Allandale25
Senior Member
Apologies if this has already been posted.
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Waterloo Region Transit Developments (ION LRT, new terminal, GRT buses)
micheal_can
Senior Member
Do we have a timeline for this?
Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Last para in the article:
robmausser
Senior Member
What a noodley mess the Cambridge portion has become. This is what happens when too many hands get in the pot.
What started as this
Became this
Which, while actually goes into Sportsworld centre now, an improvement, entirely misses the old cambridge area.
and then to this
An even further noodly mess that now misses the Grand River Hospital, goes off to who knows where north of Preston.
Its clear much of the input is from anti-LRT types who dont want the LRT in their neighbourhood, so its going off into no mans land.
These arent positive inputs.
What a mess.
What started as this
Became this
Which, while actually goes into Sportsworld centre now, an improvement, entirely misses the old cambridge area.
and then to this
An even further noodly mess that now misses the Grand River Hospital, goes off to who knows where north of Preston.
Its clear much of the input is from anti-LRT types who dont want the LRT in their neighbourhood, so its going off into no mans land.
These arent positive inputs.
What a mess.
steveintoronto
Superstar
^ The irony is that it will take longer to get from downtown Kitchener to Ainslee than the present #200 route.
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
What's the rational for the roundabout route? I can't think of a city that builds a system specifically to bypass downtown
steveintoronto
Superstar
Street width...ostensibly. There's some festering sores there, to be certain. And for the regional road 24 route through Cambridge...that's their main drag. horrendous as it seems. ION was destined to be the product of accommodating wildly different demands. My thought looking at that route map half an hour ago was "What has the regional amalgamation wrought?" Cambridge in itself was a forced merge of distinct entities. Oddly much of what was possible for regional services wasn't predicated on full amalgamation.
Take Guelph and Waterloo Region, for instance. I often lamented as to how beneficial it would be to merge Guelph into Waterloo Region (believe it or not, under the Municipal and associated acts, areas only have to be 'close' not actually sharing a border) until finding out that many services can be shared with the municipalities not only being in another county, but able to *select* areas to share, like Police Services, (under the Police Act), water and sewage, roads, etc without full assimilation regionally.
Cambridge is a monster without a soul. Centres like Galt and Hespeler have aspired to regain their identities ever since the forced amalgamation. GRT did well with various bus routes, they have minimal and no fixed routings and minimal costs. ION unfortunately had to find the differences to serve with the various municipalities rather than the commonalities, which were few to begin with.
Waterloo and Kitchener were destined to grow into each other, even if there's a cultural difference. Cambridge never had commonality with them, let alone within itself.
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nfitz
Superstar
Misses old Cambridge area? The move to King and Shantz Hill in Preston wiith the second alignment would allow access for far more people than the old winding train alignment - plus hitting Sportsworld. There's an alignment change in Galt - but the station locations aren't moved. I'm not seeing what is lost with the second alignment?
Missing the Freeport Hospital (people have started calling it Grand River - that seems confusing) is unfortunate, that's for sure ... but I only see that the alignment has changed - there was never a stop planned at the hospital, and between the second and third version, the stops seem to be unchanged. If the route is now straighter and shorter, isn't this an improvement?
Where the stops are located is a different issue really. And I don't see much change to the stop locations in any of these versions - other than the obvious improvement to the Sportsworld location between version 1 and 2.[/QUOTE]
The second version looks shorter and straighter than the first. And the third even more so. Doesn't this improve time?
Sure, its not faster than an express bus off-peak ...but that's true in Toronto as well. The overnight Bloor-Danforth bus is faster in Old Toronto than the subway (not express, but it seldom stops ...it was rather eye-opening taking it easbound from downtown one morning around 6 AM as the subway was opening ...I knew I could get off at Greenwood and catch the first subway train - and I realized it was faster to stay on the 300 - even though it was starting to stop more than it does at 3 AM or 4 AM.
steveintoronto
Superstar
I don't know what the proposed ION schedule is, but as circuitous as the #200 is/was, it zoomed along the 401 non-stop to get to Cambridge @ Regional #24.
It would seem that the #200 would need to be retained for the fastest transit between major centres in the region, and the ION used for local stops. Echoes of the Hamilton Express being by far the fastest way from downtown Hamilton to downtown Toronto compared to the train, traffic on the Gardiner permitting of course.
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nfitz
Superstar
How? The traffic has been horrible there lately during PM rush hour. Though I'm always driving through there, not on the bus - does it have a trick?
steveintoronto
Superstar
Yeah, timing is everything. Perhaps you haven't noticed that even as you wrote:
Rush hour is slow almost everywhere.
nfitz
Superstar
How is the 200 faster than LRT then? You said it was faster - not me!
steveintoronto
Superstar
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I believe the 200 has shoulders on the 401 it uses, though I'm not sure if those have been retained with the widening work underway.
Either way the 401 widening will be complete in a few months and the 200 will return to a full free-flow operation even during rush hours making ION difficult to impossible to compete with it.
ION to Cambridge is a gigantic tire fire of waste if you ask me - ridership is marginal at best. The line is pure politics because Cambridge politicians complained about having to pay for Phase 1 so they created a phase 2 to try and placate them.
Either way the 401 widening will be complete in a few months and the 200 will return to a full free-flow operation even during rush hours making ION difficult to impossible to compete with it.
ION to Cambridge is a gigantic tire fire of waste if you ask me - ridership is marginal at best. The line is pure politics because Cambridge politicians complained about having to pay for Phase 1 so they created a phase 2 to try and placate them.
nfitz
Superstar
What you originally wrote was "The irony is that it will take longer to get from downtown Kitchener to Ainslee than the present #200 route."
I noted that typically when I drive it in PM peak, it's a traffic jam ... so how is the 200 going to be faster?
What's your basis for this? That's all I'm asking.
Also ... the original plan dates back many years ... if anything the newer plans look faster and more direct with the LRT - I'm sure you've noticed how slow the freights move on that original windy alignment! Are you suggesting the newer LRT design is slower? I think it's faster.