Waterloo Light Rail

[waterloowarrior]

The preliminary routes and station locations are out!!

(note that it could also still be BRT, but from what I've heard from public officials it seems to be that LRT will be the likely choice - if funding is provided of course)

http://transitea.region.waterloo.on....d=21&Itemid=23

[FazDeH]

^^ This is great for KW. makes me jealous though haha. I have to admit, traffic in KW is FAR worse than in London

[clynnog]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

The preliminary routes and station locations are out!!

(note that it could also still be BRT, but from what I've heard from public officials it seems to be that LRT will be the likely choice - if funding is provided of course)

http://transitea.region.waterloo.on....d=21&Itemid=23

What would happen to CKMS studios...looks like the Research Park station could bulldoze a broadcasting icon

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by clynnog

What would happen to CKMS studios...looks like the Research Park station could bulldoze a broadcasting icon

the RT park has a site plan that shows where the station would go if they get one, and I think it's south of CKMS, but I can double-check.

[Tony]

Originally Posted by FazDeH

I have to admit, traffic in KW is FAR worse than in London

Are you kidding me? London traffic going N-S is damned near impossible during most times of the day. KW has a ring highway system.

[Snark]

..

[upinottawa]

I am rarely in Waterloo, but when I am -- almost exclusively during a weekend -- the freeway always seems busy and the popular interchanges backed up.

Outside of rush hours, driving through London is a breeze (Fanshawe Park Road between Wonderland and Richmond excepted).

[upinottawa]

Is the light rail project going to fly? What is the estimated cost of building (the first phase of) the light rail line?

[waterloowarrior]

it's still in the planning phases... have to decide whether it's LRT or BRT (but everyone is calling it LRT), route, phasing, and actually get the funding, but they did a cost estimate earlier

"Building a light-rail transit system between Conestoga Mall in Waterloo and Fairview Park mall in Kitchener has been roughly estimated to cost $306 million. The cost of extending rails southeast into Cambridge hasn't been estimated."

[FazDeH]

traffic getting into Kitchener off the 401 is a nightmare especially around 5pm I've been stuck in that mess for over an hour before I even got near downtown. London has its problems but we have better road systems and it never takes me more than 45 minutes to get from one end of the city to the other regardless of time of day.

[Deez]

how come the region didn't send me any emails about this! I signed up!

Can't wait to see KW get a real transit system.

[waterloowarrior]

I went to the public workshop tonight.. pretty good! It was great to see how many people knew about all the recent Uptown developments and the potential for light rail redevelopment, really wanted rapid transit and helping to provide alternatives to the car, and were really interested in the future of Waterloo Region!

My group had a pretty good consensus on what we wanted for routes/stations and which ones were out of the question. We wanted to make things as central as possible in Kitchener and make sure to serve Uptown Waterloo (no Weber route). We also suggested trying to connect the Universities via University Ave (or a nearby route) rather than trying to chose between one or the other (other groups also said this, so hopefully there is the possibility to consider it) - but it may not be possible for technical reasons. Had a great time overall!

edit: also, it was really well attended too! every table for the workshop was full

[the dude]

good luck. just don't steal our funding! we're getting ready to start planning lrt in the hammer.

[WaterlooInvestor]

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[Waterlooson]

Originally Posted by Snark

Not exactly a ring. They put it where it fit into the available land. And, that very freeway is often jammed to a dead stop during morning and evening rush hours and backed up many, many kilometers long. People are actually forced to avoid the freeway on many days because it's impassable. A lot of the problem is caused the commuters going to and from Toronto.

London has a much better and wider road network that is very well laid out, but no freeway.

KW has the freeway, but the rest of the network is generally much poorer - much of that due to its irregular layout and lack of multilane roads, thus forcing too many cars onto the freeway in order to get accross town or to Toronto.

Both cities have their problems in this regard. Six of one, a half dozen of the other.

Driving south to north is a nightmare in London (from one end to the other); through K/W this is a breeze most of the time due to the expressway.

It's ridiculous to claim that commuters to/from Toronto are a significant cause for traffic problems in K/W when just over 2% of the workforce (of K/W) commutes between those cities.

Obviously you don't know much about K/W's transportation network because it has numerous multi-lane roads. Getting around town by car is much easier in K/W than in London - once you are familiar with the road network in both cities. The network is more "irregular" in K/W to be sure, but that is only a difficulty for the newbie.

[Cambridgite]

To settle the commuting issue, here are the stats for out-of-region commuting destinations.

WHERE WE COMMUTE

Top commuting destinations for residents of Waterloo Region (and percentage of total commuters):

Wellington County -- 11,465 (42 per cent)

Peel Region -- 4,610 (17 per cent)

Toronto -- 2,970 (11per cent)

Halton Region -- 2,140 (eight per cent)

Brant County -- 1,230 (four per cent)

Hamilton -- 1,140 (four per cent)

Perth County -- 1,080 (four per cent)

SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA, 2001 CENSUS

In total, all of these represent about 12% of Waterloo Region's labour force. The only ones that surprised me for being so high were Brant (Brantford) and Perth (Stratford). Otherwise, this is what I would expect. As you can see, lots of people are taking the 401 eastbound, but they're not all going to the City of Toronto. Lots of them are going to Peel, Halton, and Hamilton (to Hwy 6 south). If you work in the south end of Guelph, you probably take the 401 as well. Since this doesn't even include Cambridge (it's part of the region), I will also say from experience that there are many Cambridgers who commute to KW and vice versa. Most of them take the highways, which include the 401 and highway 8. Hope this cleared up confusion about commuter traffic.

[WaterlooInvestor]

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[Cambridgite]

Good point, Waterloo Investor. I live in Cambridge and regularly commute to UofW for school. I have driven the 401 regularly for a couple years now and I find it to be heavy in both directions between 4-6pm. Strangely though, it seems you suddenly hit a wall coming into Kitchener at 5pm, while the other direction is flowing much more fluidly (unless you're at the flyover at the other end of hwy 8). I would like to compare these numbers to 2006 stats when they come out, to see what the trends are. I doubt that commuting to the city of Toronto has actually increased that much, since most of the GTA's employment growth is taking place in the outer suburbs. In recent years, there has been an influx in Mississauga commuters moving in (at least in the Townline/401 area of Cambridge). Mississauga has little room left to grow, so I think we'll increasingly become more connected with Milton in the coming years, which would increase the number of commuters between Waterloo Region and Halton. But don't forget, Waterloo Region and Guelph, which have a large base population (unlike Barrie or Orangeville), are also seeing substantial employment growth, so I wouldn't be surprised if traffic gets busier in both directions. Given current trends, I would expect the Cambridge-Milton stretch to get a lot busier in the coming years as we become more integrated with Guelph and the GTA. This is only my hypothesis and the only way to judge these trends is by actually having the data available to you.

With all of that said, Waterloo Region should have inter-regional co-operation in mind when building the LRT. I think GO transit will be needed, with connections throughout Guelph, Brantford, Hamilton, and the GTA. The 2 should be transferable to give people an option other than their cars. It will also mean avoiding car-oriented business parks whenever possible. Employment lands in particular, should be oriented to higher-order transit whenever they can be. I have briefly discussed the GO-train transfer idea with the Regional chair at the first LRT meeting I went to. My impression was that he wasn't too keen on the idea of GO service in Waterloo Region. He is worried about it becoming a "bedroom community". I share those same worries and I don't think this place would be as good to live in if people had no connection to their local community and kids were left without parents as they drive excessively for the "good life". We can't prevent commuters from moving here and out-of-towners from working here, so ignoring the problem is futile. Traffic is building in both directions and something needs to be done. I don't think it will do us any good to pretend we live in a bubble the way Mississauga does and I think we need to work together with the whole western half of the Greater Golden Horseshoe if we are to fully achieve the results we want.
Any thoughts?

[WaterlooInvestor]

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[Cambridgite]

Originally Posted by WaterlooInvestor

There is one question I'd like to ask when looking at commuting paterns. How is Wilmot (Baden, New Hamburg, New Dundee) not included in Kitchener's CMA? In my opinion, it's clear that it should be included. If that happened, we'd already officially be Canada's 10th largest metro, and have the extra attention that brings.

Wilmot (TP) / Toronto (C) 45 35 0
Wilmot (TP) / Mississauga (C) 85 70 15
Wilmot (TP) / Guelph (C) 95 45 55
Wilmot (TP) / Hamilton (C) 20 15 10
Wilmot (TP) / North Dumfries (TP) 95 70 30
Wilmot (TP) / Cambridge (C) 425 320 105
Wilmot (TP) / Kitchener (C) 1,910 910 1,000
Wilmot (TP) / Waterloo (C) 995 405 585
Wilmot (TP) / Wilmot (TP) 2,120 1,020 1,100
Wilmot (TP) / Wellesley (TP) 55 40 20
Wilmot (TP) / Woolwich (TP) 135 80 55
Wilmot (TP) / Stratford (C) 150 75 80
Wilmot (TP) / Perth East (TP) 45 30 15
Wilmot (TP) / East Zorra-Tavistock (TP) 35 20 10
Wilmot (TP) / Woodstock (C) 50 40 15
Wilmot (TP) / Blandford-Blenheim (TP) 30 10 30
Wilmot (TP) / London (C) 40 10 35

Patience WaterlooInvestor. Even without insignificant Wilmot, we'll still be hitting the 500,000 mark pretty soon. But yes, I agree with you. At less than 100,000, if over 30% of your labour force commutes to the urbanized core, doesn't that make you part of that CMA? I think Statscan needs to review their CMA boundaries. There's a lot of new development around Baden and New Hamburg right now as they are becoming popular exurbs. They are definitely not large enough to attract any substantial amount of inbound commuting, so I'm assuming many of these new residents are commuting into the tri-cities.

Back to the topic again, when I went to the last meeting, my group discussed the idea of a car free King Street from Victoria to Cedar, as the LRT would have difficulty sharing the road with cars along that narrow stretch. When one of the planners read it out to everyone people just laughed and said it'll never happen. A lot of other groups proposed running it along Duke or Charles Streets, where it wouldn't have exposure to the main street of retail. Any thoughts?