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Today I went out to Waterloo and got a chance to ride ION end to end. A few questions:

1) In one of the cars I rode, I was standing right next to the driver's cab, and it seemed that at every intersection, the driver pointed at various corners of the intersection, and whenever we made a right turn, he pointed and said something out loud (though, obviously, I couldn't hear what). Is this some mandated type of safety procedure akin to point and acknowledge?

2) Though I was generally impressed by the speediness of the line in its north section (Toronto could take pointers), the journey time between Borden and Fairway was absolutely horrendous (it's as though they took pointers from Toronto), with the final straightaway from Fairway to Traynor Park was particularly heinous. What is the reason for this? A bike clipping along at a fair pace could outrace the tram!

3) Is it banked curves that allow the cars to tackle curves along the high speed sections at speed?

And some observations:

a) the stop announcements are horrendous. No blood in them at all! I don't understand why this is causing problems for so many transit agencies these days. MiWay is another example of a truly horrendous series of stop announcements.

b) the barrier gates seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice they seem kind of half assed. You can't access the corridor from outside, but if you've just disembarked from the tram, there is nothing at all stopping you from getting in its way.

c) I don't know if it's because the cars see less intensive service than the ones in Toronto do, or if it's cause they're younger, but they seem to be in far better shape than the ones in Toronto are. The ION cars seem almost new still, while most of Toronto's exude an aura of neglect and sadness.

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6 hours ago, T3G said:

Today I went out to Waterloo and got a chance to ride ION end to end. A few questions:

1) In one of the cars I rode, I was standing right next to the driver's cab, and it seemed that at every intersection, the driver pointed at various corners of the intersection, and whenever we made a right turn, he pointed and said something out loud (though, obviously, I couldn't hear what). Is this some mandated type of safety procedure akin to point and acknowledge?

2) Though I was generally impressed by the speediness of the line in its north section (Toronto could take pointers), the journey time between Borden and Fairway was absolutely horrendous (it's as though they took pointers from Toronto), with the final straightaway from Fairway to Traynor Park was particularly heinous. What is the reason for this? A bike clipping along at a fair pace could outrace the tram!

3) Is it banked curves that allow the cars to tackle curves along the high speed sections at speed?

And some observations:

a) the stop announcements are horrendous. No blood in them at all! I don't understand why this is causing problems for so many transit agencies these days. MiWay is another example of a truly horrendous series of stop announcements.

b) the barrier gates seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice they seem kind of half assed. You can't access the corridor from outside, but if you've just disembarked from the tram, there is nothing at all stopping you from getting in its way.

c) I don't know if it's because the cars see less intensive service than the ones in Toronto do, or if it's cause they're younger, but they seem to be in far better shape than the ones in Toronto are. The ION cars seem almost new still, while most of Toronto's exude an aura of neglect and sadness.

Hello there. Since I've ridden the ION quite a bit in the past 11 months, I will try to answer some of your questions:
1) I've never seen one of them do this before. They were most likely saying hi to a fellow GRT driver.

2) Someone has asked this question before to no definitive answer, so I honestly can't tell you.

3) Yes. If you go to the rail bridge at Waterloo Park, you can see an example of the track banking.

a) I've definitely noticed that. The tram announcements used to say left/right weird until a few months ago, and the bus stop announcements still seem to pronounce some street names incoherently.

b)  Definitely interesting considering the Edmonton Valley Line doesn't have any, but my guess would be that the city was trying to cut costs (which they seem to have done everywhere along the line).

c) I don't know what TTC streetcar maintenance is like, but the ION having less intense service and only 15 LRT vehicles certainly helps.

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9 hours ago, T3G said:the journey time between Borden and Fairway was absolutely horrendous (it's as though they took pointers from Toronto), with the final straightaway from Fairway to Traynor Park was particularly heinous. What is the reason for this? A bike clipping along at a fair pace could outrace the tram!

The section near Hayward is pretty slow and I believe that trains used to operate a bit faster between traynor park and fairway but then they added a level crossing with a ramp down to fairway rd from the multi use trail by the tracks. That could be the reason?

3 minutes ago, TransitIsMyThing said:

The section near Hayward is pretty slow and I believe that trains used to operate a bit faster between traynor park and fairway but then they added a level crossing with a ramp down to fairway rd from the multi use trail by the tracks. That could be the reason?

My quote didn’t work.

9 hours ago, T3G said:

the journey time between Borden and Fairway was absolutely horrendous (it's as though they took pointers from Toronto), with the final straightaway from Fairway to Traynor Park was particularly heinous. What is the reason for this? A bike clipping along at a fair pace could outrace the tram!

2nd try!

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1 hour ago, TransitIsMyThing said:

The section near Hayward is pretty slow and I believe that trains used to operate a bit faster between traynor park and fairway but then they added a level crossing with a ramp down to fairway rd from the multi use trail by the tracks. That could be the reason?

The main issue with the whole southern part of the LRT is the section between Mill Street and Block Line Road. Absolutely awful. At one half you're travelling at 15 km/h the entire time and on the other half the tram accelerates to 65 km/h only for it to immediately slow back down to 40. I'm considering doing a test to see if it's faster to just bike from Fairway to Borden.

The speed restrictions at the pedestrian crossing also don't help. Would it really be that hard to add a couple gates?

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5 hours ago, BoredCapturer said:

1) I've never seen one of them do this before. They were most likely saying hi to a fellow GRT driver

Thanks for responding. This was a separate thing, he did it even when there was nothing and no one around. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/26/2024 at 10:56 AM, Russell Forbes said:

I wonder how the new 91 is going to work, considering there's no more Charles Street Terminal to go to or 7D to replace...

GRT’s website IMG_3386.thumb.jpeg.4e7dadce3e2ec09b31cef8667c2425fc.jpeg

this is under service alerts on their website. Also the schedule is up on their website under schedules (as apposed to being at the bottom of the 7 schedule) 😁

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16 hours ago, TransitIsMyThing said:

Quick question, I looked in the Waterloo Region forum and noticed there wasn’t a PC Connect forum, if it exists does anyone know where it is?

It is in the Ontario forum. I created it because no one else created that topic.

 

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On 8/20/2024 at 12:04 AM, dilun said:

What is the current state of the King-Victoria transit hub? The land has been empty and fenced up ever since the region bought the land.

They are still working on the design. It is to be completed by December 2024. Also they changed the name to Kitchener Central Transit Hub instead of King-Victoria Transit Hub. The start date for construction is unknown or TBD. 

More info here: https://www.engagewr.ca/king-victoria-transit-hub

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On 8/7/2024 at 6:19 PM, BoredCapturer said:

Spotted a 2006 GRT bus at Victoria Hills Community Centre 👀

20240807_181528.jpg

20240807_181530.jpg

The Region of Waterloo Public Health Neighbourhood Bus is bringing vaccines to residents in neighbourhoods across Waterloo Region. The new bus helps remove barriers that people may have to accessing vaccines in a traditional setting.

Inspired by the success of the COVID-19 bus in bringing health care out into the community, Public Health and Emergency Services and Grand River Transit joined forces to continue to expand vaccination options across the region.

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Looking at the Fall service changes, it seems like Stanley Park will continue to see dedicated bus service. Fall stop changes don't say anything about Stanley Park.

11 hours ago, GMoldlook said:

Anyone know if buses are returning to Stanley Park Mall, now that outside construction of Canadian Tire seems complete?

 

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On 8/23/2024 at 9:11 PM, BoredCapturer said:

Is there any difference whatsoever between the 222xx and the 223xx hybrids? There might just be a placebo effect, but the latter's RPM seems to be lower on average.

I’ve noticed that the 223xxs have stop request buttons on all the poles in the rear of the bus whereas the 222xxs have them alternating between the poles

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On 8/23/2024 at 9:58 PM, LTCBusRider15 said:

They are still working on the design. It is to be completed by December 2024. Also they changed the name to Kitchener Central Transit Hub instead of King-Victoria Transit Hub. The start date for construction is unknown or TBD. 

More info here: https://www.engagewr.ca/king-victoria-transit-hub

Also looking at the bids and tenders page from the row there is this https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders.ca/Module/Tenders/en/Tender/Detail/a4eaa234-5901-4d70-bbcf-582055a22fc3/#Document 

there used to be photos but I don’t know where they went.

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1 minute ago, BoredCapturer said:

Also, why are the fans extremely loud on every gen 3 hybrid except 21120?

Those are just cooling fans. 3rd generation buses typically have loud fans.

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ION LRT Delivery Date Corrections:

501 - Delivered in the evening of February 23, 2017 (the wiki states Feb. 24)

502 - Delivered in the late night of October 2, 2017 (the wiki states Oct. 3)

503 - Delivered on December 27, 2017 (the wiki states January 3, 2018)

504 - Delivered in the late night of December 7, 2017 (the wiki states Dec. 8th)

505 - Delivered on May 16, 2018 (the wiki states May 18)

506 - Delivered in the late night of April 30, 2018 (the wiki states May 1)

507 - Delivered on March 28, 2018 (the wiki states April 2)

508 & 509 - Delivered on July 17, 2018 (the wiki states July 19)

511 - Delivered on the late night of September 26, 2018 (the wiki states Sept. 27)

512 - Delivered on the late night of October 15, 2018 (the wiki states Oct. 16)

513 - Delivered on the late night of October 22, 2018 (the wiki states Oct. 22)

514 - Delivered on December 4, 2018 (the wiki states Dec. 6)

515 - Delivered on March 4, 2021 just before midnight (the wiki states March 6)

501 was redelivered on December 4, 2018 along with the delivery of 514 (the wiki also states that 501 was redelivered on Dec. 6)

I excluded 510 because it’s the only correct delivery date

 

 

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