along Lancaster was that it was fairly busy, but that's very much anecdotal.

Are you thinking to shift that traffic to Margaret?

It’s only a 2 lane street from Union to Wellington, so it can feel busy without having a huge amount of traffic.

Let’s consider southbound traffic; northbound should be more or less the same but in reverse. Divide this traffic into vehicles originating north of the expressway, coming on to Lancaster from the expressway ramp, and vehicles originating south of the expressway in the neighbourhood. Also, we’ll assume the goal is to get to Victoria and Lancaster even though obviously it is actually headed to a wide range of destinations across downtown.

We will also assume the new link routes under the railway are built. These are, on the west side, from the southbound expressway offramp at Wellington, under the tracks and Victoria, linking up with Edna where the offramp does now; and on the east side from the northbound expressway onramp at Wellington, under the tracks, linking up with Bruce and Victoria. That’s why the building with Kitchener Glass was demolished.

Traffic from north of the expressway can take 3 different routes: (1) down Riverbend to Wellington, then across to one of the link roads; (2) across Bridgeport to the expressway, then down to Wellington and continuing on one of the link roads; (3) across Bridgeport to Margaret.

Traffic from the expressway can simply continue down to Wellington and on to the link roads rather than getting off at Lancaster.

Traffic from south of the expressway, in the neighbourhood, can avoid the Lancaster crossing of the tracks by going east to one of the link roads or by going one block west to St. Leger or two blocks west to Margaret.

I would also rename Otto St. to Margaret St. to help people understand that in practice Margaret St. goes all the way to Frederick and therefore provides access to all the same places Lancaster does in that area.

Overall, I feel confident about the above even without traffic counts, because one lane of traffic spread over all these different routes including the 2 new link roads simply isn’t enough to overload them all. In addition to solving the Victoria & Lancaster problem without building a grade separation, or at least not a motor vehicle grade separation, it would also take traffic off of Lancaster south of Victoria, which really isn’t an appropriate route at all for through traffic.

[tomh009]

Thanks for the detailed proposal!

One note I have is that surely the St Leger level crossing should be closed, too: otherwise we're just shifting the problem one street over from Lancaster--and onto a street that doesn't have a traffic light at Victoria, either.