ION Stage I: what would you do differently?

[plam]

As someone that was really deeply involved in the approval process for ION I think another $50M in cost would have killed it, and $100M certainly would have.

In many cases the problem was not cost, but priority and competence. Most of my issues with the LRT could or even can be solved without spending much money, and most of those aren't even problems that would have cost any more to build the right way to start. A few of the issues would have added to the cost, I'm not sure how much, but at that point, it's an opinion how close it was to approval.

The point is well taken however, that political feasibility is a driving force.

In reference to taylortbb's point, yes, it was a lot closer than we would have liked to not having any sort of functional rapid transit at all.

I think danbrotherston brings up a good question though. What would you change in the ION design and how much would it cost ($ and political will)?

• Even the planners agree that the uptown and downtown splits are bad, but they don't think the political will for a wider right of way existed at the time.
  
• I think better access to stations would have been good and probably wouldn't have cost that much but it's been a struggle to work this out.
  
• Traynor was a definite mistake. Somewhat expensive but needed to happen.
  
• Unlike ac3r, I do not think that faster rides would have made much of a difference. Montreal's metro isn't really that fast. Realistically, I think that the end-to-end time could have 10 minutes shaved off. Is that going to make a huge difference? And how much does it cost?
  
• We need better headways, but that is supposed to be coming. It is also expensive to buy more trains though.
  

[tomh009]

I'm OK with the split tracks.

The station access was not fully thought out, and could have been done much better at some stations (some others are fine). The incremental cost would not have been much.

Traynor was missed, probably because the planners were only looking at the official roads and trails. And possibly no one brought up the Traynor access in the public meetings.

We should have consistent LRT priority for traffic lights, but that might have been politically unpalatable at the time. I'm OK if it gets done in the next few years, as the LRT usage increases.

[plam]

We should have consistent LRT priority for traffic lights, but that might have been politically unpalatable at the time. I'm OK if it gets done in the next few years, as the LRT usage increases.

Definitely should not cost much and saves society time as a whole. Hope it happens.

[nms]

I have stated these in various other threads, but I am collecting them here in one spot (moving from North to South):
*with the caveat that I neither an engineer nor planner, but I have played Cities:Skylines a few times!   *

• Create a better transit plaza at Northfield Drive to connect with buses and possibly even the Waterloo Central Railway which would not include pedestrians having to scramble across Northfield Drive to make a connecting westbound bus
  
• Put a stop at Albert McCormick Arena
  
• Incorporate University of Waterloo colours into the UW station quilt
  
• Have the Waterloo Town Square stations within sight of each other.
  
• Better lubricate the tight turns at Allen St for noise
  
• Figure out how to route Phase 2 past Conestoga College (maybe head for the College, then head west along the 401 and into Preston)
  

[danbrotherston]

Obviously access improvements at virtually all stations. These are well documented, I can enumerate them if there is desire.

I would throw out the cycle infra on Northfield and implement the central trail proposed by .... I don't remember who, but basically they proposed a trail between the LRT tracks for the duration of the bridge. It's not ideal, but it's the best idea I have so far for Northfield given the interchange.

I'd have reconfigured things near GRH to reduce the number of signals (a reduction in cost). The parking garage and main entrance are already accessible at Green Street, and the entrance off King is unnecessary. By closing this entrance, you create the room to fix the grading to enable a connection to the Emergency side, which already has a connection from Mount Hope...I think removing both those signals is feasible.

Obviously Traynor crossing should have been planned from the beginning (it isn't overly expensive I think).

The biggest change I would have made is to have the LRT continue along the Freight corridor south of Hayward, then have it join the hydro corridor by passing between the car dealership and the furniture warehouse. This section would also have included a MUT to connect the Hayward trail to the trails at Balzer Rd., the Traynor Trail, and Manitou, as well as a grade separated station at Block Line. Obviously this would have been the most expensive change, but it alone would shave 3-5 minutes off the travel time.

Minor changes like setting the speed limit on on road sections to at least the speed limit of the road way (looking at you Northfield). Fixing the MUT along King at Central station to actually meet regional standards. Remove the f***ing crosswalk at Moore St. protecting the retaining wall--god that makes me mad.

Oh, and Phase 2 (maybe call it Phase 1b) would be for the LRT to continue south on King from Conestoga Mall splitting at Columbia (or just north of) for one track on Regina, one track on King, and continue to Uptown to make a loop there.

You know...just off the top of my head..

Edit:...Oh...I guess if we're being really ambitious...turn King St. through downtown into a transit mall...you know...if I was Emperor of KW or something...I realize that unlike all my previous proposals...that are...at least merely a question of cost or arguing with a single other party...this would pretty much put me at war with every business in DTK.

[westwardloo]

I'd have reconfigured things near GRH to reduce the number of signals (a reduction in cost). The parking garage and main entrance are already accessible at Green Street, and the entrance off King is unnecessary. By closing this entrance, you create the room to fix the grading to enable a connection to the Emergency side, which already has a connection from Mount Hope...I think removing both those signals is feasible.

Yes. Thank you. I am surprised this is not brought up more. There is a ridiculous amount of lights along what should be one of the fastest stretches of the LRT.  I somewhat understand the one at KCI and Central Fresh.  The visitor entrance to the hospital is just mind boggling? why would the entrance not be moved off green? Pine has to remain because of the location of the ER. Mt. Hope is unnecessary and is only a light to give hospital workers easier access to the parking lot. Hopefully the area is rethought through in the future or when we eventually redevelop/revamp our aging hospital.  

Overall I am happy the system got built, but I realize there are some thing that could be improved to increase accessibility and speed.

[danbrotherston]

I'd have reconfigured things near GRH to reduce the number of signals (a reduction in cost). The parking garage and main entrance are already accessible at Green Street, and the entrance off King is unnecessary. By closing this entrance, you create the room to fix the grading to enable a connection to the Emergency side, which already has a connection from Mount Hope...I think removing both those signals is feasible.

Yes. Thank you. I am surprised this is not brought up more. There is a ridiculous amount of lights along what should be one of the fastest stretches of the LRT.  I somewhat understand the one at KCI and Central Fresh.  The visitor entrance to the hospital is just mind boggling? why would the entrance not be moved off green? Pine has to remain because of the location of the ER. Mt. Hope is unnecessary and is only a light to give hospital workers easier access to the parking lot. Hopefully the area is rethought through in the future or when we eventually redevelop/revamp our aging hospital.  

Overall I am happy the system got built, but I realize there are some thing that could be improved to increase accessibility and speed.

The emerge access should be able to be reconfigured to be accessed from Mt. Hope and Green. It would require some construction in the hospital itself.

Whether you prefer Mt. Hope or Pine, I guess doesn't really matter much. Mt. Hope maintains slightly better signal spacing. Ultimately, the point is simply to reduce the number of signals, I would probably even go farther if I was being...dictatorial.

[ijmorlan]

• Even the planners agree that the uptown and downtown splits are bad, but they don't think the political will for a wider right of way existed at the time.
  
• I think better access to stations would have been good and probably wouldn't have cost that much but it's been a struggle to work this out.
  
• Traynor was a definite mistake. Somewhat expensive but needed to happen.
  
• Unlike ac3r, I do not think that faster rides would have made much of a difference. Montreal's metro isn't really that fast. Realistically, I think that the end-to-end time could have 10 minutes shaved off. Is that going to make a huge difference? And how much does it cost?
  
• We need better headways, but that is supposed to be coming. It is also expensive to buy more trains though.
  

This depends partly on how far back you go. I claim that the redevelopment of King St. south of Willis Way was done wrong: if they had done it right, there would have been plenty of space for 2 tracks on King St. (not to mention porticos around the buildings, but maybe that’s just me). And that was a City project so it’s not a matter of expecting every private landowner to look ahead and plan their development around future hypothetical municipal projects.

I don’t know how much difference a faster speed would make to attractiveness of the service, although obviously it wouldn’t be bad, but what I do know is that running the vehicles faster would allow either more frequent service for the same operating expense, or the same frequency for less operating expense. If the round trip is 100 minutes then 10 minute service can be provided by 10 vehicles and 10 operators; if it is 90 minutes then only 9 vehicles and 9 operators are needed.

[timc]

I think the Uptown split was unnecessary, and I wish it hadn't happened. From what I remember, it wasn't possible to have doubled tracks north of the spurline crossing at King, so a split was needed when the tracks were to go up to Erb Street. IIRC, it would have been possible to run double tracks to the spurline, but by the time that alignment became possible the decision had already been made to split the two directions through Uptown.

I also think that putting a station at Waterloo Park was less than ideal, and I would have rather seen a stop at University and at Columbia. Losing the iXpress stop at McCormick wasn't great either.

[ac3r]

My wishes are probably well known by now haha. For me...start smaller. Bury or elevate the parts that take slow turns or go right through intersections, it's terrible. This would also allow them to avoid split sections in the urban cores which is just weird. Imagine if to go southbound on TTC Line 1, you couldn't use College Station, rather you would have to go a few blocks over to a station on Bay Street? It'd make the TTC a lot more useful than it is.

Maybe they didn't need to go all the way to the malls at first to save some money, and simply built a shorter line from say Borden Station to the universities and then expand it as time goes on...but they went all out since they knew, for example, Blockline Station offered huge opportunities for developers to make money off of, as well as redevelopment of Fairview Park Mall (which Cadillac Fairview has master plans for, including offices and condo towers - but they wouldn't have done this if they didn't get to sell it as being close to the LRT).

[tomh009]

...but they went all out since they knew, for example, Blockline Station offered huge opportunities for developers to make money off of, as well as redevelopment of Fairview Park Mall (which Cadillac Fairview has master plans for, including offices and condo towers - but they wouldn't have done this if they didn't get to sell it as being close to the LRT).

I really don't think the regional council was being paid off by rich developers. However, the regional strategy is based on intensification, and that requires development -- and, yes, developers generally make money from their projects.

[ac3r]

Not being paid off, but they knew that the stations were placed in locations that would encourage developers to invest in new construction projects. That's the goal of transit oriented development. I don't think they were wrong doing that, but there were a lot of things that could have been done differently.

I think the sections going through the already developed parts of the city - uptown and downtown - should have been tunneled or elevated. Yeah, money...it would have cost more and all that, but at least we'd have the beginning of a pseudo-subway, similar to Ottawa's O-Train or Stuttgart Stadtbahn. This is good for very long term planning. They are both light rail systems, but have many underground or elevated sections in the urban core so that there is zero interaction with traffic. This means it's faster and more direct. Headway is probably a lot better too. This means it can move more people, faster, which is what you want when you're deciding whether to use public transit or to simply drive.

But I seem to be the odd one out on this forum thinking this would have been a good long term choice for us. But rapid transit should mean rapid...fast...able to move a lot of people. The LRT moves people alright, just very slowly for most of its network. Above ground sections work elsewhere, admittedly, but not really in the cores. Though they still did some major mistakes on the more suburban above ground sections too, particularly when it comes to places like Hayward Ave where it takes forever to make that turn, and continues to go slow along Courtland even though it's entirely separated from traffic.

Tl;dr - Bury/elevate it in the core. This would still allow developers to build new condos/offices/etc, but it would move a lot faster. Keep the rest above ground, maybe elevating on a viaduct where needed (Hayward...or at least they could have done something different here). This would still allow them to route the LRT to underdeveloped areas like Mill, Borden, Blockline etc and developers can still go crazy with all the real estate there.

[dunkalunk]

I never quite understood the requirement to keep roads as two-way along the entire length. Charles St could have worked as a bi-directional LRT corridor and sped up travel through downtown.

The Waterloo Park station should have been at University and not Seagram. Tried to get that fixed in phase 1 but will likely need to wait until phase 3 when an interchange stage is needed at University/ION

Also, this series of curves is THE WORST. It can take 2 minutes just to get through this section and limits the use of ATC. I hope they fix it by acquiring some land when they do the refurb. It is almost always faster to me to get Route 6 through downtown to Fairway than it is to take the train.

[tomh009]

But I seem to be the odd one out on this forum thinking this would have been a good long term choice for us.

Certainly, it would be good for the long term. But it would have likely made the project expensive enough that we would still be just dreaming about an LRT.

Speed can be improved even now, without changing any of the tracks or stations.

[ijmorlan]

• Create a better transit plaza at Northfield Drive to connect with buses and possibly even the Waterloo Central Railway which would not include pedestrians having to scramble across Northfield Drive to make a connecting westbound bus
  

For the WCR, I figure they should have moved the LRT tracks over by the width of a platform. So you would have WCR/freight track, platform, LRT southbound, platform, LRT northbound. The only difference from what we have is the extra platform, for which there appears to be enough space given the huge amount of open space east of the tracks. This gives a cross-platform transfer between southbound LRT and WCR.

Then extend the freight track south of the crossover to provide a storage/overrun track for WCR.

Also the track crossings should continue west into the adjacent property rather than funnelling all platform traffic through the north end with the absurd pedestrian traffic control previously noted on this forum.