GO Transit

[plam]

I’ve always thought that a west side Boardwalk station could work as well. The land is there and The Boardwalk already is one of the biggest transit hubs. Move the bus terminal off of Glasgow and there would be a well integrated connection.  This would definitely serve more park and ride commuters but it it could also lead to some more intensification of the boardwalk.

I mean, sure...but like all GO things, this puts the car before the horse...or rather the parking lot before everything.

I.e., building it at boardwalk would be done because there's tons of space for parking, instead of because there's a good land use plan in place to develop lots of dense urban fabric around the station.

I.e., the opposite of what GO says they want to do, and also the opposite of good transit planning practice.

Yeah, it's unclear to me that boardwalk could be intensified without some major redesigning. This doesn't really make sense as a node for intensification.

[westwardloo]

I mean, sure...but like all GO things, this puts the car before the horse...or rather the parking lot before everything.

I.e., building it at boardwalk would be done because there's tons of space for parking, instead of because there's a good land use plan in place to develop lots of dense urban fabric around the station.

I.e., the opposite of what GO says they want to do, and also the opposite of good transit planning practice.

Yeah, it's unclear to me that boardwalk could be intensified without some major redesigning. This doesn't really make sense as a node for intensification.

Which is really just a symptom of poor planning by the city of waterloo, city of kitchener and the Region. The Boardwalk could have been a great little node at the edge of town, if it was planned correctly from the get go. The area could have easily been a mixed use development centred around a public square close to the railtrack in anticipation of a Kitchener west GO train. This probably would have put the station on the Provinces lists for potential stations if we had planned for it from the beginning. Instead we went for a slightly upgraded big box store "power centre" with a bunch of office buildings. unfortunately the boardwalk was planned horribly from the start and is almost impossible to correct without a significant investment.

[tomh009]

The Boardwalk could have been a great little node at the edge of town, if it was planned correctly from the get go. The area could have easily been a mixed use development centred around a public square close to the railtrack in anticipation of a Kitchener west GO train. This probably would have put the station on the Provinces lists for potential stations if we had planned for it from the beginning. Instead we went for a slightly upgraded big box store "power centre" with a bunch of office buildings. unfortunately the boardwalk was planned horribly from the start and is almost impossible to correct without a significant investment.

Was it actually planned? I thought that the lands were zoned for commercial, and private developers decided what to build there--which is how most cities in North America get built up.

And any reasonable GO service was far away in the distance (and not even committed) when the Boardwalk construction started 15 years ago.

[ijmorlan]

Was it actually planned? I thought that the lands were zoned for commercial, and private developers decided what to build there--which is how most cities in North America get built up.

And any reasonable GO service was far away in the distance (and not even committed) when the Boardwalk construction started 15 years ago.

Given the extent to which the planning department, through the zoning code, micro-manages development, it’s absurd that considerations like the GO service weren’t included in the planning.

The zoning code specifically mentions picture framing and makes a distinction between detached and semi-detached homes, with some zones forbidding one and others forbidding the other, but there is no requirement to actually plan for the future of the City.

Fail. We’d be better with repealing about half of the zoning code.

[danbrotherston]

The Boardwalk could have been a great little node at the edge of town, if it was planned correctly from the get go. The area could have easily been a mixed use development centred around a public square close to the railtrack in anticipation of a Kitchener west GO train. This probably would have put the station on the Provinces lists for potential stations if we had planned for it from the beginning. Instead we went for a slightly upgraded big box store "power centre" with a bunch of office buildings. unfortunately the boardwalk was planned horribly from the start and is almost impossible to correct without a significant investment.

Was it actually planned? I thought that the lands were zoned for commercial, and private developers decided what to build there--which is how most cities in North America get built up.

And any reasonable GO service was far away in the distance (and not even committed) when the Boardwalk construction started 15 years ago.

Whether GO was envisioned or not, transit was envisioned (after all, there is a transit centre built there).

The "planning" is the zoning, and the parking minimums, etc. But yeah, even today we'd built the the same trash, so it's no surprised that 15 years ago, the zoning mandated a massive power centre instead of like...literally any other built form.

[tomh009]

Fail. We’d be better with repealing about half of the zoning code.

Yes. The zoning is a huge mess and should be massively simplified--in almost every city on this continent. No disagreement on that!

[Momo26]

Man we can certainly dream.

I need to bust out a huge map on a wall and start planning out ideal routes.


Wasn't the now-scrapped like 1 or 2 a day LONDON TO UNION 2h30m marathon trains running through Stratford station? Or am I thinking Woodstock?

[nms]

I forget the timeline, but was the Boardwalk not proposed before the first GO train even rolled into Kitchener? Given planning timeliness, and when the land was purchased, it was unlikely that the developer would have been bound by any kind of rules that might have had anything to do with urban planning guidelines around transit and/or intensification. I don't think that Kitchener, Waterloo or the Region had and ability to direct how the land was developed when the proposals were first brought forward.

[danbrotherston]

Man we can certainly dream. 

I need to bust out a huge map on a wall and start planning out ideal routes.


Wasn't the now-scrapped like 1 or 2 a day LONDON TO UNION  2h30m marathon trains running through Stratford station? Or am I thinking Woodstock?

The GO train you mean?  It took more like 4 hours to London from Union and yes it went through Stratford.

[ac3r]

Man we can certainly dream. 

I need to bust out a huge map on a wall and start planning out ideal routes.

Once you pull out a map, you can really have fun imagining hypothetical routes or even improvements to current ones. It would be so easy to revolutionize transit for the early 21st century.

But...because the zeitgeist of our nation hasn't really put much emphasis on this, we fall short. While on the other hand we can look at nations such as Nigeria, People's Republic of China, India, Vietnam and so on with envy these days. But over here it really goes to show you how little our leaders care about us. There's no sense of pride to formulate nation building like we achieved in the past. It's also the perfect opportunity as well, since the airline industry is struggling and the cost of everything has been going way up. If we had any sensibility we'd begin a project to electrify our railroad lines across Canada as well as invest heavily in urban light or heavy rail transit.

It's a shame we made is so absurdly challenging to achieve any of that, however.

[tomh009]

But...because the zeitgeist of our nation hasn't really put much emphasis on this, we fall short. While on the other hand we can look at nations such as Nigeria, People's Republic of China, India, Vietnam and so on with envy these days. But over here it really goes to show you how little our leaders care about us.

A few of the reasons why it's easy to build rail networks in countries such as the above are that (1) there is little need to worry about expropriating private property, and (2) there is little need to worry about losing the next election just because you did something not super popular. It's not a whole story, but those are real differences.

[danbrotherston]

But...because the zeitgeist of our nation hasn't really put much emphasis on this, we fall short. While on the other hand we can look at nations such as Nigeria, People's Republic of China, India, Vietnam and so on with envy these days. But over here it really goes to show you how little our leaders care about us.

A few of the reasons why it's easy to build rail networks in countries such as the above are that (1) there is little need to worry about expropriating private property, and (2) there is little need to worry about losing the next election just because you did something not super popular. It's not a whole story, but those are real differences.

Lmao. No kidding. It’s hilarious to think that leaders in less democratic countries care more about the people in those countries. In fact our leaders care more about what we think than they should. The real problem is that the median voter is a petrified coward afraid of the slightest change.

[KevinL]

A first-past-the-post voting system doesn't help either, as that leads to a small number of large parties where control regularly fully swings between them. Something more proportional would foster a larger number of smaller parties, usually making governments in coalitions, meaning power transfers more gradually, and long-term projects are more feasible.

[Bytor]

Re that Breslau station...that would be new last stop correct? Or come before Kitchener?

No. It will be a new intermediate stop. Why would they make it the terminus and remove service from DTK?

And I agree the Cambridge connect you to Guelph seems a bit silly. I always felt Cambridge connecting to Milton made more sense.

Can't do that if CP won't agree, and they're not fans of passenger rail and known to be difficult to work with. In any case, Cambridge to Guelph would probably get you to Union Station sooner than Cambridge to Milton, especially if Metrolinx keeps improving the line over time.

And for the love of all things good...make KIT line two way go AND weekend service. I don't even care if it isn't all day to start. + more express. Shave that bad boy down to 1h15 and watch the ridership grow more...

That has been the plan for a decade.

Wynne Liberals promised 2WADGO to Kitchener 10 years in 2014, then silently pushed it to 2025.

Ford vaguely promised "sooner" during the 2018 campaign, but then proceeded to suspend improvements for nearly 2 years (except for the contrast that had already been awarded and were in progress). Since then communiqués from the Ford Government have vaguely referred to both the 10 years since 2014 promise and to 2025, flip-flopping back and forth, putting out a few business case draft documents, but has never officially said "OK, we're doing this set of stuff from the business case option X".

Whether the Ford Government will actually get it done with 2WADGO in place by December 2025 at the latest remains to be seen.

[Bytor]

Move the bus terminal off of Glasgow and there would be a well integrated connection.

What bus terminal on Glasgow do you mean?