If you’d like to stop by for some pub fare and friendly conversation, feel free to join us at any time between 5 and 9 pm at the 3rd floor boardroom of Barley Works (Huether Hotel), at King & Princess in uptown Waterloo. Bring your ideas! We will have a digital projector set up for those who may want to put something on a larger screen.

Visit this link for the Facebook Event Page. We hope to see you soon!

On Tuesday, January 31, at 2pm, Deloitte (the Region’s consultant) will be giving a presentation at a special meeting (see agenda) on the recommendation and its basis. The following Tuesday, February 7, at 6pm will be the public meeting on LRT procurement. Regional Council will make the final decision on February 8.

Do you have an opinion on how the Region should build and operate LRT, and on the recommendation? Then make sure to contact your Regional Councillors to express your opinion, and consider being a delegation at the February 7 public meeting.

24th Jan, 3-8pm: First United Church, King and William, Waterloo
25th Jan, 3-8pm: Region of Waterloo Headquarters, 150 Frederick, Kitchener
26th Jan, 3-8pm: United Kingdom Club, 35 International Village Drive, Cambridge

Speculation aside about whether or not there will be cookies, these meetings are important because they discuss what impacts LRT construction/operation will have on the environment. With parts of the LRT route being near floodplains, being next to or on top of the Laurel Creek tunnel through Uptown Waterloo, and running through some parkland, it will be very important for the Region to explain to the public how environmental impacts of the project are to be mitigated and how an incident of provincial significance can be avoided (the Laurel Creek runs into the Grand River, and that’s where Brantford gets its drinking water from), and how any contract for construction and/or operation will ensure high quality transport for the citizens of Waterloo Region while taking the health and well-being of our neighbours downstream into account.

So with so much on the line, an informed public, and the feedback it provides, are very important here. Please take an hour out of your busy schedule to attend one of these information meetings above, and continue to be an active participant in the affairs of your local government.

The Region’s report indicates a “preliminary preferred procurement option” of a Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) Public-Private Partnership (P3), procured through the Infrastructure Ontario crown corporation. Waterloo Region has never completed public infrastructure using a P3 model, and Infrastructure Ontario has no complete implementations of a DBFOM urban transit project. Having just released the preliminary option, Waterloo Region nevertheless intends to finalize procurement plans by January, with no apparent plans to engage the community on this subject.

“Whether or not to hand over the Region’s single most important, and single most expensive, piece of municipal infrastructure to a private business for 30 years should be a major community conversation”, said Michael Druker, a founding member of TriTAG. “however, how this is being handled suggests that this crucial issue is meant to fly under the radar, and we do not believe this is appropriate.”

In expressing its view on private operation, TriTAG hopes to launch the community conversation that the Region appears intent on avoiding. The community can engage their regional councillors in this conversation by visiting http://tritag.ca/m/lrt.

“We understand the need to incentivize the private sector to deliver high-quality infrastructure in a timely manner,” said Tim Mollison, a founding member of TriTAG, “but granting a 30-year operating monopoly to corporate interests who have no political accountability to the community is not the kind of solution that benefits Waterloo Region in the long term.”

TriTAG does not object to design-build-finance-maintain P3’s with public consultation, as bids are driven down by private sector competition and maintenance requirements ensure quality control standards are met. This, however, does not extend to a 30-year operations contract. After such a contract is awarded, there is no longer any competition for the private operator.

“Awarding a so-called ‘Operating P3’ to the private sector would endow this private company $818 million to build this LRT line and then reward the same company a monopoly to profit from its operation,” said Duncan Clemens, a founding member of TriTAG. “The focus of the private sector is usually on maximizing profit, and not public benefit. The community support that LRT has received over the past several years will be right out the window, as a privately-operated LRT line would be less a public good and more a publically-funded private cookie jar.”

Privatization of this kind often results in poor private sector performance, with later public demands for expensive buy-backs by the municipality. Examples can be found in Auckland, New Zealand, and the London Underground P3 disaster. In Melbourne, as was strikingly explained in Toronto, privatization let to enormous increases in costs. Closer to home, Highway 407 is a familiar example – what should be a public good is instead used to gouge the public to maximize profits for private shareholders.

“These are untested waters for Waterloo Region, and the risk is absolutely huge,” said Mollison. “The point of private operation is usually to shift risk to the private company, but that’s only on paper. In practice, this can backfire – the company can walk away, and leave the public on the hook for much more than it bargained for. This kind of P3 would be a ticking time-bomb for the taxpayers of Waterloo Region.”

York Region’s bus system may be cited as an example of effective private delivery of transit, but Veolia Transport, the multinational corporation with 60% of York’s service contract, has such a focus on its profits over the public interest that it has refused to negotiate with the drivers’ union, leaving many York Region commuters without service for over 6 weeks and counting. Another example of private-sector transit service delivery in Canada is Vancouver’s Canada line, but that line operates without drivers and thus without front-line labour concerns, and corners were cut on the project that have limited opportunities for future expansion.

“Under a private operating contract, we can kiss LRT in Cambridge goodbye,” said Mollison. “Waterloo Region will not have gained any in-house experience to apply to extend the existing line or building new ones. There will simply be no mechanism to improve rapid transit beyond this phase within the next 30 years.”

Practice in other municipalities suggests that GRT will likely have an adversarial relationship with the LRT operator and could include contractual requirements for GRT to operate the same transit service as it does today, however unsuited to the future those routes could be.

“The public believed that a successful first phase would mean LRT extension to Cambridge could start immediately afterwards,” said Clemens. “But with private operation of LRT, leaving Cambridge with buses could be part of the contract.”

Regional Council has been described as supporting LRT as a legacy project. TriTAG believes that this is a good thing, that planning for the future is proper and leaving a legacy to be proud of should be every politician’s goal.

“It’s not enough for Regional Council to build LRT – it needs to build LRT right,” said Mollison. “If it goes down the path of an operating P3, Regional Council will have a rude awakening to a legacy of squandering the Region’s most forward-thinking project in favour of short-term thinking, and corporate profits at public expense.”

“Regional Council should take a step back and really consider whether or not a DBFM approach is all that bad a deal.”

—
The Tri-Cities Transport Action Group is a community organization with the goal of promoting transit and active transportation (walking and cycling) within Waterloo Region. TriTAG is composed entirely of volunteers, and is exclusively donation-funded by members of the Waterloo Region community. For more information on this issue and other transportation issues in Waterloo Region, please visit http://tritag.ca

For media inquiries, please contact Tim Mollison at (226) 476-1313, x 801.

GO train in Kitchener (Photo: Gord Spence via Flickr)

Judging by how much the coverage of Friday’s announcement has been linked and discussed, there is much enthusiasm for GO trains finally rolling into Kitchener. But local politicians clearly are not thrilled with Kitchener being treated as a bedroom community for Toronto. The Globe has written about the frustration that the new service does nothing for commuters from the GTA into Waterloo Region, who Communitech says are now more numerous than the reverse. And as our survey helps to show, the general public has a keen interest in travelling to Toronto on weekends – something for which GO Transit has no apparent plans.

But more problematic than a limited train service to start is that GO is not rolling out bus service on the corridor during off-peak times and the reverse direction. Officials from GO and Metrolinx are quoted by CTV as saying that train service will be added and adjusted according to the demand. However, without the bus service there on the same corridor, GO has little means to gauge the demand for anything other than commuter service to Toronto.

Service on Route 25 (between Waterloo Region and Mississauga) is barely relevant to the trips which a Kitchener Line train serves. One can hope that GO will at least have the sense to try running Friday evening and Sunday evening trains for students to/from the GTA, when Route 25 and Greyhound are very busy. GO could even run shuttles from the universities to the train, and replace a dozen buses with a couple of shuttle buses and a couple of trains. Since existing bus ridership is a poor indicator of Kitchener Line demand, GO Transit will need to actually try out service at other times to convince itself of the demand – such as on a weekend.

All that said, there is still reason to think that the trains will be well-used, as I’ve written before. They may prove particularly useful both to occasional commuters to Toronto, but also commuters from Kitchener to Guelph and Brampton. Though here too, GO undermines its utility by having the exorbitant price of $12.60 for a round trip between Kitchener and Guelph — quite a bit more expensive than gas and parking for such a commute by car.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about what has been a lengthy process. We congratulate other members of the community who have also come tonight to add their voice.

The Tri-Cities Transport Action Group is pleased that the Region of Waterloo has taken the time necessary to carefully explain the Uptown Waterloo routing challenges to the public in its September 27 meeting. This process of engagement was good for the community, and we hope to see more of it as the detailed system design commences. Doing this kind of consultation helps the public take ownership of what will in 2018 become their rapid transit system.

The preferred option helps to address new development in the quickly-growing area of Waterloo surrounded by the new station at King and Allen. In addition, moving one of the two platforms of the station at Willis Way next to the Public Square encourages people to use Waterloo’s main public space and its surroundings. The use of the spur line and the station platform adjacent to the square will allow for the preservation of surface parking on King, traffic flow on Erb, and is truly a best practice in placemaking. The routing will enhance a square that is already a resounding success for the City of Waterloo.

Some may not be terribly happy with the preferred alternative because they live on Caroline Street and see no reason for transit to be taking what they perceive to be a back street through the core of the city. Athough the utility and cost constraints on the system may not provide a satisfactory resolution for these residents, it is a very positive outcome to see their neighbourhood better served by rapid transit with the addition of the Allen Street station in the recommended alternative. Doing so goes a long way to making LRT a relevant and appropriate option for this part of your city.

TriTAG has been concerned from its inception about the usability of mass transit in the Region of Waterloo, and today brings you only one concern about the usability of this proposed solution.

Usually, TriTAG becomes concerned when transit stations are placed at the back doors of neighbourhoods, implying a second-class status to transit users. It has also become concerned when a station is placed mid-block between two crosstown streets, kneecapping planned crosstown iXpress routes with lengthy (and costly) mid-run layovers before said routes are even launched. But in this case, TriTAG is concerned that a platform for a major station is split into two parts which are not visible from one another, thus interfering with effective wayfinding.

Waterloo – especially through C.I.G.I. and the Perimeter Institute – attracts academic talent from around the world. So if one arrives in Uptown Waterloo via LRT, is it apparent where one would wait for the return train? With the southbound Uptown platform at Willis Way and Caroline, concealed from the public square platform, we think not.

We humbly submit that staff and Council consider the impact of moving the southbound Uptown platform from Willis Way to Erb and Caroline, and that the City of Waterloo and the Region of Waterloo work together to redesign the Erb and Caroline intersection in a manner sensitive to the needs of both customers of the LRT system and users of the Iron Horse and Laurel Trails, without undue impacts on other vehicular movement.

Illustration of our alternative southbound LRT station at Caroline / Erb instead of Caroline / Willis. (Duncan Clemens)

Together, we can make using transit in the Region of Waterloo both intuitive and gratifying if we build it with wayfinding and placemaking in mind. We have listed at the end of this letter a set of major destinations for which access to LRT would be significant. Of the destinations which would benefit from a southbound platform at Erb Street instead of Willis Way, all are institutions unique to our local community.

Again, thank you for listening and thank you for your time. We hope you consider our submission.

For more information, feel free to contact us at hello@tritag.ca

Appendix A: Approximate Door-to-Door Walking Distances Between Southbound LRT Stops and Uptown Waterloo Destinations (italics indicate shorter distance).

Walking distances were scraped from Google Maps using Google Maps’ Distance Measurement Tool from the following basemap: http://g.co/maps/b3gyu

This meeting was good for the community. LRT through Uptown Waterloo is a pretty contentious issue, because everyone is scared of how it will change the landscape. This meeting did a good job of explaining why the Rapid Transit team selected its preferred option — but didn’t present all of the alternatives available, just the ones being considered by the Rapid Transit team.

With that in mind, TriTAG has produced two additional alternatives for Uptown Waterloo LRT routing that would have no impact to the Waterloo Public Square ice rink, wouldn’t require any buildings to be destroyed, would impact road traffic less than many of the presented options, and would improve the user experience of transit customers in Uptown Waterloo.

Option A

The first alternative uses the existing split-routing model through Uptown, but without splitting the platforms too far from one another, and places an additional station in Uptown Waterloo.

The benefit to this option is that Uptown gets two stations: one at Allen to serve massive condominium developments around the Allen-Union node, and one at Caroline to serve the institutional development happening around the Erb/Caroline intersection, as well as crosstown buses at the current heritage railway station.

The drawback to this option is that its station locations don’t immediately draw customers into the existing King St. business corridor. Customers would have the option of being dropped off or picked up at the fringes of Uptown Waterloo. Also, the folks living at Catalina Homes don’t relish the idea of the lower part of Caroline street becoming a major people-moving corridor.

Option B

The second alternative uses the east side of King Street, and would turn across the existing sidewalk in front of the Rude Native Bistro to a station placed beside the existing mall, bordering the edge of the Waterloo Public Square.

The benefits to this alternative are that LRT customers are delivered right into the center of most Uptown Waterloo destinations – they have easy access to King St. businesses, a short walk to the Erb and Caroline institutional corner, and are right next to whatever festival has shut down Willis Way, the public square, and King Street from the rail spur to Bridgeport.

Meanwhile, car users are still able to use Bridgeport, Caroline, Regina, and Erb unimpeded by LRT to access parking lots and structures that complement the excellent transit access, and businesses on the east side of King Street get a little bit of extra sidewalk space, and the ability to convert what are now parking spaces into patios or sidewalk displays, increasing revenue-producing floor space.

The drawbacks to this alternative? There’s a bit of a gulf between Uptown Waterloo and the Hospital station, and oh — right, those ten on-street parking spaces on the east side of King Street. Let me tell you a little bit about that.

I have my driver’s license. When I want a car, I rent one: in fact, I just spent the weekend enjoying a particularly sporty machine. I drive both inside the city and outside of it. I visit Uptown Waterloo on foot, by bicycle, using transit, and in a car, and I do so not infrequently: It’s where I go when I want to visit a conventional grocery store.

I had the opportunity to chat with a public figure from the City of Waterloo at the September 27 meeting, and when I asked how they thought everyone got to Uptown Waterloo, their response was “well they drive, of course.” This same individual would prefer that LRT run exclusively on Caroline.

See, here’s the problem: When I drive to Uptown Waterloo, I don’t use King Street, nor do I dare play in traffic to try and find, and then use, one of its on-street parking spaces. Using my particular route from the south, I take Weber to Bridgeport, and access the large parking lots off Caroline.

But suppose I’m coming from the north? Same deal: I stay off King as much as I can, to get to those abundant parking spots on Caroline. East? Bridgeport to Caroline, again. West? Wouldn’t even cross King: Hundreds of parking spaces in lots off Caroline, a handful on King Street. Starting to see a pattern here? The best way to access parking in Uptown Waterloo is not by driving on King Street.

Having LRT go up the east side of King Street in Uptown Waterloo isn’t just a win for transit passengers, and businesses who wouldn’t mind more sidewalk space: it would keep Caroline (and Erb) unmolested for those who need to access the much more abundant parking found in the lots that are currently accessed from Caroline Street. It makes sense for everyone.

Please consider expressing your support for one of these initiatives, before Regional Council makes its final decision in November and it’s too late. You can send an e-mail by clicking here.

Why fare increases? To reach 50% cost recovery from fares, apparently — from the current 37%. Why 50% cost recovery? Who knows. Chris Klein has some speculation over at Waterloons. I saw and heard nothing to indicate that this figure isn’t arbitrary.

Let’s be clear, we’re not opposed to increasing GRT’s farebox recovery rates. And we’re not necessarily opposed to fare increases, particularly if their purpose is to substantially improve service. But these fare increases look like fare increases for the sake of fare increases. It’s fare increases because we can, because “people will ride anyway”, and because “see, other cities have higher fares!”.

Which, well, is not convincing. On the one hand, the Region claims to want to get far more people using transit. But considering transit demand as static and transit riders as expendable is counterproductive, to put it mildly.

In this region, there are two big issues with increasing fares faster than inflation. The first is the disproportional impact on the poor, especially considering that we are still in a recession. The Region currently has some programs in place to subsidize transit passes, but they have long waiting lists, and the Region just recently made cuts in those programs. I don’t see anything in the GRT business plan about increasing subsidies for those least able to afford fare increases; it’s safe to say that this GRT plan considers such things an externality, someone else’s problem.

The other, perhaps even bigger issue, is that of increasing the barrier to entry for those not currently taking transit. Around here, parking is either free or cheap. There’s no bus priority measures and no massive congestion (yet) to which buses with priority could provide an attractive alternative.  The vast majority own cars. In order to get more people taking transit, some of those drivers need to be convinced to park their cars and take the bus. Given free parking, the most salient marginal cost of driving is gas, and for a pretty average car and a median local commute distance the $2.50 current one-way cash fare actually covers the cost of gas for a trip to work and back. Of course, the car typically has a major speed advantage here as well.

The barrier to entry needs to be lowered, not raised. Fare increases should be out of the question until we install a smartcard system. A modern smartcard system would allow for discounted fares for short trips, an easy way to set higher prices for trips that take more resources, and would allow for passes to be sold through vending machines instead of by cashiers. Smartcards could also be encouraged as a way to pay for parking. It would be possible to get smartcards out to a large share of the population that would allow them an easy way to get on board, without being forced to ponder the dollar figure.

Finally, if GRT really wants to increase farebox recovery, by far the best way to do it is to run the service more efficiently and increase ridership. The clearest illustration of the potential for this is overcrowded buses: even while we do have plenty of those proverbial empty buses, a decent number are overcrowded and leave people behind. Those are the most popular routes and often the ones providing the highest frequencies, i.e. the ones with the highest potential to recruit more new riders. People who rely on transit are already on those buses, so the ones for whom there isn’t space are the potential riders who would be paying full fares. Reallocate buses appropriately, and you make room for new riders.

Here are some ways GRT could increase farebox recovery without increasing fares:

• Charge higher U-Pass fees, so student fare recovery is on par with average rates. To GRT’s credit, they are planning this.
• Eliminate Route 7 branching and timed transfers (read: layovers) at King & University, creating a single King St trunk route and increasing iXpress 200 frequency. Spread out service on University Avenue so that the buses come every few minutes instead of in packs every 15 minutes.
• Schedule the iXpress 200, Route 7, and any other frequent service route by headways instead of timetables when service is every 10 minutes or better; for those times eliminate schedules altogether. At driver break areas, buses should be handed off to another driver instead of the bus and passengers onboard waiting for a useless time point.
• Immediately begin reorganizing routes to feed into iXpress 200 / future LRT stations. Build the damn driver facilities where they are needed, and stop bringing all buses downtown. This should shave substantial time off many routes.
• Stitch up routes that are currently split by a terminal, such as Routes 5 and 35 or 1 and 25. Any downtime should be at the ends of the route, not the middle.
• Shut down the Hespeler terminal. Have Hespeler service be part of routes that cross into the rest of Cambridge.
• Add minimal overnight service on the iXpress 200. This will be used on its own, but will also increase usage in the evenings and daytime as people will know they will not be stranded.
• Introduce a proof-of-payment system for iXpress and trunk routes. Dwell time at stations is a big portion of the current running time for popular routes, and can be reduced substantially through faster boardings.
• Implement bus priority at signals and put bus lanes on University Avenue. The quicker those buses can get through, the more runs they can make and passengers they can carry. There may not be a reason to prefer a car from one street to go in front of one from another street, but there certainly is a reason to make way for the vehicle carrying 60 people.
• Change the service standard, which is currently to have 95% of the urban population within 450 metres of a bus stop. Change it to something more amenable to a fast, grid-based system, e.g. 90% of the population within 800 metres of a 7-day, 18-hour service, with headways of no more than 30 minutes.
• With a new service standard, straighten out routes and speed them up. Consolidate routes. Increase distance between stops to 400m by default.
• Stepping outside GRT’s direct purview – eliminate parking minimums in all zoning. If people actually have to pay the cost of parking at the end of their trip, it will change the balance towards more cost-effective transportation choices, i.e. GRT.

And so on. If farebox recovery is the goal, there are numerous ways to improve GRT’s efficiency in tandem with improving GRT’s ability to serve as a transportation system. But increasing fares substantially while doing little to improve service is a slap in the face to transit users.

To me, the outline strongly suggests that GRT (and by extension, Waterloo Region) is already giving up on the Regional Transportation Master Plan (RTMP). It’s giving up on making major changes to the bus network, and limiting itself to tweaks here and there, hoping for LRT to come along and make everything better. GRT leaves changes of substance to beyond a three-year horizon. The RTMP aims to increase the transit mode share from 4% of peak hour trips to 15% by 2031. If that happens, it will be no thanks to GRT’s current plans.

Before the criticism, I should acknowledge that they are planning for another iXpress line — in 2013, along Erb-University-Bridge in Waterloo. Otherwise they are planning an extension of the 201 iXpress, a realignment of Route 12 of dubious value, slight increases to service hours, and even slighter increases to frequency. Technology-wise, GRT promises “advanced information” on iXpress routes, real-time information, transit priority for the aBRT portion of the rapid transit corridor in Cambridge, and a smart card system. There are also some plans for expanding service to the townships. But the business plan outline suggests little of the initiative seen in this year’s realignment and improved west side Waterloo service.

The plan calls for choosing one of three different options (5, 7, or 9%) for raising fares annually — but all aim to massively increase farebox recovery rates for GRT, to 50%. Where is this number coming from? This is an issue of paramount importance to transportation in the Region, and here it is being slipped in as a target so obviously worth reaching that it doesn’t deserve public discussion. Last time I checked, there were no usage fees for any roads in Waterloo Region, and parking was some of the cheapest in the country. Road operation is and will continue to be paid through general property taxes, but it goes without saying that transit users should be paying for 33% more of the costs? This certainly casts doubt on whether the Region really wants to increase the number of people who choose transit instead of driving. Not to mention the impact on low-income households.

Here’s what I didn’t find in the current proposed business plan to 2014:

• A redesign of Route 7
• Express routes in Cambridge
• Redesign of routes in Cambridge, particularly connecting Hespeler to the rest of the city and network
• Realigning existing routes to straighten them out along major corridors, instead of milk runs and a focus on terminals
• Moving to headway-based frequent service on some major routes, and abandoning time-based transfers such routes
• Changes to service standards, including acceptable loading standards and the definition for the minimum level of service provided Region-wide
• Potential changes to buses ordered and the criteria which go into the choice of bus and layout
• A new (longer) standard for stop distances
• Serious signal priority for regular buses, or at least all iXpress buses
• Bus lanes, and other transit priority measures
• Getting rid of mid-route layovers
• A concrete plan to make real-time bus locations publicly available as part of Waterloo Region’s new open data initiative

To be fair, based on the current Regional Transportation Master Plan and Rapid Transit funding plans, GRT only has 25% more budget to work with by 2018. (Not that this is set in stone.) But many of the above points don’t require more operating hours. Rather, they require some vision for transit in Waterloo Region, and a will to get it done. It seems that the will to substantially improve transit is not coming from GRT, so it’s up to all of us to push for a GRT that will be worth taking.

I would like to express TriTAG’s disagreement with the direction being taken on the River Road extension project.

We do not believe that there has been serious consideration of alternatives for increasing capacity for east-west movement of people in that part of Kitchener. We do not believe that expanding capacity for the movement of vehicles in this corridor at great cost is appropriate – not to mention the environmental costs, both local and Region-wide. However, if capacity for vehicle movement has to be increased, we believe there are better alternatives which have not been considered.

Transit: The report claims that studies done have shown that transit cannot do much along this corridor. But just how well can we know this until we actually try? Right now, there is essentially no transit alternative to east-west travel in south Kitchener. There is no frequent transit service of any kind in Kitchener outside of the Conestoga Expressway. Currently there is some east-west service on the notoriously unreliable Route 12, but that terminates at Fairview Park Mall. East of that, the service is dreadful. And God help you if you want to travel by transit across town instead of to the terminal. Suffice it to say that there is no substantial transit alternative presently, and it is no wonder no one takes it.

The new Regional Transportation Master Plan and the Light Rail plans place much weight on the idea that good transit service will attract ridership, including people who have choice. Is this just an idea on a shelf somewhere? At some point we have to actually accept this as a principle, and start planning for people to choose transit – by designing transit that is competitive with driving, and making corresponding decisions about priorities. The simplest step would be implementing a south Kitchener cross-town iXpress line, as early as next year. Good transit gets people out of their cars. Building new roads faster than we improve alternatives keeps us in them.

Walking/cycling: A similar point applies for walking and cycling. Most Regional Roads in south Kitchener do not even have complete sidewalks. How can you expect anyone to walk if there is no place for them to do it? Short trips by bicycle could easily get people across south Kitchener, except, again, there is no place to do it. Fairway Road is incredibly hostile to cycling, and there is no complete corridor for east-west travel by bicycle. For a tiny fraction of the cost of a River Road expansion, we could complete the sidewalks in South Kitchener and build a network of safe cycling facilities. It is cheap transportation infrastructure, and good for public health and our air. This should be priority number one.

Driving: If congestion is the problem, a new road would not solve it thanks to the phenomenon of induced demand. Build it, and they will… move to fresh sprawl in southwest Kitchener to take advantage of a free-flowing Fairway or River Road. And soon enough, both roads will be clogged.

The report claims a River Road extension would result in less air pollution through reducing congestion. This is a nonsense claim for a project aiming to increase capacity for vehicle movement along this corridor. With two roads, substantially more vehicles will be travelling than with just one, and air pollution will be increased, not decreased.

Finally, if we must increase vehicle capacity, there are better ways to do it. We are, after all, in Waterloo Region. Both capacity and safety could be increased on the Fairway Road corridor by replacing the existing left turns and intersections with roundabouts. It would get more vehicles through, make Fairway Road easier to cross, reduce crash severity, and not require an expensive road through an environmentally sensitive area. As the project was started back in 2004, I believe roundabouts were never considered and thus have not been evaluated relative to other approaches.

In conclusion, I ask you to reconsider the direction of this project and to guide it instead towards practical, low-cost solutions to increasing east-west mobility in southwest Kitchener.