ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Pheidippides]

What they mean is that it doesn't fit with their profit margins. GrandLinq signed a contract saying they would build X, Y, Z for ~$800 million dollars. If they aren't going to build Z because it isn't in the budget then they should still have to build it and pay for it themselves. I thought that was one of the supposed benefits of the PPP?

   
   
   
   

[Pheidippides]

Victoria Park anchor wall:
   
   

[ijmorlan]

This is why I am always on the hammer about safety around trains - any type. This is new to us here. People are going to do stupid stuff and they're going to get hurt, unless we get the word out now and try our best to make people aware of the hazards.

Just last weekend I was biking along Father David Bauer next to the Perimeter Institute and I see two people cluelessly walking down the tracks, inside the fence.

How do you know they are clueless? Maybe they know that the freight travels only at night and even then only at a moderate speed, and that only one LRV is on property and it is not yet mobile.

At the same time I agree that people should get in the habit of using the path. But you would make a better point if you concentrated on behaviour that unambiguously evidences a lack of understanding of the risks.

[kps]

Nice light in Constructionville this evening.

   

   

[Canard]

Absolutely gorgeous shots, kps - thanks for sharing!

[tomh009]

Nice light in Constructionville this evening.

Wow.  I saw the light from our condo but I confess that I was too tired to take advantage of it.  Thanks for the great shots!

[Rainrider22]

Nice light in Constructionville this evening.

Just awesome  Well done Sir !!

[Viewfromthe42]

The Victoria Park station anchor wall is starting to look like its immediate surroundings: indistinguishable and without life. Depending on what happens at that corner, this will be one heck of a gateway to Carl Zehr Square and Victoria Park.

[Canard]

I can't tell if that's a positive or negative comment. The stone looks a little bland to me. I'm a bit disappointed that Northfield, Seagram and now Victoria Park all look almost exactly the same.

Neat idea to use the stone, but the execution didn't really match the concept, I'm afraid.

[KevinL]

I think this is quite distinctive from Laurier - this has a swirly grey stone, there it is more of a striped brown.

I haven't seen Northfield up close yet.

[SammyOES2]

What they mean is that it doesn't fit with their profit margins. GrandLinq signed a contract saying they would build X, Y, Z for ~$800 million dollars. If they aren't going to build Z because it isn't in the budget then they should still have to build it and pay for it themselves. I thought that was one of the supposed benefits of the PPP?

I don't know the details of this particular case, but in general these types of contracts are super complicated and ambiguous in a lot of different ways.

In general, it's to neither party's benefit to try to be stubborn about everything in the contract.  It needs to be a give-and-take process.

[Canard]

It wasn't up to GrandLinq. They were happy to do it.

[trainspotter139]

What they mean is that it doesn't fit with their profit margins. GrandLinq signed a contract saying they would build X, Y, Z for ~$800 million dollars. If they aren't going to build Z because it isn't in the budget then they should still have to build it and pay for it themselves. I thought that was one of the supposed benefits of the PPP?

The cost isn't necessarily the biggest issue. It's more of an issue with how long it would take to implement. The reality is, for the features included in the contract it would take a significant amount of time to develop the software to control the LED logos. Not to mention the only good way that they could test it would be to have a large number of vehicles running up and down the entire line. Controlling the brightness of the lighting in a way that doesn't cause sudden, drastic changes in brightness isn't as simple as the binary logic that powers the "NO TURN TRAIN" signals that are popping up all over the line. Those signals use a simple binary logic like "Does a train occupy this block?" whereas controlling the brightness smoothly would be more of "Where is the next train? How far away is that train (x)? This station is y units away from the previous station. b = (x / y)  * 100. if b < minBrightness  then b = minBrightness . Set brightness at this station to b %. Repeat."

[Canard]

That's not even close to the reason why it's not happening. Your technical explanation of why it's hard doesn't hold water. Just have a trigger point ~30 seconds upstream and program into the Anchor Wall's PLC (yes, there's one at the base) to ramp a PWM profile for the light up, or down, on a timer. It might reach full brightness 3 seconds early - who cares.

As I have said before the reason why it is not happening is not technical in nature.

[KevinL]

I'm afraid if you're not able to tell us the true reason we're left grasping at straws. Safety? Regulatory? Aesthetic? Supernatural? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty baffled.