ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[MidTowner]

I have long thought that they should have started a mini service with just a single vehicle shuttling back and forth between UW campus and Uptown on a single track. I think that would have cut the legs out from under a lot of the nonsense that was spewed about LRT — there can still be differences of opinion, some of them even legitimate, but a lot of the outright incorrect facts wouldn’t have been tenable. Of course I’m aware the overhead costs for a single-vehicle service are rather large.

That routing, in particular, would be extremely student-heavy (I know our entire transit system is). Almost no non-students would ride it, and the LRT naysayers would quickly label it a "student shuttle" and, no matter how successful it would be, they would claim that people who can afford to buy cars just won't take transit.

I think the beauty of the Ion's routing is that it serves several different kinds of areas and populations. It's going to be great to see the diversity of ridership on different parts of the line, and prove that we can be a strong transit community.

I'm with you and Canard, though, that offering some service along the Spur would be great, even if it's just weekends or one day a week or whatever is feasible. It would be nice for potential riders to go check it out, see how fast it's going to travel and how comfortable it is, and get used to seeing it running.

[Canard]

I bet if they get the spur ready this summer, and we get at least 1 train from Bombardier for testing, we could have weekend trial runs for passengers without too much difficulty. One or two stations would have to be kitted out (I suggested Northfield since its closest to the OMSF, where the trains sleep). Maybe just one, since then they could just run south to Bearanger and turn back, eliminating any level crossing interfaces (ie, getting the bells running at Bearanger). This would be the simplest.

When the SkyTrain did trial runs for passengers, they just drove it in manual mode with no signalling or anything.

I suppose the lawyers and insurance people would be the biggest hurdle - the whole "safe for public use" thing etc. It may not be worth their while, and since it's a P3, GrandLinq may say no because there's nothing in it for them except risk of delaying other elements of resources are diverted to spur operations for joyrides.

[insider]

He hasn't exactly established his claimed status, has he. It's easy to go online and claim you know something, and then not share any information.

ha... ok sure.

Anyway, from someone directly involved in ION's construction, but still a rumour, word on the street is that Grandlinq expects to surprise everyone with an earlier opening date: April 2017

But as I said, it's a RUMOUR - before you all eat me alive. And yes, I know stuff, and no, my nickname is not arbitrary but many times I just can't share as much information as I would like. When things are confidential and you spill the beans it's very easy to find out who it was, so I just prefer to protect myself. Sorry, not sorry

[Canard]

GrandLinq might be finished up their end in April 2017, sure - but as I've mentioned before, testing will take 6-9 months of train movements. So you can back-calculate from that...

We will not be riding full service on ion in April 2017. There's just no way. Victoria/King and Waterloo aren't going to wrap up until the end of 2016, so April 2017 is just four months past that.

I really, really hope you're right, though! I would much prefer the opening ceremony is held in spring/summer than winter. I hate the idea of balloons and streamers and a band playing in the snow.

[Canard]

To clarify: the April 2017 completion date you've heard could have always been that, and hasn't moved. April + 6 months of agresive testing puts opening at Fall of 2017, right on time.

[Markster]

To clarify: the April 2017 completion date you've heard could have always been that, and hasn't moved. April + 6 months of agresive testing puts openig at Fall of 2017, right on time.

Yeah, this seems likely.  Substantial completion for April 2017.
Testing beginning on the spur before then, and then citywide through the summer.
Optimistically opening to the public for September service changes.  (and that crush of students every year)

[KevinL]

I'm sure the Region's sweet spot is the Labour Day weekend, their standard date for implementing transit changes since time immemorial.

[Elmira Guy]

Region residents weigh in on proposed Ion LRT Stage 2 routes

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/kitch...-1.3492032

[Viewfromthe42]

A lot of "let's save costs by avoiding these areas" (Hespeler/Eagle) followed by "let's add in many other stops, including some egregiously expensive ones." (Preston)

[timc]

A lot of "let's save costs by avoiding these areas" (Hespeler/Eagle) followed by "let's add in many other stops, including some egregiously expensive ones." (Preston)

I didn't see "let's save costs" in there. It was more like "nobody lives on Hespeler, so why should the LRT go there?" and "keep the BRT on Hespeler and run the LRT through Preston".

I wonder what percentage of the respondents were from Preston.

[Canard]

I'm from Kitchener, and both my husband and I left our input with the Preston route.  If your primary objective is moving people, that's a no brainer. Every time we drive through Preston, I think about how European it would feel with a tram running down the centre of it, picking up and dropping off people. They could really use the uplift.

However, the primary objective, sadly, is not moving people - the primary objective is development.  So the region told the RT team they're not allowed to touch the 24 alignment; it absolutely must go down 24/Hespeler road.  How it enters at Pinebush and exits at Delta is up for debate, but that's 100% set-in-stone.

A shame, really.

[MidTowner]

There’s no one to advocate for the 24 routing because nobody does live there. It’s true that development seems to be at least as big a part of the goal as ridership. Moving people in the future, rather than moving people today.

I can see this, actually. The ridership on the 200 between south Kitchener and Cambridge probably doesn’t justify LRT: frequent bus service would be able to serve those riders. But, if we need to extend Ion to Cambridge (and we do), we might as well leverage an LRT’s ability to spur development. The place where that can happen is along Hespeler.

[Viewfromthe42]

A lot of "let's save costs by avoiding these areas" (Hespeler/Eagle) followed by "let's add in many other stops, including some egregiously expensive ones." (Preston)

I didn't see "let's save costs" in there. It was more like "nobody lives on Hespeler, so why should the LRT go there?" and "keep the BRT on Hespeler and run the LRT through Preston".

I wonder what percentage of the respondents were from Preston.

"Minimize conflicts with CP and grade separation" speaks to going to the Hespeler/Eagle intersection. You have to cross rail twice just to hit that intersection, very costly.

The discussion I heard when attending, regarding Preston, was the desire for a stop right before the line heads East on Eagle. Putting a stop there, with the grade and curve and waterway issues, would be the most expensive stop on the entire line, even beyond the grade separation at King and Victoria, according to the professionals in attendance. Those same residents were also very unmoved by being able to walk to alternate stops, proposed or possible, in relatively similar timelines, with the goal of not having an egregiously expensive stop, and equally against seeing European-style development by following King down through to the Delta.

It's because we have no one living on Hespeler that we can dream about turning a completely auto-dominated landscape of massive scale into a place oriented away from its main current purpose. I advocated for keeping LRT in as straight an alignment as possible down King/Coronation, and turning the aBRT into full on BRT with at least its own paint if not physically separated lanes on Hespeler, giving an east Cambridge option which would go north to the future development at Speedsville and Maple Grove, hooking west to sportsworld.

[ijmorlan]

I have long thought that they should have started a mini service with just a single vehicle shuttling back and forth between UW campus and Uptown on a single track. I think that would have cut the legs out from under a lot of the nonsense that was spewed about LRT — there can still be differences of opinion, some of them even legitimate, but a lot of the outright incorrect facts wouldn’t have been tenable. Of course I’m aware the overhead costs for a single-vehicle service are rather large.

That routing, in particular, would be extremely student-heavy (I know our entire transit system is). Almost no non-students would ride it, and the LRT naysayers would quickly label it a "student shuttle" and, no matter how successful it would be, they would claim that people who can afford to buy cars just won't take transit.

That’s actually a very good point I hadn’t considered. I guess the whole discussion is moot now that a full system is under construction, but you’re right that the ridership demographic of my pilot project idea would have been a political challenge. It would still show people how LRT really works physically, but it wouldn’t give the right idea of how it would fit into the city.

[GtwoK]

Seems like Erb is undergoing some night utility work because of extensive lane closures. Anyone know if the right turn segment / island from Caroline onto Erb Westbound is being included with Ion construction, or is that part of the Bridgeport / Erb / Albert rework in a few years?