ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[notmyfriends]

Happened to be at Breithaupt and Waterloo today and got a look at the lay of the land with the TPSS in place.

This is just not where this should be.  Ugh.

[Pheidippides]

Re-work at Allen station:
   
   

[KevinL]

How much broken and discarded concrete will this project create before it opens? Yeesh.

[Canard]

Good thing it's sort of like drywall. Yeah, it's the finish surface here but it's quick and cheap* to come up, and quick and cheap* to go down.

* - ...for the consortium. Remember: P3, so no cost whatsoever to The Region/"Taxpayers" (ew, I used the "T" word!)

[Pheidippides]

That is just the financial cost.

What are the costs environmentally through wasted resources (using more materials than needed, disposing of old materials, extra fossil fuels to install and cure the new, etc.) and socially (extra noise removing and installing, extra delays in additional closures).

[Canard]

I... I don't know.

...do we care/does that really matter to us in the grand scheme of things?

I mean, I'm all for environment and nature, believe me - but that just seems a bit overboard to try and calculate or put any weight into that.

[Markster]

I... I don't know.

I don't think anyone is expecting you to know. It's okay to not have all the answers!

...do we care/does that really matter to us in the grand scheme of things?

It's already clear that Pheidippides cares. Environmental impacts are a fine thing to understand. The cost is almost certainly worth it in the end. There's no need to sweep it under the rug.

[SammyOES2]

Its a tiny cost next to the cost of the whole project. Not that it makes it ok...

I'd say one of the biggest downsides of things like this is that it gives ammunition to all of the anti-X crowd (where X is LRT, Government, paying taxes, ....).

[KevinT]

Happened to be at Breithaupt and Waterloo today and got a look at the lay of the land with the TPSS in place.

This is just not where this should be.  Ugh.

How so?  I'll admit it's a bit weird that it's not right on the King St corridor, but my understanding is that there were no viable King St options available.  While this leaves Waterloo St too narrow to be called a street, that's no biggie as it's permanently closed at the tracks anyway.

[danbrotherston]

This is just not where this should be.  Ugh.

How so?  I'll admit it's a bit weird that it's not right on the King St corridor, but my understanding is that there were no viable King St options available.  While this leaves Waterloo St too narrow to be called a street, that's no biggie as it's permanently closed at the tracks anyway.

As I understand it, there were options available, they were just "expensive", and required environmental remediation.  Specifically, I think the original plan was to locate it along the mainline Metrolinx tracks behind the school of pharmacy building.  It's a great location, nobody will want to build there, it's behind everything and out of the way.  However, contamination was found on the site and in order to build on it, the contamination would have to be cleaned up.  So, they picked a far inferior site in order to save costs.

[tomh009]

It's not great, but is it really that much worse, though? As Kevin says, Waterloo St is a dead end. And I don't think anyone would have been building where the TPSS is now, either.

(I do hope they do some landscaping or something to hide/camouflage the TPSS, though.)

[danbrotherston]

It's not great, but is it really that much worse, though?  As Kevin says, Waterloo St is a dead end.  And I don't think anyone would have been building where the TPSS is now, either.

(I do hope they do some landscaping or something to hide/camouflage the TPSS, though.)

"dead end"....for cars.  It's supposed to have a pedestrian access to the new terminal, but the positioning of the TPSS has made that extremely difficult to achieve.  At best, there will be pedestrian access crammed between an ugly TPSS and a loading dock for the Google building, hardly an safe and inviting view, at worst, there just won't be pedestrian access.

[Canard]

It's already clear that Pheidippides cares.  Environmental impacts are a fine thing to understand. The cost is almost certainly worth it in the end. There's no need to sweep it under the rug.

I guess that's very true, Markster. I care about how the bogies are connected to the module frames on the LRVs themselves and all sorts of other minutiae that is totally uninteresting to others.

I'd never thought about the non-monetary costs of these kinds of things before, Pheidippides. I'll keep this in mind for future.  I apologize.

[Markster]

"dead end"....for cars.  It's supposed to have a pedestrian access to the new terminal, but the positioning of the TPSS has made that extremely difficult to achieve.  At best, there will be pedestrian access crammed between an ugly TPSS and a loading dock for the Google building, hardly an safe and inviting view, at worst, there just won't be pedestrian access.

Yeah, the fallout is already harming the possibility of a pedestrian crossing. They're pushing for an overpass instead of an underpass (which would be a mistake in my opinion) specifically because of the space constraints that the TPSS has introduced.

[tomh009]

"dead end"....for cars.  It's supposed to have a pedestrian access to the new terminal, but the positioning of the TPSS has made that extremely difficult to achieve.  At best, there will be pedestrian access crammed between an ugly TPSS and a loading dock for the Google building, hardly an safe and inviting view, at worst, there just won't be pedestrian access.

The space is reasonably wide for pedestrian-only access, far wider than a pair of broad downtown sidewalks, so not really "crammed" in my view.  If the alignment prevents the construction of the underpass, though, then I'll need to retract my comments.

Yes, the TPSS doesn't look nice at the moment, as I said.  Hopefully they are planning to do something about that.  If they won't do anything, I'll be disappointed.