BMO
Senior Member
Maybe traffic has gotten much worse since a couple of years ago? I used to drive on King through uptown Waterloo and never felt there was much traffic.
In uptown, you can always park for free either in the giant parking lot near the small mall near King, or on a parking lot in Regina. Most restaurants have parking lots as well.
Of course, KW also has a massive student population where most don't own a car.
I think people just avoid King St like he plague now. Just graduated from planning at UW this past December and whenever I'd drive somewhere in Waterloo, or anybody else drove, we would always avoid King St in Kitchener and take Weber, Westmount, etc then take Victoria or any number of the other streets crossing King to get to our final destination. In the 5 years since I've been at UW the traffic has gotten noticeably worse, especially around University Ave near UW, King St corridor and Hwy 8/85.
This LRT will be great, it definitely isn't warranted by ridership, but it's something the region needs as a back bone to their transit system and to attract tech startups and stop the brain drain from the region. Most startup employees are students or recent grads who can't afford a car, or don't really want to have to maintain or own a car. I think this project will go a long way to help the city. I have my problems with the alignment, but overall it's a decent plan.
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