Waterloo to get $300 million for Rapid Transit

[dunkalunk]

Why must I limit myself to one facet of the falacy of this project? It is slower than iXpress bus. Why do you claim this is false? It has less stops than the 7D and serves a smaller area. This is a good way to spend money? The average stop spacing looks good, but it ignores the fact all the stations are bunch into the core of the line.

This project looks good on paper if you don't know the details, but the more you know the less it makes sense.

The way you refuted the project all in one sentence made this statement false, or at least misleading:

The stop spacing and walking distance are huge issues because they are both inferior to the current service. Less stops, longer walks, and a slower trip is not a system I endorse.

The Rapid Transit Line will:
-have 3 more stops than current express bus
-have far less stops than than the local route 7
-2 minutes slower than the iXpress
-faster than route 7

Nowhere in the plan does it say that local bus service will be removed from King Street. The LRT is not Replacing route 7, it is replacing the iXpress. You're comparing apples to oranges. This assumption makes your statement false. King Street will continue to have local bus service in the same way that Yonge Street and Sheppard Ave have local bus service. The route may replace the 7D, because the straight line through Waterloo Park is a direct connection, however, service frequency on the 7C and 12 aren't going to go anywhere.

GRT is also undergoing a process decentralize its transit network in advance of the construction of LRT, in the same way that bus routes intersect subway stations, bus routes will intersect rapid transit stations.

It's fine to have objections to the system. The route splits and location of stations are important concerns that I feel need to be addressed before the final design is done and shovels go in the ground. The completion of the Regional Transportation Master Plan revision will ensure that the system is streamlined. However, it is also important to get your facts straight before you count the system as nonsensical.

 

[nfitz]

I haven't looked at the schedule, but I'm guessing that the longer travel time, is because of the unfortunate route the LRT takes from Fairview to downtown Kitchener.

However, I expect the bulk of the riders will be north of Ottawa Street, rather than the other 2 stops (Shelley and Fairview).

What is the comparison of travel time on the iExpress from Charles/Ottawa to Conestoga Mall? That would be an apples to apples comparison.

 

[waterloowarrior]

iXpress schedule

Conestoga Mall to Fairview Park Mall - 42 minutes
Fairview Park mall to Ainslie Street terminal - 30 minutes

Waterloo LRT FAQ
What will transit travel times be?

Approximately 39 minutes from Conestoga Mall to Fairview Park Mall for Light Rail Transit and approximately 33 minutes from Fairview Park mall to Ainslie Street terminal with adapted Bus Rapid Transit

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like the LRT line will be saving time, the BRT part will take longer than it currently does (probably because the aBRT seems to include two more stops than the iXpress)

 

[nfitz]

Approximately 39 minutes from Conestoga Mall to Fairview Park Mall for Light Rail Transit

Yeah, looks like LRT is 3 minutes faster than the express bus.

However, between Ottawa and Fairview the bus is non-stop, and goes about 4 km in a straight line with over 2 km on an expressway. The LRT however, has a stop, and goes about 6 km doing 3 sides of a rectangle, mostly on city streets.

Between Conestoga Mall and Ottawa is 35 minutes on the bus. To do a proper apples to apples comparison, we need to know how long will this take on the LRT?

The answer can be found in the Transportation Modelling Report on page 13 (page 23 of the PDF).

The answer is the LRT takes 30 minutes from Conestoga Mall to Ottawa, compared to 35 minutes on bus. However, the bus only takes 7 minutes to get from Ottawa to Fairview, while the LRT takes 9 minutes.

For most trips the LRT will be much faster than the express bus.

Furthmore, the 42 minutes on the bus is based on current travel times. If you read that report I referenced on page 21 (31 in the PDF), you'll notice that the modelling forecasts that the travel is forecast to increase by 5 minutes to 40 minutes from Conestoga Mall to Ottawa. So that would then be 30 minutes on LRT, compared to 40 minutes on the express bus.

 

[DavidJamesTO]

The Region of Waterloo owns the track, and there is only one train a day (IIRC, CN) being run on those tracks to ship chemicals to an Elmira plant. There is no reason why dangerous chemicals cannot be shipped by a truck, and there is no reason why one track could be left as heavy rail to continue to serve Elmira, while the other track is light rail. However, the heavy rail track would have to be torn up regardless to be upgraded. If Ottawa can get away with running their O-Train on a still functional freight rail corridor, then there is no reason why it cannot be done in Waterloo.

The heavy rail track is being left in place. The Region posted track schematics for various sections of the line and indicated that it was staying. It will be a tight squeeze, but they're keeping it.

When Ottawa was having the BRT vs LRT debate in the late 70s and early 80s, it was roughly the same size that K-W is now. The poster-child for BRT is only a few hours away from K-W, so why not learn from their experiences?

I wish I could find that picture of the articulated Ottawa BRT buses wrapped around each other in the middle of winter.

 

[kEiThZ]

No, this is what Ottawa did the first time around. Running LRT at-grade through downtown? I thought they would have learned from Ottawa's mistake, but I guess not...

Though to be fair, they are a lot smaller than Ottawa. And as long as they are flexible in the future (ie willing to turn the ROW into a transit mall), it could work for them for a long time. I imagine though, that if they pushed for a tunnel the whole thing would have fallen apart due to cost.

Umm.... no. The entire Phase 1 of the Ottawa LRT is grade-separated, with nearly subway length platforms and actual stations.

How is the entire phase grade-separated? It's in a tunnel in the core. And it's not tunneled or elevated elsewhere. I live near Cyrville station right now. Over there it runs at the same grade at the Queensway. It's an exclusive, segregated ROW though. That's what makes it successful. TC only got half of that equation right (the exclusive part).

 

[kEiThZ]

Then why won't the LRT be segragated in an exclusive ROW if most of the Transitway already is?

Uggh I wrote that wrong. The whole LRT will be segregated in a exclusive ROW, just like most of the Transitway today.

 

[nfitz]

Uggh I wrote that wrong. The whole LRT will be segregated in a exclusive ROW, just like most of the Transitway today.

Okay ... that's what I thought ... but I hadn't actually looked at any plans other than the tunnel.

BTW, no one in KW has been talking tunnel. There was some talk back in 2002/2003 of Monorail or Aerobus, but they never went down those paths.

People talk like this is coming out of nowhere; I haven't lived their for almost 6 years, and I remember seeing lots of articles in the The Record about the plan. They've been seriously studying and developing it for over 8 years.

 

[CDL.TO]

How is the entire phase grade-separated? It's in a tunnel in the core. And it's not tunneled or elevated elsewhere. I live near Cyrville station right now. Over there it runs at the same grade at the Queensway. It's an exclusive, segregated ROW though. That's what makes it successful. TC only got half of that equation right (the exclusive part).

That's what grade separation means. It does not intersect with any other corridor at the same level. Most of the existing Ottawa Transitway is grade-separated (such as at Cyrville, where the transitway is grade separated from Cyrville Rd, rather than having a level crossing).

 

[kEiThZ]

I would like to see Kingston Transit beef up the bus service more before pouring money into LRT. With a short, community-based route, this would likely be a modern streetcar type of operation anyway - perhaps wider stop spacing than a bus, but far narrower than the high concept LRT found in Calgary, Edmonton, or planned for Ottawa or even Waterloo Region (which is a bit closer to streetcar than the others on the light rail continuum). It could happen, on that corridor you suggest, but not likely. Better would be to introduce a high-quality minimum 15-minute service on the CFB/RMC-Downtown-Queen's-Battersea-SLC-(Amherstview?) corridor and the Princess St Downtown-VIA-Cataraqui Centre corridor first, and beef up the feeders, and then see if you need rail transit.

Yeah. The Kingston context is interesting. It's more like pockets of density that need to be connected. Yet they are close enough. For example, Queen's is only 1km from Princess. That's a 12 min walk normally. And most of the city is like that. So I could even see something just on Princess. But all those suggestions by you make sense too. And I would concede that curbside bus lanes is probably good enough for Kingston for a while to come.

Halifax the same thing. Downtown Halifax and Dalhousie are very walkable, apart from that the HRM is very decentralized with a few denser neighbourhoods around downtown Haifax and old Dartmouth, after that it's almost as spread out as Sudbury.

I used to be posted in Halifax. It's even more messed up contextually. The Halifax core is really dense (as far as smaller Canadian urban centres go). But then they have people commuting from all these places that are miles away. So any LRT solution for them will be more regional than local. Even when I was there a few years ago, their LRT talk was already about running it up the side of the basin and some day getting to Lower Sackville. And to be honest, I think it makes sense. They could run LRT along the Bedford Highway from Sunnyside Mall right to the bus depot at Halifax Centre (using the rail corridor once you get off the highway). Yet on the other hand there has been this focus to get LRT in the core which doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Trolley buses or streetcars would be much better. As for Dartmouth, ferries and buses will last them forever.

 

[kEiThZ]

That's what grade separation means. It does not intersect with any other corridor at the same level. Most of the existing Ottawa Transitway is grade-separated (such as at Cyrville, where the transitway is grade separated from Cyrville Rd, rather than having a level crossing).

Fair enough. I've always used the term with a more narrow defintion. I have simply seen it by the literal meaning of vertical separation, to be clarified by defining the level of exclusivity (what other traffic uses the ROW?) and segregation (what other traffic interferes regularly? ie. road intersections) Does grade separation then, always imply an exclusive ROW with segregation from other traffic?

 

[Mapleson]

That's what grade separation means. It does not intersect with any other corridor at the same level. Most of the existing Ottawa Transitway is grade-separated (such as at Cyrville, where the transitway is grade separated from Cyrville Rd, rather than having a level crossing).

'Grade' refers to ground level. 'At grade' refers to things built at ground level. Grade seperated means traffic streams are isolated by elevation.

Segregated means barriers (physical or painted) between traffic streams.

Grade seperations in North America are typically exclusive ROW with segregation, but it is not part of the definition of the term.

 

[CDL.TO]

Fair enough. I've always used the term with a more narrow defintion. I have simply seen it by the literal meaning of vertical separation, to be clarified by defining the level of exclusivity (what other traffic uses the ROW?) and segregation (what other traffic interferes regularly? ie. road intersections) Does grade separation then, always imply an exclusive ROW with segregation from other traffic?

No. As Mapleson said, "Grade seperated means traffic streams are isolated by elevation." That's all it means. It doesn't mean that the line is or is not in a tunnel, on the ground, or elevated. All it means is that when the line crosses another transportation corridor (like a road), that the two "are isolated by elevation".

Phase 1 of the Ottawa LRT will be fully grade separated. In other words, it will have no level crossings. That's all it means.

 

[gweed123]

Though to be fair, they are a lot smaller than Ottawa. And as long as they are flexible in the future (ie willing to turn the ROW into a transit mall), it could work for them for a long time. I imagine though, that if they pushed for a tunnel the whole thing would have fallen apart due to cost.

I'm saying that K-W is the same size now that Ottawa was when it first started to look at BRT vs LRT, and they chose BRT, and it worked.

How is the entire phase grade-separated? It's in a tunnel in the core. And it's not tunneled or elevated elsewhere. I live near Cyrville station right now. Over there it runs at the same grade at the Queensway. It's an exclusive, segregated ROW though. That's what makes it successful. TC only got half of that equation right (the exclusive part).

The proposed LRT does not cross any roads or paths at-grade. None. Zero. It is completely grade-separated from Tunney's to Blair. Take a look at the proposals for the stations (http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/en/routes-stations). Every station is completely grade separated, as is the sections between stations. The at-grade portions (LeBreton, around Laurier, etc) are being removed and grade-separated. The rest of the Transitway is already grade-separated anyway. Some of the stations being proposed would rival even subway stations in terms of size.

 

[jwill]

Waterloo Region may be the same size as Ottawa, but it has a different layout. BRT has worked well in Ottawa because of its basic structure--a single dense core surrounded by a decentralized hinterland. So buses can run from anywhere, get onto one of the trunk routes that radiate from downtown, and get to the centre.

Waterloo though is a much more linear city. There isnt a single downtown with all the attractions, there are several downtowns (if you include Cambridge) and major centres outside of the downtowns, all in a line. For a city like that I think its best to put all the rapid transit investment into that one corridor, instead of spreading the investment around with BRTs as Ottawa has successfully done. I dont think any other routes in KW will justify rapid transit service for a long time.