ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[DHLawrence]

So who pays the bill for fixing whatever happened, Grandlinq or GRT?

[KevinL]

GrandLinq, as ever. As they will be for the length of the 30-year contract.

[Canard]

..and this is the best part of P3. I wish this was better communicated to the public. This is truly a fixed-cost, turnkey thing.

[Viewfromthe42]

With the exception being the non-P3 part, the vehicles themselves. We got a discount by bundling with Metrolinx' order (being like, what, 10% or less of the total order? really brought the price down per car), so even overages related to Bombardier (which is outside the P3) have to be seen in that context, just as they should be seen in the context that council planned for a bunch of tax increases to pay for this, and no additional increases have been needed to swallow even these surprise extra costs.

[Bob_McBob]

Eating Well Organically (the business in the recent CTV interview) is now closing and the owner is heavily blaming the LRT.

[danbrotherston]

Eating Well Organically (the business in the recent CTV interview) is now closing and the owner is heavily blaming the LRT.

Wow, so many frustrating things with this.  

Still, if they can't sell organic home made food to the type of people who like to live an urban lifestyle, well, maybe it is time for new retail blood.

[MidTowner]

I also didn't understand how "home-made cookies" are incompatible with "high-rise condos."

Someone just the other day was telling me he was speaking to the owner of a sports store now closing its doors, and the owner was blaming LRT. He didn't seem to have any other factors he was blaming (though I am receiving this second-hand), and apparently claimed that the year before construction started was a banner year.

It's usually pointless to argue against things like some of the claims made in that letter. I do think it's sad to see businesses go under, though.

[Canard]

Crew was arriving for work at Borden/Charles today as of 7:45am.

[urbd]

So, no more testing has happened after last week's at Northfield/Conestoga?

[SammyOES]

I have good friends with a small business and every 5 years for a store they seriously re-evaluate what they're going to do with that store because they're always looking at 5-year leases that are a real commitment.

I know construction is hard for businesses like this. And I'm sure prices are going up for everything (including property taxes, rent, and electricity). But there's almost certainly a lot being left out and ignored to try and score political points against things they don't like. Running a business like that is a lot of hard work - and signing up for another 5 years at age 65 isn't something a lot of people will do for a lot of reasons not covered in that letter.

[KevinT]

But there's almost certainly a lot being left out and ignored to try and score political points against things they don't like.  Running a business like that is a lot of hard work - and signing up for another 5 years at age 65 isn't something a lot of people will do for a lot of reasons not covered in that letter.

Well said!

[Canard]

Those were more or less my shower thoughts this morning (as well as remembering the configuration of the ropeway winches for the Big Chute Marine Railway). Much more elegantly put than I could have.

[creative]

I’ve never run my own business so I don’t feel that I am qualified to comment on someone else’s circumstance who has been doing this so for a long period of time.

“Still, if they can't sell organic home made food to the type of people who like to live an urban lifestyle, well, maybe it is time for new retail blood.”

Just plain cold and thoughtless.

[danbrotherston]

I’ve never run my own business so I don’t feel that I am qualified to comment on someone else’s circumstance who has been doing this so for a long period of time.

“Still, if they can't sell organic home made food to the type of people who like to live an urban lifestyle, well, maybe it is time for new retail blood.”

Just plain cold and thoughtless.

"cold" sure..."thoughtless"...not at all.  Business environments have changed, but it's very clear that the growing demographic trends in uptown are MORE interested in organic locally sourced food, not less.  For goodness sakes, there've been dozens of newspaper articles written about how that trend is killing x or y or z.

So, am I being cold, absolutely I am.  I'm frustrated and so entirely done with people who will simply slag the LRT for no reason, and blame all their troubles on it.

But it's not thoughtless.

[creative]

She states a long list of reasons for closing her business that included the LRT construction and loss of parking convenient to her store. But you obviously know more about her business than she does.