gabe
Senior Member
I took a ride on the LRT Tuesday afternoon, lots of fare inspectors out and about. Which was good to see.
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Waterloo Region Transit Developments (ION LRT, new terminal, GRT buses)
W. K. Lis
Superstar
kEiThZ
Superstar
I guess now we know why the frequencies are so poor:
/https://www.therecord.com/content/dam/therecord/news/waterloo-region/2019/08/26/ion-train-defects-delay-higher-frequency-lrt-service-in-waterloo-kitchener/B88841022Z.1_20190826171710_000_GTQMV8IR.3-0_Gallery.jpg)
www.therecord.com
Ion train defects delay higher-frequency LRT service in Waterloo, Kitchener
'We need those trains in for repair,' transit director says.
Bytor
New Member
I guess now we know why the frequencies are so poor:
Ion train defects delay higher-frequency LRT service in Waterloo, Kitchener
'We need those trains in for repair,' transit director says.
I wouldn't really call every 10 minutes "poor". It's been just fine for the summer, even on the empty side.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I would. And did. I don't get how a rapid transit trunk line is allowed to have frequency that poor. Imagine you just miss the train, and then just miss your bus connection on the other end. 20 mins added to your trip. Routes like these should be at least 3-5 mins at peak, and 5-7 mins off-peak.
drum118
Superstar
You must live in a small world as I have just rode major trunk/main lines using 10 minute as a start base, going to 15-20 at other times in Major cities. 2 had 3 cars 100' cars trains.
We in the GTA are lucky to see the service we have as the US Riders would love to see them compare to 15-90 minutes they see today, let alone service on Sunday.
Ridership dictates quality of service and what I have seen for KW, 7-10 is fine. Will have a look in Oct after a few months of school riding. To see less than 5 minutes is decades away when 3 car trains can't handle the ridership.
Bytor
New Member
K-W is not Toronto and ION is not a subway. We don't have a million riders a day using the line. We don't even have a hundred thousand people using the line each day. Not to mention the traffic disruption at intersections like Erb & Caroline that get backed up because of the arms. I'm normally unsympathetic to car drivers experiencing small delays, but two or three cycles to get through an intersection i snot a small delay. A 4 minute headway would make that much worse.
As for missing the train, stuff happens. Learn and Leave earlier next time.
Bytor
New Member
The ION Stations are not long enough for running the trams in triplicate, though, and at places like Queen Station I'm not sure tha you can make a platform long enough for that. even where you can, that will be major construction.
drum118
Superstar
They are currently set up for 2 and can be expanded to 3 like other systems have done. Until there are 2 car trains on line and are peak load, only then there will be a need to either expand platforms or reduce headway's. Still decades away yet. Still have to order more cars like they should in the first place.
MidtownKW
New Member
According to the service plans in the project agreement, peak headway should be eight minutes starting this September. It's only due to these reliability issues that that won't be happening- as soon as they're addressed, it will.
Current frequency (10 minutes) will seem pretty poor from a capacity perspective when the students return. Even now there is a bit of crowding at certain times of day, though nothing really excessive.
Capacity is only one aspect of it, though. This is the backbone of the system, and should be frequent.
Current frequency (10 minutes) will seem pretty poor from a capacity perspective when the students return. Even now there is a bit of crowding at certain times of day, though nothing really excessive.
Capacity is only one aspect of it, though. This is the backbone of the system, and should be frequent.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I'll tell you what my mother told me as a kid. "If the rest of them ran off the cliff, would you follow them?"
That there's shitty service in some other major cities does not at all make it justifiable. Spending the better part of a billion dollars and then ending up with lower frequency than most bus routes is offensive. And definitely not a great way to encourage ridership.
You don't need a million riders to justify more frequent service. You could have a town of a thousand, with a van as a their transit system that does regular routes. When you can drive the length of the ION route in 20-25 mins, a 10 min wait looks particularly atrocious. It's not going to encourage substantial conversion from driving to transit.
Moreover, the excuses should have people questioning whether it was really worthwhile for the feds and Queen's Park to put over a half billion dollars into this, if the intention is not to provide more frequent service than a standard bus route in most cities. That's not value for money. It's really looking that ION was more about attracting developer money than providing proper transit service. Going forward, I hope the feds and province prioritize cities that need transit investment to actually move people, not dollars.
A great attitude to get more people riding transit.....
E•MO•TION
New Member
Contra
Senior Member
Now that's a niche doc.
KevinT
Active Member
And a great backgrounder for other similarly sized regions considering their own LRT systems. I'm glad that they've made it so accessible by posting it to YouTube.
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
2 things to note:
1. School traffic has definitely increased the usage of the line. While my previous morning train saw 5-6 people on it when it departed Conestoga mall, the earlier train today saw close to 30 people on the train as it departed. Student usage is also up quite a bit, with trains being Standing Room only in the University area during most of the day.
2. For those that do not know (I did not and only found this out as I was sitting in the park playing truth-or-dare with some U of T friends 2 weeks ago in the middle of the night), the freight service and iON actually run at the same time, with a freight train usually heading up the spur at 11:30, and southbound iON trains running down the Northbound track at the same time. This means we cannot rule out overnight service along the entire corridor as a possibility in the near future since freight train interactions are not inhibiting 15-minute frequencies on the line.
1. School traffic has definitely increased the usage of the line. While my previous morning train saw 5-6 people on it when it departed Conestoga mall, the earlier train today saw close to 30 people on the train as it departed. Student usage is also up quite a bit, with trains being Standing Room only in the University area during most of the day.
2. For those that do not know (I did not and only found this out as I was sitting in the park playing truth-or-dare with some U of T friends 2 weeks ago in the middle of the night), the freight service and iON actually run at the same time, with a freight train usually heading up the spur at 11:30, and southbound iON trains running down the Northbound track at the same time. This means we cannot rule out overnight service along the entire corridor as a possibility in the near future since freight train interactions are not inhibiting 15-minute frequencies on the line.