ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

Great Canadian Coaches do all kinds of different runs, scheduled and chartered. Since Google isn't in the Tannery any more, I suspect it's not them. My guess is that's it's most likely a delegation visiting the Hub, Velocity, or D2L.

It's not. Google uses the same bus company, but this is the wrong location, wrong time of day, and lacks the route sign in the window.

I know GCC does other runs. As for the location, I was under the impression that still or until very recently Google had some staff on the ground floor and basement of the Tannery - this is what friends that work at Google told me a few months ago, maybe by now they have all moved to Breithaupt.

I'm fairly certain they don't.  I've been working in the Tannery for a while, including visiting the basement, and unless there is a team hiding, I haven't seen them.

[timio]

Not a good idea to speculate. His reasons are his own.

Not speculating. Just stating facts. He's not here, and not very active on FB any more.

Understood. Just suggesting it's possible he still lurks.

[KevinL]

I know a number of people who are finding social media or other online contact to be overly stressful or anxiety-inducing and are curtailing it in whole or in part. I can't speak for any individual, but everyone is free to act as they feel is best.

[neonjoe]

This https://jalopnik.com/tram-bowling-is-eve...1834535479 should be the grand opening event!

[ijmorlan]

This https://jalopnik.com/tram-bowling-is-eve...1834535479 should be the grand opening event!

That would be awesome. Unfortunately, I think our safety paranoia would exclude substantially all of the events mentioned in the article. Deliberately colliding a tram with another object? The fact that it’s perfectly safe is irrelevant.

[bgb_ca]

I just caught a glimpse of the artwork at Kitchener market station. I did not realize parts of it moved.

Also there was a idiot driving down the tracks in front of Charles Street terminal to bypass the lane of vehicles to make a right on Ontario.

[jeffster]

I know a number of people who are finding social media or other online contact to be overly stressful or anxiety-inducing and are curtailing it in whole or in part. I can't speak for any individual, but everyone is free to act as they feel is best.

This is true. Social media (even here) can be a beast. Feelings get hurt, people get triggered, disagreements happen. Even at this site, which is pretty much "G" rated, could trigger people.

Something like Twitter or even Instagram tends to be a little more one sided type of social media, with little stress, if you want to keep it that way. Twitter if you don't want to stress whether or not people care about what you post, as you can have a lot of interactions with no "Likes" or "Retweets" or "Comments". Instagram can be harsh if no one "Likes" your posts (though you can "earn" likes by "liking" other peoples posts). Facebook is simply a hot mess, seeing the ugly side of many people, too many opinions on things like politics, vaccinations and fake news.

Iain has been very active on Twitter. It's a good social media site because you can follow who you like, block who you don't like, and avoid fake crap if you so decide.

[danbrotherston]

I just caught a glimpse of the artwork at Kitchener market station. I did not realize parts of it moved.

Also there was a idiot driving down the tracks in front of Charles Street terminal to bypass the lane of vehicles to make a right on Ontario.

It's a day that ends in "y".

Frankly, it's the engineers fault, people are always going to be selfish and break the law for their own convenience, you don't have to enable them by unnecessarily and obsessively putting in roll curbs.

[ijmorlan]

Frankly, it's the engineers fault, people are always going to be selfish and break the law for their own convenience, you don't have to enable them by unnecessarily and obsessively putting in roll curbs.

Do we have any good guesses as to why they are so obsessed with roll curbs?

At corners I can imagine a reason — give vehicles a bit of leeway in making their turn. Bogus, of course, because it says that if vehicles can’t drive properly, it’s A-OK for them to intrude into the space supposedly reserved for pedestrians, but from a certain uncaring and ignorant perspective, it makes “sense”.

Between intersections, though, I really don’t understand it at all — who is supposed to be rolling up the curb and into the LRT lane? Nobody, ever, for any reason, as far as I know, right?

[tomh009]

But if the car got on the tracks at Gaukel and continued to Ontario, then it really doesn't make any difference whether there are roll curbs or not.

[danbrotherston]

Frankly, it's the engineers fault, people are always going to be selfish and break the law for their own convenience, you don't have to enable them by unnecessarily and obsessively putting in roll curbs.

Do we have any good guesses as to why they are so obsessed with roll curbs?

At corners I can imagine a reason — give vehicles a bit of leeway in making their turn. Bogus, of course, because it says that if vehicles can’t drive properly, it’s A-OK for them to intrude into the space supposedly reserved for pedestrians, but from a certain uncaring and ignorant perspective, it makes “sense”.

Between intersections, though, I really don’t understand it at all — who is supposed to be rolling up the curb and into the LRT lane? Nobody, ever, for any reason, as far as I know, right?

I really have no idea.  It's bizarre. Engineers have made plenty of pretty weak excuses for the uptown bike lanes but even those generally don't apply anywhere else and I've never had the chance to really push for answers for any of the other contexts.

FWIW, they even used roll curbs for part of the sidewalk in uptown, and surprise surprise, its the only sidewalk in uptown where I routinely see cars parked.

It is completely bizarre to me.

[jamincan]

My understanding is that it was supposed to be for emergency vehicles.

[creative]

Aren’t roll curbs at corners for people with disabilities?

[danbrotherston]

My understanding is that it was supposed to be for emergency vehicles.

Not to my knowledge, this probably refers to the sections of centre running track, where there is only a single lane, where emergency vehicles are supposed to be able to use the track in order to avoid traffic in the single through lane.  Of course these sections already have barrier curbs, and despite what some claim, emergency vehicles can mount barrier curbs, there is no reason to use roll curbs for this purpose.

[danbrotherston]

Aren’t roll curbs at corners for people with disabilities?

Curb cuts at the corner are--but that's no reason to use them for the entire block.  The roll curbs that have been used would probably not be mountable for a person in a wheelchair, or at least it would be very difficult, but are easy for cars.  Worse, the roll curb is separated from the pedestrians by a barrier curb anyway, so it cannot be for pedestrian use.