LRT Uptown Routing Change

I've said in the past that the Uptown loop was an awkward compromise. Back in June, Regional Councillor Strickland (to the dismay of Waterloo City Councillor Scian) challenged the suitability of the route alignment-- in particular the Erb St. counterflow hook that the North-bound line would make-- and pushed for an amendment to review this decision. The city was incensed, because they endorsed the existing 2009 plan.

** Edit: Ms. Scian has clarified that the City reacted to not being consulted on this proposal. Read her comment below.


Well, what a difference a few months make. Region staff engaged the citizenry and the city and proposed some fairly significant alterations (link note: see page 12 onward).

• Move the Northbound connection to the existing rail spur that crosses the parking lot north of Waterloo Town(e) Square (by sharing track, an option we believed was impossible in 2009)
• Move the Northbound station off King and onto the spur, next to the public square
• Create a new station at King and Allen
• Move the Southbound tracks from east side of Caroline to west.

New Uptown Route Alignment

This proposal has been conditionally endorsed by the city, and passed unanimously by the Region.  Which is good, because it is a definite improvement.  But some think it just didn't go far enough. And while I don't want to take away from the accomplishment that has been made, I would be inclined to agree.  Here's where the new plan falls short:

Usability


The new station positions mean Southbound and Northbound uptown stations are hidden from each other, and fairly distant. This is one of the biggest problems the loops present: they make the system more confusing, and are an obstacle to these stations attracting riders. Virtually every rider who visits uptown will do so as part of a return journey.

Connectivity

I also see a problem for route connections. As it stands, the King St. face of the public square is a minor transit node, with the various 7's and the 5/35 all stopping here.  And yet, the split LRT route makes it impossible to do anything but partially serve these connections.

(I should note that downtown Kitchener's loop also presents this problem in spades.)

Spacing

The new Allen St. station position means there is a scant 500m separation between the two southbound stations.


So how can we address this?

In the link above, TriTAG proposes moving the southbound station up Caroline to be near the Erb St. intersection.  I've urged the Region to consider this proposal carefully, as it would provide some partial solutions to each of the problems I mentioned above.

But an Erb/Caroline position is its own tradeoff.  The Erb intersection is much busier than Willis Way, and it is already complicated. (Cyclists in particular regard it as one of the blights in this city.)  The C.I.G.I. building (originally built as part of the Seagram's complex, I believe) crowds the intersection and limits the space available for a station.  And, this corner is less of a destination than Caroline/Willis is.

It may be that in the balance, there is no better loop alignment than the current plan.

But the reality is, there are so many constraints in play that prevent a unified alignment through the area.  We can't infringe on the square.  We can't eliminate two-way traffic on any street.  We don't want to rip out any existing buildings (like, say, the bridal shop at Caroline and William) and we can't steal space from parking lots (e.g. Rec Centre.)

Where does that leave us?

As a region, we have a choice: we can settle, having come up with a decent compromise that seems to be generally acceptable.  (Though don't ask the folks in the Catalina townhomes, because they're spitting nails about the Caroline side switch.)  Or, we could recognize that LRT is the backbone of our whole plan to provide alternatives to driving in Waterloo Region, and make the hard decisions needed to fix its routing properly.

These decisions would result in much screaming and gnashing of teeth, but... in ten years, nobody will remember the fallout that will inevitably come from giving LRT the priority it deserves.  Not if the system works.  And it needs to work.  The compromises that keep it from offending various interests are deficiencies we will have to live with forever, and each of them takes away from the viability of the whole.

GRT Business Plan 2011-2014

GRT held a public consultation on its business plan for the next three years at Regional HQ last night.  I made my way down, appropriately enough, by bus.  The event was not well attended, unfortunately... but I drink this stuff up, so I was happy to be there to bend a few ears and to learn what I can.

You can read the business plan at GRT's website.

The Good

By 2013:

• University Avenue Express, providing a link from Boardwalk to the Northfield/University RIM complex, via Erb, Westmount, University and Bridge.
• Extension of the 201 iXpress out to Conestoga mall and to Northfield/University.

Together these create two legitimate cross-town routes in Waterloo and establishes new links to the main line and future LRT.  (And personally they benefit me and my workplace by adding two express route stops at Bridge and Northfield.)


The Bad

The three-year plan is fairly modest.  The approach is to establish new routes every two years (2013, 2015..) and to bolster existing service on the other years (2012, 2014..)

However, the original RTMP projected a more aggressive establishment of express routes, with University Express in 2012 and follow-on routes in 2013-2014.  But this cutback was expected: part of making the LRT tax hit more palatable was reducing the funding growth needed to provide this service.

In the long term, this is costly-- with LRT established, the support network won't be as mature as it should be.  In the short term, this delays the introduction of new service.  In the medium term, well... it's complicated. More on that later.

Also disappointing: while Saturday and Sunday iXpress service is being improved, there is no late service and no news of extending the 200 iXpress' hours. I've been hoping to see a link from Cambridge to Kitchener later than 9:15pm, but it's still not in the offing.

Speaking of Cambridge, not much love from GRT in the next three years.


The Ugly


I have to call this ugly, because I can't figure out if it's truly good or bad.  Again, it's those medium term consequences...

GRT is presenting a fare increase structure.  Instead of factoring in an annual 2% inflation increase, GRT is presenting options for 5%, 7% and 9% (!!) fare increases with the aim of not just keeping up with cost of operations, but to change the balance of funding between fares and property tax, with a goal of 50% cost coverage from fares.

TriTAG has some strong words against this.  GRT points out in defense of this that average fares (across all modes) are lower than average for comparable systems, and increased revenue will help drive faster growth.

On the other hand, it'll put a headwind on ridership growth, and strain on the most vulnerable GRT users.  I'm not happy about that.  Theoretically we could improve GRT's low-income support program to address the latter issue-- according to a TriTAG rep, this program is behind in dealing with applicants.  But we're in a war for the hearts and minds of commuters who don't yet take our transit system seriously, and in swaying potential riders, there's no argument like success (and the last ten years have been very successful for GRT.)  Continued growth in ridership is paramount.

And yet... I keep worrying that LRT will be a political football in 2014, when we go back to the polls.  There may be value in showing that our transit service is taking steps to reduce its burden on the tax base.  Forget for a moment, dear enlightened readers, that good transit will save hundreds of millions in road expansion costs... Put aside that those same roads are heavily subsidized, or that self-sustaining profitability is not the goal of a transit system anywhere.

Increasing fare coverage of cost may be bad for transit growth and bad for transit users, but it could be ammunition against those whose goal is to minimize transit costs and kill LRT no matter what the long term consequences.

Yup, that's politics.  And that's why it's ugly.  In the balance, I don't know what's right.

Why I Choose NOT to Bike, Mostly

There's been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about cycling, and cyclists on sidewalks, and related matters. It made me think about my own cycling habits, which are pretty much nonexistent these days.

Why, when given all the transportation choices available to me, do I invariably choose cycling LAST over everything else? Simply because it's a battle I'm not always prepared to fight.

Only when on my bike do I face the possibility of being honked at or yelled at, or worse, involved in a collision where I stand an enormous chance of being injured...all while I'm following the laws and riding like I should. Of course, I *could* ride on the sidewalk, as many people do, but I don't want to do that. It's illegal, and I am determined that *if* I'm going to ride my bike, I'm going to "do it right" and not be one of those law-flaunting cyclists that everyone loves to hate.

This isn't to say that I get abuse hurled at me EVERY time I ride my bike! Most drivers are respectful and can share the road nicely, and the vast majority of trips would end without incident. But even the possibility that I would have to face something like that when all I want to do is GET SOMEWHERE is enough to push me to leave my bike at home and walk, or take the bus, or drive. Every bike ride is a mental battle, and most days I'm not ready to put my game face on. I have enormous respect for those of you who DO get out there daily and fight, and I hope that someday I'll be strong enough to join you. But for now, I admit that I am weak, and my bike sits in the garage.

(And yes, I realize that using a war/battle analogy for such an inflammatory topic is maybe ill-advised. The battle in this case is mostly inside my own head.)

Waterloo's Great Cycling Gulf

For some years, I have been saying that we have some pretty good cycling routes in Waterloo Region, but they are too disconnected. I've been mulling a question: How do you best show the gaps in our cycling network that need attention?

To answer this question, you must define our cycling network. For instance: while I know some cyclists will brave the major arterial roads such as King, Weber, Northfield, University, and so on, I would not include the portions of those roads that don't provide any cycling infrastructure as part of my cycling network. And in fact, I go to great lengths to avoid them as unpleasant and too dangerous. In general, casual and new cyclists will also do this, unless they have no choice. A lack of alternatives may keep someone from becoming a cyclist at all.

On the other hand, parts of this city that aren't "officially" cycling routes are, in fact, very suitable for cycling-- most of our minor side streets and neighbourhoods are calm enough to be welcoming to cyclists.

I've played a bit with Google Maps, learning how to use its javascript API to visually sift through geographic information. I've focused on the City of Waterloo-- after all, Waterloo (the City) has a silver ranking for cycling friendliness and also where I do most of my commute and utility cycling, despite living just over the border in Kitchener.

I haven't worked out how to get this kind of javascript querying of Google Maps to embed nicely in Blogger, but that's okay. In the end I took information out of two maps and combined them:

• A map highlighting all minor "local" roads (on the generous assumption that they are bike-friendly enough for casual riders, even without cycling infrastructure)
• A map using Google's "Bicycling Layer" (which excludes any road-- major or minor-- without cycling infrastructure)

The result is below. I recommend you click through to see the image in all its high-res glory:



Even without zooming in, there should be one thing that's abundantly clear. Do you see it? Viciously cutting an uninterrupted swath across the entire northern corner of the city?

It's Waterloo's biggest cycling problem. It's the Great Conestoga Parkway Chasm. Like the Amazon River, the Parkway snakes its way through our city, and you take your life in your hands to ford it.

By excluding from my map anything that a casual cyclist would reject, I can reveal in stark relief just how big a problem this is for cyclists. In Waterloo, every crossing of the Parkway is an arterial road. None of them have cycling infrastructure. And they look like this:

Northfield Dr.


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King St. N


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Lexington


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University


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Enough to send your sense of self-preservation into a tizzy, and make you think about leaving two wheels behind and taking four.

Two observations to make. One: none of these routes are the kind you'd want your child biking on. And two: Lexington is the least bad of a very bad lot.

As it stands, we have a completely disconnected cycling network. For a city priding itself on its move towards complete streets, this should be Number One on its cycling improvement agenda. Fortunately, providing some small solution to this problem does appear to be on the city's radar.

With the proposed Lexington upgrade, we go from completely disconnected to one imperfect and tenuous connection across the Parkway Gulf. A step in the right direction. It must happen, as soon as possible: the Gulf is a major impediment to the adoption of cycling by young and old.

But it must also be followed by other crossing points for cyclists and pedestrians. I've been over each of these monstrous crossings on foot, and they range from unpleasant to horrifying. I can tell you what Northfield Drive is like, in January after dark as the wind and snow drives down and the speeding headlights are everywhere. I've used the Gulf and Giant River metaphors already, but for pedestrians the Parkway is also a wall.

Dear City of Waterloo council, should you read this: please remember what I've said when the Lexington improvements come before you.

Why Davenport is a good idea

I know Davenport Road pretty well. I used to live on Kingscourt, behind Conestoga Mall. You needed to have your wits about you on Davenport Road.

Davenport used to be a speedway. A twisty 1980s era 4-lane road, filled with obstacles like an overflowing Timmy's drivethrough (serving as a kind of multi-level symbolic reminder of how we're getting some pretty basic things in our life badly wrong), stopped left-turners waiting to get into the mall, and of course the cars who weave in between it all.

What it is now is being billed as Waterloo's "first complete street". Really, it's our first no-holds-barred Road Diet.

You've probably heard that term bandied about for a while now, it's been seeping into popular usage for a while. On the surface, it sounds like bald euphemism-- what is a road diet, then, but less road for cars to fit on?-- but road diets are a remarkable example of the non-intuitive nature of traffic. From less, you get more. Or at least, you get the same amount of car capacity, but you get more of other things: cycling lanes, pedestrian friendliness, safety, adherence to speed limits, visual attractiveness...

But don't take it from me. Here's Streetfilm's piece on Road Diets:



A 2-lane road with turn lanes, like new Davenport, typically faces opposition from people who think that it is going in the wrong direction when it comes to accommodating our growing traffic. But, there is data (such as Walkable's report [pdf]) which shows that road diets like this frequently maintain the amount of traffic capacity that the old road had, especially when the number of driveways and turning opportunities on the road are limited-- such as they are on Davenport.

The dieted road is slower. No question. But it's not congestion so much-- the pace of traffic self-limits better. Without an extra lane to allow passing, the pace is now set by the prudent driver. We're also getting better at designing roads that psychologically cause drivers to limit their speed. And the turn lanes still allow for good traffic flow at intersections-- the difference is intersections are no longer chicanes and obstacles in the middle of a long speedway.

So traffic is calmer, the opportunity for and severity of accidents is reduced, and the extra space can allow for cycling lanes, pedestrian refuges and plain old landscaping.

And still, initial reactions to Davenport reveal a lot of criticism and doubt. Even someone whose backyard has been driven into twice openly wishes that it was still four lanes. This underscores how intuition in urban design has really led us down the garden path-- and then caused us to dig up the garden path, replace it with a freeway, and wonder why the garden withered and died.

What road diets reveal to us in great clarity is the folly in optimizing for the car. Much of the last half-century has been based around the premise that what's good for the car is good for everyone, because everyone drives. Instead, the truth is that what's good for the car comes at the expense of just about everything else, and the incremental denial of spaces to anyone but the automobile-enabled ends up forcing everyone to use a car. Finally, when capacity for cars is reached, we end up with an urban form that punishes everyone, and with no easy fix available.

We need an urban form that enables car use, but does not optimize for it, especially on a road like Davenport which is not a major thoroughfare. 4-lane road capacity turns out to be only marginally better than a well-designed 2 lane road with proper turn facilities. That marginal improvement comes at the expense of usefulness for other modes, and of safety for all.

Oh, and hey! The new Davenport has Waterloo's first bike box! But that's a topic for another time...

A cyclist's take on Lexington upgrades

By any standards, cyclists in Waterloo should be pleased that Lexington is getting attention right now. Though, cyclists won't be entirely pleased with the proposed alternatives. How you feel will depend a lot on how you perceive the proverbial half-empty, half-filled cup.

Four alternatives were on display at the PIC session on Lexington Drive tonight. One was a "long-term" preferred plan, and unless the City of Waterloo suddenly realizes it left $7 million in its other pair of jeans, it won't happen for 5-7 years.

Three short-term plans were shown. Their budget is much more modest, closer to $300,000, and one of them will be underway next year if it gets council approval. They are compromises, trying to build a decent cycling and pedestrian connection between Weber and Davenport.

One alternative, a multi-use trail on the south side of Lexington from Weber up to the bridge, was already mostly out of the running. It's a two horse race between two other options.

Alternative 2: North-side Multi-use Trail to Lexington Ct., cycling lanes and "Modified Road Diet" from Lexington Ct. to Davenport

Here, Lexington remains 4 lanes until Lexington Court, at the top of the hill. There, it moves to a 3-lane road diet configuration with bike lanes. Along the 4-lane section a multi-use trail is available. At the Lexington intersection, the trail ends and a crossing to the eastbound bike lane is provided, with a pedestrian refuge island.

Alternative 3(a): North-side Multi-use Trail to the edge of the Highway 85 bridge, cycling lanes, 2 east-bound and 1 westbound lane across bridge to Davenport

In this option, Lexington remains 4 lanes up until the bridge. From Davenport to the west side of the bridge, there is only one lane for westbound traffic. This gives room for bike lanes, which terminate after the bridge. Westbound cyclists move over from the cycling lane onto the trail, while eastbound cyclists would come to the end of the trail and would have to wait to cross over to their bike lane. There is no room for a pedestrian refuge here.

I'm not really happy with either of these options, though both represent an improvement from the status quo. I challenged the representatives on a number of points:

1. Why not cycling lanes all the way through?

Their answer: That is the "long term" plan which requires widening of Lexington and is not expected to be supported due to cost currently. Outlook for the long term plan: 5-7 years.

2. Why not carry the multi-use trail past the bridge?

Their answer: Engineering and drainage issues complicate changing the bridge's surface configuration. Politics as well: Lexington is the city's, the bridge requires going to the MTO.

(I got the impression that anything beyond repainting the bridge's lanes would be a tough sell because of the MTO.)

3. Terminating the trail at the bridge will result in a lot of cyclists crossing on the sidewalk. Potentially very dangerous given the height of the guardrails.

They did not have a good answer for this. Though they did point out that cyclists do this now, which is true.

4. Why no pedestrian refuge on 3(a) like on 2?

Their answer: This can only be done at the intersection where the turn lane shadow exists.

(Not sure I buy this.)

Overall, I had a slight preference for alternative 2, the road diet option: it provides a better crossing point at an existing intersection with the refuge island, and reduces the amount of cyclists who will shortcut on the sidewalk (or worse, in the oncoming bike lane). I'd also really like to see the effect of even this limited road diet.

I had one constructive suggestion for this option: terminate the westbound cycling lane before the Lexington Ct. intersection and provide another ramp there for westbound transfer from bike lane to trail and to connecting paths into the subdivision... and extend the trail to meet that point (leaving the other crossing and bikelane unchanged.) This suggestion was well-received.

Not clear which option will be recommended. One person told me 3(a) was preferred currently but another said that 2 was the leader going into this meeting.

Overall, the possibility that even these imperfect solutions could be acted on next year is something that makes me guardedly optimistic. The reconfiguration really is to the benefit of cyclists and no one else, and even if it isn't ideal, a good plan now is better than waiting for a better plan 7 years hence. And Lexington is the key crossing point for cyclists over Highway 85. Either enhancement would be welcome to me.

What do you think?