ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[timc]

Edit: on the other hand, the investment in the station might make a Victoria line more logical. Where would a line on University meet the King line?

Maybe at Seagram?

[notmyfriends]

For connecting to the airport, don't you just run "something" from fairview straight to it?

[tomh009]

For connecting to the airport, don't you just run "something" from fairview straight to it?

That's right -- it's actually much closer to Fairview, 8 km vs 13 km.  iXpress (or BRT) from Fairview would connect with the LRT and the Cambridge BRT at a Fairview "mini-hub", and at a very reasonable cost.  A good suggestion!

[Canard]

   
Larger sections of the #DomeTube are going up over the King St. grade separation.

   
The structure is simply massive.

   

   

   
Temporary, climate-controlled structures are also being erected along Charles to permit trackwork to continue during the winter.

[Canard]

   
Tracks are installed and being aligned right around the Water/Charles intersection. Concrete pour soon!

   

   
Platform on the left. Is that the giant Manulife sign people were saying was ugly a few months ago? I think it looks great.

   

   

[ijmorlan]

I would like to see our second line (East/West) be Bombardier INNOVIA Monorail 300, running from Boardwalk out to the airport, along Victoria.  There would also be PRT circulators (ULTra) operating at Boardwalk, Sportsworld, and R&T Park.

Or we could just the same trains and stuff we already have... might be able to use the existing car barns and the same people for maintenance. The eastern half of Victoria has lots of room to run LRT tracks and the western part of Victoria where it's two lanes doesn't seem to have room for LRT or a monorail track without some serious modification of the entire street taking place. I think it will be a long while before this corridor has enough transit use to justify any kind of trains.

While it would be very cool to have a monorail in town, the transit system has to be a system — which means there has to be a very good reason for different parts of it to use different technologies. Each new technology introduces an additional set of maintenance and knowledge costs over and above the per kilometre costs. It also reduces flexibility because it is impossible for vehicles to travel between technologies.

This is actually the main reason why I am a big LRT fan. For any given project, there may be several appropriate technologies. But to cover a wide range of situations, I don’t believe you can do better than LRT. Once a city has one LRT line, it’s easier to add more, and this can be done even if the new lines are quite different, for example in capacity, or level of separation from traffic, or vertical elevation, or style of service (frequency, speed, stop spacing). All without introducing another technology.

[tomh009]

While it would be very cool to have a monorail in town, the transit system has to be a system — which means there has to be a very good reason for different parts of it to use different technologies. Each new technology introduces an additional set of maintenance and knowledge costs over and above the per kilometre costs. It also reduces flexibility because it is impossible for vehicles to travel between technologies.

This is actually the main reason why I am a big LRT fan. For any given project, there may be several appropriate technologies. But to cover a wide range of situations, I don’t believe you can do better than LRT. Once a city has one LRT line, it’s easier to add more, and this can be done even if the new lines are quite different, for example in capacity, or level of separation from traffic, or vertical elevation, or style of service (frequency, speed, stop spacing). All without introducing another technology.

This is the same reason why most airlines will standardize, on Airbus A320 series or Boeing 737 series, for example.  Purchasing power, pilot training, mechanic training, engine suppliers, parts inventory, other suppliers etc, are all in common -- not to mention easy flexibility to substitute equipment.  Much easier and much more cost-effective than using multiple different models (or technologies).

[SammyOES]

I never know if you guys are just dreaming (hitch is obviously totally fine and interesting) or actually think some of these things make sense.

A LRT line with regular and off peak service to the airport or Breslau is just not going to happen for decades, if ever.

It would be awesome (well, not from a financial point of view) but there's no way the demand would be anywhere close. Breslau doesn't even have a single bus route. And the reality is if you live in Breslau you probably own a car and it's not that painful to drive places - so the incentive to take public transportation isn't very big.

And the airport is nowhere close to having the demand to justify the cost for miles of extra track through a low density rural area. Not to mention It is easy to drive to and has excellent parking options.

[Canard]

I know, but I thought we were dreaming and just sharing our ideas, that's all.  I hope one day Breslau airport has 4 or so jetways and ~50 jet flights a day.  I think that'd be a really good size.  Basically, big enough that you could get a reasonable connection through somewhere else to anywhere in the world (I guess we have that already with ORD!).

Lots of cities have 2, 3 or more technologies (Toronto!*), but I see what you're getting at.  For an area like ours, you're right that it probably just makes the most sense to stick with what we chose and move forward with that.  I just wish it was a different technology.  My heart will never change on that one.  I guess I should have spoken up more at the planning meetings.  I'll be kicking myself for years that I didn't get up and do a presentation on some of the alternative technologies that other cities have had success with to at least be able to say "hey, I tried".

* - Toronto:
-Streetcar (1495 mm non-standard gauge, OCS power supply)
-Subway/Heavy Metro (1495 mm non-standard gauge, third rail power supply)
-ICTS/Light Metro (1435 standard gauge LIM propulsion + 3&4th rail power supply)
-Light Rail, under construction & all future lines (1435 standard gauge, OCS power supply)

None of these systems are interchangeable.  When heavy work has to be done on the rt vehicles (ICTS/Light Metro), they have to put them on a special flatbed rail car and haul them using conventional rail lines over to the yard on the East side of Toronto for subway vehicles.  Even their streetcars aren't 100% compatible - the new FLEXITY Outlook sets they're taking delivery of are being temporarily supplied with the trolley poles that their CLRV and ALRV fleet currently use, because their pantographs won't work with the existing streetcar OCS.  Once each line gets rid of all the CLRV and ALRV's, they're reworking the OCS Catenary so that they can use the Pantographs that the Outlooks have!

Alright, enough about that! In other news, if you ever feel like our project isn't doing so well, just go check out the ion Light Rail thread on UrbanToronto.  There are some really kind and positive comments coming our way from the folks from the Big Smoke.

[Canard]

Catpole foundations are in (finally!) in the yard at the OMSF. Looks like they're doing some initial ground prep work for yard track. Concrete pours inside the main hall have already happened for the track inside there.

[KevinL]

Further along is this structure that we've speculated on in the past. I'm still not sure what it's supposed to be.

Got a better look at it today, this looks to be an accessibility ramp to get to the east side of the building from King Street (given how the front lawn will be shortened). It looks like the driveway here will be removed as well; the front and rear parking will thus be severed.

[Canard]

Here are some shots from the OMSF up on Dutton.

   
I don't remember if the last time I was up if these round footers were in place.  At a first glance they look just like the OCS pole (Catpole) foundations along the rest of the line, but I'm also wondering if maybe these ones are just for overhead lighting (street lamps).  I suspect it's the latter.

   
This new controls electronic box sits just North of the site, on the East side of the tracks.

[KevinL]

The Charles track work is advancing enough that Gaukel is planned to be closed (if it hasn't been already). Buses will officially be detouring around that intersection from today until March 11.

[Canard]

Confirmation from the rapid transit team that the silver box (second photo of mine above) is a signal/controls box, not a Traction Power Sub-Station (TPSS).

[Markster]

The Charles track work is advancing enough that Gaukel is planned to be closed (if it hasn't been already). Buses will officially be detouring around that intersection from today until March 11.

I really like this. I'm looking forward to parts of Charles being substantially complete, when they can start opening it up fully. OCS installation may still be yet to come, but it will be mercufully quick after everything else that has occurred.