ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinT]

Lets make sure GRT knows that 30 minute iON headways are a non starter
They have the survey up for the proposed changes. https://grandrivertransit.qualtrics.com/...OJK338CstM

Done, thank you so much for that!

[Acitta]

Service changes may put brakes on Ion’s gold standard of transit by Brian Doucet

[ac3r]

Gold standard? Best transit in Ontario? Who is paying Doucet to say this lmao.

[tomh009]

Service changes may put brakes on Ion’s gold standard of transit by Brian Doucet

An excellent opinion piece!

[KevinL]

I hadn't thought of the 'clock face schedule' aspect. It's a decent point, but I'm not sure as many riders rely on it as he thinks.

[ijmorlan]

Service changes may put brakes on Ion’s gold standard of transit by Brian Doucet

An excellent opinion piece!

A weird combination of insightful and idiotic.

He is absolutely right about 30 minute headways being ridiculous, and his suggestion of going to 7.5 rather than 8 minute headways is excellent for the reasons he gives.

But on the other hand, he says “Its combination of frequency, reliability and punctuality is unmatched in this province”. In fact the worst scheduled frequency for the Toronto subway of every 5-6 minutes, on the underused Sheppard line, is better than the best scheduled frequency for ION of every 10 minutes (ignoring overnight closures). At rush hour the main Toronto subway lines operate on a 2-3 minute frequency. If this were proposed here we would probably be told it’s impossible for reasons that might make sense until you consider that many vehicles per minute travel along most of our Regional roads at busy times. The subway similarly operates with actual headway management controlled by signals (unlike the TTC bus and streetcar routes, which suffer from grossly incompetent line management). There certainly are delays and unplanned outages on the subway, but the same happens on ION, including absurd ones stemming from perfectly normal weather.

[danbrotherston]

Indeed...that rather threw me. And even if he wanted to argue "reliability and punctuality"....well...it hasn't been reliable either....TTC operates during freezing rain generally.

Even if you say "outside of the GTA"....I'm not sure it would beat Ottawa. Probably ION wins on reliability (ION hasn't derailed and had months long closures as a result) but as far as I remember, it's got less service.

[plam]

Indeed...that rather threw me. And even if he wanted to argue "reliability and punctuality"....well...it hasn't been reliable either....TTC operates during freezing rain generally.

Even if you say "outside of the GTA"....I'm not sure it would beat Ottawa. Probably ION wins on reliability (ION hasn't derailed and had months long closures as a result) but as far as I remember, it's got less service.

I think it's just a bit warmer in Toronto and there is probably less freezing rain. I'm sure ION beats Ottawa on reliability but yes, the Ottawa network is much more vast. Perhaps on a per-capita basis? Ottawa is still bigger.

[cherrypark]

An excellent opinion piece!

A weird combination of insightful and idiotic.

He is absolutely right about 30 minute headways being ridiculous, and his suggestion of going to 7.5 rather than 8 minute headways is excellent for the reasons he gives.

But on the other hand, he says “Its combination of frequency, reliability and punctuality is unmatched in this province”. In fact the worst scheduled frequency for the Toronto subway of every 5-6 minutes, on the underused Sheppard line, is better than the best scheduled frequency for ION of every 10 minutes (ignoring overnight closures). At rush hour the main Toronto subway lines operate on a 2-3 minute frequency. If this were proposed here we would probably be told it’s impossible for reasons that might make sense until you consider that many vehicles per minute travel along most of our Regional roads at busy times. The subway similarly operates with actual headway management controlled by signals (unlike the TTC bus and streetcar routes, which suffer from grossly incompetent line management). There certainly are delays and unplanned outages on the subway, but the same happens on ION, including absurd ones stemming from perfectly normal weather.

Seems to me he's speaking in reference to other LRT systems and not rapid transit generally? Definitely performing better, notwithstanding the very fair criticism of the ice outages, compared to some of the TTC services bunching and delayed without signal priority (even if KW is a far simpler network to operate in that regard).

[panamaniac]

Indeed...that rather threw me. And even if he wanted to argue "reliability and punctuality"....well...it hasn't been reliable either....TTC operates during freezing rain generally.

Even if you say "outside of the GTA"....I'm not sure it would beat Ottawa. Probably ION wins on reliability (ION hasn't derailed and had months long closures as a result) but as far as I remember, it's got less service.

I think it's just a bit warmer in Toronto and there is probably less freezing rain. I'm sure ION beats Ottawa on reliability but yes, the Ottawa network is much more vast. Perhaps on a per-capita basis? Ottawa is still bigger.

I could be wrong, but I think Toronto tends to get more freezing rain.   I believe it is expected to increase in Kitchener as the climate warms.

[ijmorlan]

Seems to me he's speaking in reference to other LRT systems and not rapid transit generally? Definitely performing better, notwithstanding the very fair criticism of the ice outages, compared to some of the TTC services bunching and delayed without signal priority (even if KW is a far simpler network to operate in that regard).

“Waterloo region’s Ion light rail transit (LRT) line is the best transit route in Ontario!”

If you’d like to argue that the TTC subway lines are not transit routes, that’s fine, but please wait for me to get my popcorn.

[ac3r]

So, freezing rain tonight. Anyone dare to bet against me that it shuts the system down? The pot starts at 100k Runescape gp.

[timc]

I don't know what a Runescape gp is, but there's no freezing rain predicted tonight.

[Chris]

There was a freezing rain warning issued for Waterloo Region this morning but Weather Canada just lifted it. So that's good news for people that want to ride the Ion today.

[neonjoe]

Looks like they have changed the plan for iON Frequency

https://pub-regionofwaterloo.escribemeet...entId=6231
15 minute frequency during shoulder periods, 10 during peak
15 minute on weekends...