ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

Couldn't they have a crossing zone adjacent to the station, maybe with speed bumps on either side and signed that pedestrians have the right of way in that area. Maybe paint the road with cross-hatching as well to emphasize the point. There are areas where you can safely have pedestrians and cars mingle - you just need cars to slow down sufficiently. King Street around Kitchener City Hall does a pretty good job of it. The surface material change there helps - along with the lack of curb between the sidewalk and street in that area.

They *could* have done that, they chose not too, because it was not their priority.  Can you guess what the priority was?

[danbrotherston]

[MidTowner]

I was really disappointed with Galloway's quote in the newspaper, but chalked it up to the Record selectively quoting. I suppose, though, that I should not have given him the benefit of the doubt, after that response from him. But I found the tone of the article annoying. People aren't really making up their own paths; they're just using the paths that make sense.

I e-mailed about Northfield way back because it seemed obvious to me. People will generally be wanting to go west, not east, from the station, since the Region installed the crosswalk across Northfield to the west of the station, and east of the station are a couple of destinations and then the expressway on-ramp. But there is only one legal exit from the station, on the east side of the north end of the platform.

If you're arriving on a Conestoga-bound train wanting to walk west, I guess that the "proper" way to exit the station is to stand awkwardly on the platform in front of the train waiting for it to pass, cross east, walk five metres or so north, then (I guess) wait for the flashing lights to stop, even though you know no train is coming. If you do cross west across the tracks (because you are already inside of the barrier, including the little barrier they have for people approaching from the east on the sidewalk), you get to wait for the arm to lift on the west, even though you've already safely crossed the tracks.

What people are actually doing, of course: walking up the middle of the platform safely out of the path of the Conestoga-bound train they've just disembarked from, checking to make sure there is no Fairway-bound train approaching from the north, crossing the tracks to the west of the platform where there should have been an exit, and either ducking under the arm or congregating awkwardly around it until it starts to lift.

Sorry for going on...in short, arrive to Northfield Station from the south, want to go west as most everyone will, and the "safe" way is to double back across the tracks and maybe in front of the train, instead of just walking west.

[MidTowner]

I have to say I’m disappointed by what Galloway said in the article. He acts as if these were unforeseeable. To the contrary, in both of these cases, the problems are obvious just by looking at the plans. Any competent planner inspecting the plans would have noticed the problems without needing to wait for actual people walking to use the stations. Interesting that they haven’t mentioned Frederick, Grand River Hospital, Kitchener Market, or Borden stations which have similar defects in the design (notice that I do not say “problems with people walking in the wrong places”). I wonder when they’ll officially notice people using the “wrong” end of those stations.

Specifically with Grand River Hospital, I thought it would be a lot of people doing this, but at least from what I've seen it doesn't seem to be. Possibly just a matter of where people's destinations tend to be.

I bet the number of people doing that is rivalled by the number of motorists parking in the little lot on the north side of King at Pine (mostly hospital employees), and jaywalking across King quite close to the signalized crosswalk at Pine.

[KevinL]

What people are actually doing, of course: walking up the middle of the platform safely out of the path of the Conestoga-bound train they've just disembarked from, checking to make sure there is no Fairway-bound train approaching from the north, crossing the tracks to the west of the platform where there should have been an exit, and either ducking under the arm or congregating awkwardly around it until it starts to lift.

Or, using the fact a barrier is down blocking eastbound traffic to cross to the median unobstructed. Then they just need to wait for a gap in westbound traffic, and they're across Northfield.

[MidTowner]

That part I can abide less. There is a button-activated crosswalk, people should call for it and wait for it to be activated, not jay walk. But I can understand it, because they want to get to the north side and there is an arm keeping them on the track side, and away from the button.

I'm not sure why there need to be arms blocking the sidewalk- the Spur Line certainly doesn't have that elsewhere, and nor do other Ion crossings.

[Coke6pk]

I am sure there are drivers who will accept this challenge....

Coke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iOi_iPNC50

While the clip was appreciated, I was expecting more along the lines of this:

https://youtu.be/M35xADfSbcE

Coke

[Bob_McBob]

The region has publicly acknowledged the issue with the ATP system. 

Waterloo Region LRT trains slowed by 20 km/h on spur lines because safety system isn’t running

[clasher]

It seems weird to me how early the crossing arms come down on University and Columbia for ion trains, I was riding up and down the trail in the last few days and was lucky enough to be near a train so it made it very easy to cross both roads when the barriers were down but on University they came down while the train was still in the station in Waterloo Park, seems kind of excessive to me. Pedestrians and cyclists all crossed even though the crossing light doesn't automatically switch to walk when the gates come down and stop traffic.

[CuilTard]

The region has publicly acknowledged the issue with the ATP system. 

Waterloo Region LRT trains slowed by 20 km/h on spur lines because safety system isn’t running

Nice to see, but aren't the ions meeting their schedule already? Does Keolis have any incentive to go faster even if they can get ATP working? Would they just have to wait at the next stations anyway to catch up to the schedule?

[taylortbb]

The region has publicly acknowledged the issue with the ATP system. 

Waterloo Region LRT trains slowed by 20 km/h on spur lines because safety system isn’t running

Nice to see, but aren't the ions meeting their schedule already? Does Keolis have any incentive to go faster even if they can get ATP working? Would they just have to wait at the next stations anyway to catch up to the schedule?

The schedule is set by the region, so they can adjust things. The only problem is the contract has a 46 minute end-to-end time requirement, so as long as it's below that the region can't apply performance standards for late trains. In a different Record article the region seemed to think it would be possible to negotiate with Keolis to change it though.

[KevinT]

My understanding is that Keolis is only responsible for operations, GrandLinq would be the one to deal with programming/tuning/changing the automation, then setting the conditions that Keolis' operators must follow accordingly.

[KevinL]

I'm sure incentives can be added for quicker trains (within safety limits), that could work.

I spotted Tom Galloway on the Northfield platform this morning, looks like he's getting a direct and personal look at things.

[jeffster]

But her response was "I didn't see you".

Right, the problem is that she didn’t see you; and she didn’t see you because she didn’t look. Whether or not her car actually came to a full stop is irrelevant. I would never roll a stop in that situation; I would see that there are other cars and stop. It sounds like she needed to wait anyway. But if one can determine that it is safe to proceed before one has finished stopping (for example, because there is no-one anywhere nearby at all), then what is the stop for? It’s just a legally-required ritual with no real-world effect.

I take a similar approach to crossing, as a pedestrian, against a red hand. The rule is different from crossing on a walking person. When it is a walking person, the rule is “is it safe?”. When it is a red hand, the rule is “can any vehicle traffic easily observe me violating their right of way?”. This is very different, and basically means that I won’t cross unless I’m confident that no driver will even have to worry about the fact that I’m crossing. By the time they would even start thinking about what I’m doing, I am already well away from the intersection. This implies of course that I don’t actually cross against a red hand very often, except in a few locations with excellent visibility and very simple traffic flow such as University at the LRT tracks.

But that's the problem -- people not stopping fully and then checking are creating accidents. Stoping and checking requires you to use your brain, slowing and simply checking doesn't work the same way.

You see a lot of pedestrians being run over at intersections because someone going right on a red (or at a stop sign) and not stopping and checking first, they're slowing and checking at the same time, so you don't have the same focus of your surroundings. As for when it comes to pedestrians "Is it safe" when you have the "walking person (or at a stop sign)" the answer is always "NO" if there are any cars present, since 90% of drivers disobey 'who has rights'. It's never, ever safe to cross at an intersection because drivers don't know the rules of the road, including STOPPING and CHECKING at red lights and stop signs. My last scare was when I was crossing with the "Walking Person" when some dickhead decided it was OK to go through the red light (straight through) and almost hit me. I now mostly 'jay walk' because I have control as to whether or not I am hit.

My driving has changed too, if I see a school bus I pull far right as possible, so as to let any asshole pass the bus if that's their desire, and I'll do whatever I can to avoid being rear-ended when stopping/pulling over an EMS. Obviously KW has some very important people that it is so urgent to get to their destination that it's OK to ignore traffic laws. I'm just, sadly, not important enough (except to my kids).

[timc]

The way I see it, stop signs should be used to say "hey, this intersection is kind of tricky, and you're going to need to stop and take a look before you go ahead and drive through." But too often stop signs are used to say "hey, could you please slow down a bit?". People get used to ignoring the second kind, and when they get to the first kind, they don't know it's dangerous to not stop.