ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

And these were the people who were creating a $700+ million dollar decision, without any care or thought to anyone who may have been negatively affected by such construction of the LRT, in an unneeded way.  Had these people paid any attention to detail, any attention to the people living in that area, and had any ability to put themselves into other peoples shoes, this pedestrian crossing would have been put in place before testing of the LRT and before the fence was installed. It would have been part of the design.

I realize that this sounds blunt, but that's exactly what this was, and is. But the people who were heading this, that 'cream of the crop', goes home every night, in their luxury automobile, to their large homes, because they really didn't care.

I'm not bitter of these, I drive a car, own my home, have a .gov job, though not close to 'elite' level. I just feel that once again, those in charge, failed to do their job properly, and at something that most clowns would have thought of.

I think you are making a lot of assumptions about both the salary of and motivations of the people who designed the system.

I have too have little respect for the transportation specialists in the civil engineer field at this point, but I don't feel it's fair to accuse any individual people of negligence, or a lack of attention to detail, this is a systemic issue, not an individual issue.

And to point at them and call them "the elite" and driving in "luxury automobiles to their large homes because they really didn't care" seems to be an entirely unjustified and unearned personal attack--while I'm sure that the head architects of these companies make a great deal of money, they are also not the ones who design the details you're talking about, and I fully believe that the vast majority of the thousands of individuals involved do care about their jobs.



As for the crossing, there is no excuse for not installing a level crossing (as a level crossing is both appropriate and better than a bridge) within days of the transfer to regional ownership--I don't know how many contractors are capable of installing railway crossing equipment, but clearly we have a few in the region...they should have equipment ordered and waiting.

The justification that grandlinq owns it, is a weak and bureaucratic excuse, but unfortunately, probably hard to overcome, but the moment that is not true, it should be done, no excuse for waiting.

[Canard]

Utter nonsense.

https://www.operationlifesaver.ca/

[ijmorlan]

At 70 km/h there is a safety issue regardless. Not everyone has the ability to apply logic to cross after a train has passed and what if there is a train coming from the other direction at a few moments later? Children may be crossing alone. Some people are disabled and don't move as fast as you do. Others have difficulty with their vision. Blanket statements that you can 'see when they will be there' don't work for everyone using the crossing.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t install crossing protection. I’m just saying that crossing the tracks is safer than crossing many streets, including ones where an official trail crosses the street without protection.

[ijmorlan]

Utter nonsense.

https://www.operationlifesaver.ca/

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. I’m aware of that web site, and it is on the whole a good one. In particular, people should not play on train tracks, and this is a message that needs to be promoted because there are locations that are dangerous if one doesn’t realize that a train might actually come.

That has little to do with the question at hand, however, which is the comparison between the danger of crossing a road with lots of traffic and the danger of crossing 2 LRT tracks with a train every few minutes with good visibility.

Frankly, I think the root of our disagreement here is that for some reason you refuse to actually think about rail safety, instead retreating to blind application of rules. Easy to do for somebody who, like me, is rich enough to have a car and be able to spend time blathering on an online forum such as this. Meanwhile, the people affected by the unconscionable failure of the Region and Grandlinq to build appropriate crossing infrastructure have done what they need to do to live their daily lives. At present (and future planned) traffic levels what they are doing is not unsafe, and is probably safer than walking a long way around right next to busy roads full of idiot drivers. Many of these people are probably working 3 minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet, so those of us who are fortunate enough to have middle-class salaried jobs should be slow to judge.

I’ll add that I thought the CTV coverage was actually pretty good. The people they interviewed clearly had thought about the safety implications. One said that they look both ways before crossing, and another was concerned about somebody tripping and injuring themselves on the tracks. With the current state of the crossing, tripping-related injuries are probably a bigger hazard than being hit by a train.

[jeffster]

I think you are making a lot of assumptions about both the salary of and motivations of the people who designed the system.

I have too have little respect for the transportation specialists in the civil engineer field at this point, but I don't feel it's fair to accuse any individual people of negligence, or a lack of attention to detail, this is a systemic issue, not an individual issue.

And to point at them and call them "the elite" and driving in "luxury automobiles to their large homes because they really didn't care" seems to be an entirely unjustified and unearned personal attack--while I'm sure that the head architects of these companies make a great deal of money, they are also not the ones who design the details you're talking about, and I fully believe that the vast majority of the thousands of individuals involved do care about their jobs.



As for the crossing, there is no excuse for not installing a level crossing (as a level crossing is both appropriate and better than a bridge) within days of the transfer to regional ownership--I don't know how many contractors are capable of installing railway crossing equipment, but clearly we have a few in the region...they should have equipment ordered and waiting.

The justification that grandlinq owns it, is a weak and bureaucratic excuse, but unfortunately, probably hard to overcome, but the moment that is not true, it should be done, no excuse for waiting.

I would suggest in that someone in this entire group of people that designed, approved and built the LRT brought up the design flaw (that is, no crossing(s) along the old hydro corridor), but they were likely discounted for bringing it up.

Let's just say that I've worked long enough in .gov to understand how many, many, many "simpletons" are ignored because 'they don't get it' when in reality, it was senior staff that 'didn't get it'. I won't give an example that I was very familiar with, as I don't want to ID anyone, good or bad. But the short of it was this, staff with the 'hands-on' experience were ignored by staff that had their doctorate (Ph.D.) in engineering. Who was right? Well, it wasn't the one with a Ph.D.

I think there were three main reasons why no thought (by those in charge) was given to this. 1) They simply didn't care, or they were too lazy to do comprehensive research to make an informed decision. 2) Crossing the hydro corridor was technically illegal, trespassing, so too bad. 3) The desire to come close to budget.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that when this issue was brought up, they would have come up with point 2 and 3. It was trespassing before so no, and it will affect the budget.

Reminds me of this quote: The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

[Bureaucromancer]

I'd agree with the above. I seem to recall folks around here saying that about trespassing a couple years back. With much the same time as those who, quite aptly, "refuse to actually think about rail safety".

[Markster]

Frankly, I think the root of our disagreement here is that for some reason you refuse to actually think about rail safety, instead retreating to blind application of rules.

I think you go too far here. Canard is clearly thinking about safety. Just in a different way from you. No need to claim they aren't.

I agree with ijmorlan that the Operation Lifesaver stuff goes over the top. You'd think that all trains are stealth machines traveling at HSR speeds on any track at any time.
Rails should be seen as another road, with a different kind of vehicle. A vehicle that may be much more infrequent, but absolutely will not stop for you. It's a different kind of dangerous from a vehicular road, but we made tradeoffs about danger every time we cross one of those too.

[KevinL]

The 'it was always trespass before' point should not be discounted. At no point along the Fairway side of the corridor was there, or even is there now, a public access point that could be indicated as a need for connection. As every lot along that entire run is private, any planner or engineer would rightly default to enclosing it with an impassible fence and considering the job done.

It has taken a higher awareness of the situation, of how those informal, technically-illegal passages of the past were not only convenient but vital for the adjoining neighbourhood, for this to come to the level where it is now. This is certainly a wider condemnation of how commercial space is permitted to develop and crowd out public facilities, but that is at the feet of our broader society and not at the planners of this system specifically.

[Lens]

I wouldn't go that far. There were plenty of places where openings in the fences we specifically created by the property owners for people to be able to walk through onto their property.

[plam]

The 'it was always trespass before' point should not be discounted. At no point along the Fairway side of the corridor was there, or even is there now, a public access point that could be indicated as a need for connection. As every lot along that entire run is private, any planner or engineer would rightly default to enclosing it with an impassible fence and considering the job done.

It has taken a higher awareness of the situation, of how those informal, technically-illegal passages of the past were not only convenient but vital for the adjoining neighbourhood, for this to come to the level where it is now. This is certainly a wider condemnation of how commercial space is permitted to develop and crowd out public facilities, but that is at the feet of our broader society and not at the planners of this system specifically.

Yes. If they were working from maps they wouldn't see it. They would have to work from sat photos, which may not be part of their workflow, or as jeffster points out, the designers may have gotten overruled by people who only looked at the maps.

I'll generally ascribe good intentions to people unless there is specific reason to think that they are malicious.

[jeffster]

I think what would have been really great along here would have been a stop close to the Food Basics (so almost behind Partsource). That's one thing I didn't understand, as there aren't a lot of stops, at least in Kitchener, close to any supermarkets.

I was looking at an older satellite image and there seemed to be two trails, one right by McDonald's, and the other close to Michaels. The one at Michaels seems to have a sidewalk going in between two houses, perhaps put there by one of the property owners.

I only say Partsource/Fresh Burrito because, at that location, you could put a sidewalk in between the two apartment units on Traynor and also one between Partsource and Fresh Burrito. You're avoiding most vehicular traffic. Right in front Partsource and Fresh Burrito are a set of traffic lights, with pedestrian right of way. This is the main entrance to Food Basic (that has a pharmacy) and the LCBO, Dollarama, and Petsmart.

[danbrotherston]

I think what would have been really great along here would have been a stop close to the Food Basics (so almost behind Partsource). That's one thing I didn't understand, as there aren't a lot of stops, at least in Kitchener, close to any supermarkets.

I was looking at an older satellite image and there seemed to be two trails, one right by McDonald's, and the other close to Michaels. The one at Michaels seems to have a sidewalk going in between two houses, perhaps put there by one of the property owners.

I only say Partsource/Fresh Burrito because, at that location, you could put a sidewalk in between the two apartment units on Traynor and also one between Partsource and Fresh Burrito. You're avoiding most vehicular traffic. Right in front Partsource and Fresh Burrito are a set of traffic lights, with pedestrian right of way.   This is the main entrance to Food Basic (that has a pharmacy) and the LCBO, Dollarama, and Petsmart.

The sidewalk off Balfour Crescent (the one across from Michaels) is an official access from the neighbourhood into the trail, it is the only one I see, but there could be others.

But in the context when this was constructed, this area was intended to be publicly accessible but it was intended as a recreational area.

'Proper' people would never walk to the businesses in behind, they would get in their cars and drive.  Welcome to the 1950s and upwards planning...its only recently that we've thought about changing this, but even today, we suck at pedestrian infra in new neighbourhoods.

It was simply good luck that this recreational facility backed onto businesses that people wanted to walk too, and thus were able to trespass/unofficially have access too those businesses.

This particular case is striking because access that used to exist has been lost, but more generally, we need to figure out a way to retrofit better access into our neighbourhoods across the city. Nobody is even talking about this, and on the rarest of cases when we actually try, neighbourhoods oppose it...because...well I don't have a better explanation than simple fear of change...any change.

As for the LRT, a stop near Traynor park probably could have been good.  There's a lot of space for redevelopment, and connecting down Manitou would have been useful as well.

There could have been a stop in the business park north of Hayward, as there's lot of land for development and more than a few of existing jobs there.  Plus, better access across Courtland would have connected too a fair bit of housing there as well.  For that matter, the stop at Conestoga could have been located along Kingsway and been substantially closer to a lot of housing there.

I hope that the planning staff ran through these possibilities and modelled them and found they weren't worth the cost of the added trip times.  Either way though, the Courtland/Fairway corridor does seem to be one of the more poorly planned corridors for pedestrian access--and that's in a project which hasn't shown they've planned well for it.

[jeffster]

Oh, OK. I kind of thought that the sidewalk looked "official", but I really thought it was a homeowner that had done this.

This kind of changes some of my thoughts; if they already had an official sidewalk going out to the hydro corridor, then obviously the trespassing wasn't discouraged, rather, it seemed to have been endorsed a little bit. Which makes me think that more of those in charge must have been aware of what the hydro corridor was being used for.

[KevinL]

...they already had an official sidewalk going out to the hydro corridor, then obviously the trespassing wasn't discouraged, rather, it seemed to have been endorsed a little bit.  Which makes me think that more of those in charge must have been aware of what the hydro corridor was being used for.

The trespassing wasn't in the hydro corridor itself - that was open to the public like most existing hydro corridors are.

The trespass happened when someone stepped from the corridor onto a business' property. True, this was usually to an open parking area, and often tacitly encouraged; but never official, and never onto public land. And that was the case along the entire length of Fairway from Manitou to Wilson. That's the distinction we have to resolve; any crossing built now must be to a public path (which does not yet exist), that must have land purchased or expropriated in order to exist.

[KevinL]

In more positive news, the new LRVs have been spotted near the train station.

https://twitter.com/sjaybrown/status/101...9090102272