ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[KevinT]

First is the some ridership metrics. More riders go through the Sportsworld corridor to Cambridge than through the Homer Watson corridor to Conestoga College.

That's a bad faith argument. People travelling between Cambridge and Kitchener by transit have never had any choice but to go through Sportsworld (unless prepared to stop and transfer at Conestoga, and nobody likes a transfer), so of course that's where the ridership numbers will put them.

I'm all for ION and think it was a huge opportunity lost by taking highway 8 through the Sportsworld desert rather than down Homer Watson where people actually live, work, and go to school.

[jamincan]

Genuinely, do more people actually work around Homer Watson than Sportsworld? There are some huge employers along Maple Grove.

[danbrotherston]

Genuinely, do more people actually work around Homer Watson than Sportsworld? There are some huge employers along Maple Grove.

The absolute closest employer on Maple Grove Rd. Is a 20 minute walk from the proposed station location. More, there are no sidewalks on the south side so you cannot even access employers on the south side (most of the employers are on the south side) if you were willing to walk 20-40 minutes. 

There is commercial closer, but there is also commercial on Homer Watson, and if workers were going to connect on the iXpress that bus could easily connect through to a station at Conestoga College.

[KevinL]

I sincerely hope transit to Maple Grove will be improved once light rail comes to Sportsworld (or even before that) - I agree it's a brutal area to walk.

While there are aspects of Homer Watson/the College that can be selling points for a more westerly route, I still feel the eastern one ties in better with Cambridge and seems the more logical choice. It's out of our hands at this point, at any rate.

[Bytor]

I would be interested in seeing this chart again next year once we reach heard immunity and things return to "normal"

Assuming that they'll even give it to me. I had to raise a ruckus to get this, repeatedly emailing Region councillors for help in getting a response from GRT. I gave them a year off pestering them for the Pandemic, but even not including that it took more than a year from initial request to getting just this minimal monthly data, and this was my second attempt.

What I wanted was the raw data of at least all the APC records and hopefully the anonymised farebox records.

[Bytor]

First is the some ridership metrics. More riders go through the Sportsworld corridor to Cambridge than through the Homer Watson corridor to Conestoga College.

That's a bad faith argument. People travelling between Cambridge and Kitchener by transit have never had any choice but to go through Sportsworld (unless prepared to stop and transfer at Conestoga, and nobody likes a transfer), so of course that's where the ridership numbers will put them.

If that were the case, then why didn't the new 206 have more riders when it started in the fall than the 302 had, if it's the better route? It's not a bad faith argument, it's reality.

I'm all for ION and think it was a huge opportunity lost by taking highway 8 through the Sportsworld desert rather than down Homer Watson where people actually live, work, and go to school.

Except the transit ridership was not there. As I have already pointed out elsewhere, there's no big commercial nodes on Manitou or Homer equivalent to Sportsworld. Huron Business Park doesn't front onto Homer and light industrial areas like that are rarely good ridership generators since their jobs per hectare densities are low. The residential areas along Homer Watson in Doon and Pioneer Park are also low density inside the LRT 800m catchment area of an LRT. People may live, work and go to school down there, but not very many of them. It's why the 76 has stayed only a busPlus route for so long.

You'd have a better case if even just the ridership to Conestoga College was higher, but it never has been. As I pointed out elsewhere, it even started to fall before the pandemic even with the expanded service of the 10/100 to the college. The 10 and the 110 are the only route I've noticed so far where the boardings declined from Fall 2018 to Fall 2019, the period of the biggest year over year jumps in GRT ridership ever. Compare that to the 57, a route which doesn't have Sunday service and goes through the rural areas on the west side of the Grand River, experienced a 3x jump in the fall of 2019!

You talk about people going "through" instead of to or from. Well, putting the 200 and it's successor the 302 through there instead of Sportsworld would probably resulted in a lot of people only going "through" the Homer Watson corridor rather than stopping there, given that the data seems to show us there would not be good uptake.

This isn't bad faith, it's simply the numbers. The Sportsworld route was and still is the better route because of distance (shortening trip time), nodes along the way, existing transit usage, and potential uptake.

[danbrotherston]

That's a bad faith argument. People travelling between Cambridge and Kitchener by transit have never had any choice but to go through Sportsworld (unless prepared to stop and transfer at Conestoga, and nobody likes a transfer), so of course that's where the ridership numbers will put them.

If that were the case, then why didn't the new 206 have more riders when it started in the fall than the 302 had, if it's the better route? It's not a bad faith argument, it's reality.

Huh?

The 206 runs down highway 8 to sportsworld...not sure what that has to do with Homer Watson.

I'm all for ION and think it was a huge opportunity lost by taking highway 8 through the Sportsworld desert rather than down Homer Watson where people actually live, work, and go to school.

Except the transit ridership was not there. As I have already pointed out elsewhere, there's no big commercial nodes on Manitou or Homer  equivalent to Sportsworld. Huron Business Park doesn't front onto Homer and light industrial areas like that are rarely good ridership generators since their jobs per hectare densities are low. The residential areas along Homer Watson in Doon and Pioneer Park are also low density inside the LRT 800m catchment area of an LRT. People may live, work and go to school down there, but not very many of them. It's why the 76 has stayed only a busPlus route for so long.

You'd have  a better case if even just the ridership to Conestoga College was higher, but it never has been. As I pointed out elsewhere, it even started to fall before the pandemic even with the expanded service of the 10/100 to the college. The 10 and the 110 are the only route I've noticed so far where the boardings declined from Fall 2018 to Fall 2019, the period of the biggest year over year jumps in GRT ridership ever. Compare that to the 57, a route which doesn't have Sunday service and goes through the rural areas on the west side of the Grand River, experienced a 3x jump in the fall of 2019!

You talk about people going "through" instead of to or from. Well, putting the 200 and it's successor the 302 through there instead of Sportsworld would probably resulted in a lot of people only going "through" the Homer Watson corridor rather than stopping there, given that the data seems to show us there would not be good uptake.

This isn't bad faith, it's simply the numbers. The Sportsworld route was and still is the better route because of distance (shortening trip time), nodes along the way, existing transit usage, and potential uptake.

You are basing this entirely on the commercial properties at Sportsworld. That is the ONLY destination that Sportsworld has that Homer-Watson doesn't.

You're discounting entirely having a post secondary educational facility (which traditionally drive a huge portion of ridership, if the service is good), and you're waffling on housing, which is absolutely stronger on Homer Watson, it is MOSTLY low density, but includes several high density areas, unlike Pioneer which is exclusively low density and much smaller.

That really sounds like cherrypicking.

[jeffster]

Genuinely, do more people actually work around Homer Watson than Sportsworld? There are some huge employers along Maple Grove.

Way more people work around Sportsworld, I would think.

Mind you, you do have a large business park between Homer Watson & Bleams to Manitou. You also have Conestoga College.

That said, many that work around Sportsworld have shift work, so unless transit goes 24-hours, cars might be considered essential for work out in that area. I do have a friend that goes by bus when he can, it's 4 - 5 hours transit time, but it gets him away from his wife when she needs the car and he needs the break.

[danbrotherston]

Genuinely, do more people actually work around Homer Watson than Sportsworld? There are some huge employers along Maple Grove.

Way more people work around Sportsworld, I would think.

Mind you, you do have a large business park between Homer Watson & Bleams to Manitou. You also have Conestoga College.

That said, many that work around Sportsworld have shift work, so unless transit goes 24-hours, cars might be considered essential for work out in that area. I do have a friend that goes by bus when he can, it's 4 - 5 hours transit time, but it gets him away from his wife when she needs the car and he needs the break.

Define "around"...the folks who work on Maple Grove are not within walking distance of the proposed LRT station, under any circumstances...even ignoring the lack of sidewalks.

The only people who could walk to the LRT from the station are in the commercial district around Deer Ridge Dr. and Sportsworld Dr. (and not much south of there).  Yes, there are plenty of people working there, but there are also commercial areas along Homer-Watson.

The main employment area along Maple Grove could drive ridership, but those workers will already be making a transfer to a bus, and that bus would obviously stop at the LRT stations whether they are located at Sportsworld OR on Homer-Watson.

[jamincan]

I think it's a bit ridiculous to suggest a bus from Conestoga College is the same as a bus from King & Sportsworld.

[danbrotherston]

I think it's a bit ridiculous to suggest a bus from Conestoga College is the same as a bus from King & Sportsworld.

It's literally 3 minutes by car from Sportsworld Dr. and King St. to Doon Valley Dr. and Homer Watson Blvd. doesn't seem "ridiculous" to me. And that's assuming that we make ZERO effort to prioritize buses over existing car traffic.

[jamincan]

We're talking about a bus route that would be serving industrial areas around Maple Grove. That would be more like a 10-min trip non-stop, likely along Fountain with intermediate stops which would likely make it closer to 15+min when scheduled.

[neonjoe]

I took a drive on Homer Watson yesterday, it really is too much of a surburban highway to justify higher order transit in the foreseeable future. Conestoga and maybe the Pioneer drive area are the only two nodes where there is any ridership potential. The rest of the road is flanked by protected parkland and backyards of surburban homes abutting the roadway. This could be a potential BRT route in the future but LRT would really require starting the ensure corridor anew.
I do believe that the phase LRT could have served more people if it ran in the rail corridor parallel to old King there’s some density already there mixed with quite a bit of vacant space or recently demolished homes.

[danbrotherston]

I took a drive on Homer Watson yesterday, it really is too much of a surburban highway to justify higher order transit in the foreseeable future. Conestoga and maybe the Pioneer drive area are the only two nodes where there is any ridership potential. The rest of the road is flanked by protected parkland and backyards of surburban homes abutting the roadway. This could be a potential BRT route in the future but LRT would really require starting the ensure corridor anew.
I do believe that the phase LRT could have served more people if it ran in the rail corridor parallel to old King there’s some density already there mixed with quite a bit of vacant space or recently demolished homes.

Highway 8 is also an actual highway, and we are putting an LRT down it.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that Homer-Watson justifies an LRT on it's own, but given that we must pick a route TO Cambridge, of the routes available, we are arguing that Homer-Watson is more compelling than Highway 8 and King St.

I'm not sure what King St. you are talking about, there is a little density up near Fairway, but less still than along Homer-Watson, and the LRT is not going to go near that section for some reason.  Staff seemed very focused on serving Cambridge (for political reasons) and did not make it a priority to serve any other destinations, even sportsworld is poorly served.

[ac3r]

Homer Watson was never a contender for this part of the LRT. I had mentioned it a few pages ago as a potential for another line in the far future and it has indeed been studied regarding the viability of that, but it was never going to be the route into Cambridge for this next phase of the LRT.

Homer Watson doesn't really have much density either. There are very few apartment blocks, most of them low rise. There are a couple townhouse projects, retirement communities, tons of single family homes, lots of low density industrial and lots of protected forest. Just glancing at the satellite maps from far out visually shows that there's not much out there, even 500 meters away from the road. It does not warrant an LRT right now, though in the far future it might be considered...but it's highly unlikely.

Sportsworld may not be a dense area either, but it was chosen because it serves a lot of industry (Toyota, Amazon, Loblaws, Dare Foods, ATS Automation and dozens of other businesses). It also has a nearby Highway 8 and 401 connection as well as the bus stops serving GRT and GO, all of which is important for commuters. It has lots of land that will eventually be redeveloped around the station node, namely the big box stores and some farm lands. It also provides the fastest and most direct way into Cambridge in regards to route headway. In regards to headway, it's a bit like driving: people want to use the route that gets them to their destination as fast as possible, which is why people hop on the Conestoga Expressway and avoid city streets.