<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Jane,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Thank you for the recent LRT discussions.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">In your below letter you had excellent things to say except for, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 64, 72); font-family: Verdana; line-height: 18px; ">Light rail transit would stop sprawl because its purpose is intensification.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; ">" What about sufficient (or better, high) middle-class ridership as the other (even primary) purpose (needed to intensify)? <a href="http://news.therecord.com/article/752516">http://news.therecord.com/article/752516</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 64, 72); font-family: Verdana; line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; ">As the Region's below "visionary" description says. the LRT's purpose is (first) to "move people" which to be successful means moving lots of middle-class people who leave their car at home. This will help minimize traffic jams and <b>thus many car-only users will become supporters</b>. But for this to work, at least the LRT must be much faster (by also using the speedier rail right-of-way), extend to south Cambridge's Ainslie Terminal (i.e. be long enough to attract the longer-distance commuters), and have sufficient capacity to meet the demand generated by its speed & length (thus making a difference in our worsening traffic jamming).</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">By the way, I have made many suggestions (some in my below letter, others in my long evolving Report) to drastically reduce the capital construction cost per km. so as to afford Cambridge's inclusion in Stage 1. And high ridership (aided by Cambridge's LRT inclusion) -- with much fuller LRT vehicles -- (and other additional IDEAS) will greatly reduce operating costs.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">I make these points in more detail in my recent (included below) submitted letter to the <b>Record (final version) in which they made one "clever" change (plus a 2nd discrediting change) that subverted my main argument for including Cambridge in the first (& only?) stage. So much for a free unbiased press! (See more specific Record criticism below.)</b></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><b><br></b></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">And as I've said in my evolving LRT Report, if few people -- likely still mostly students & the working poor -- use the LRT, what incentive does a (optimistically) half-filled (short, slow) LRT have for developers to intensify by their new buildings?</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Best wishes,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Robert</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><img height="221" width="492" src="cid:18778F15-85D0-45DE-85B9-19CB13E45C4B@lan"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">THE PROPOSED LETTER;</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Less Provincial funding forces a re-design towards a more cost-effective light rail transit (LRT) system that could be enabled by: 1) political support of outside-the-box thinking by staff and consultants in the innovative use of proven rail technologies like Intelligent Transportation Systems; 2) public/private collaborations with CP Rail and GEXR on bridge, underpass and track sharing; and 3) slower staging of the very expensive roadway Intensification Corridors. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">The latter is best achieved by the first stage use of the existing rail right-of-way from a possible Northfield terminal to the Ainslie Terminal (the Ridership Corridor) that interlinks with the developing Intensification Corridors. (And a Ridership Corridor will dramatically lower transit times and have increased capacity to meet the resulting higher demand.)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">But let's have a first stage exemplar LRT Intensification Corridor along K-W's King St.. Further compliance with Provincial "Places to Grow" policies would occur as roads are ready and more funding available. </div><div><br></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">And high middle class LRT ridership -- necessary de-jam traffic and intensify -- would be more assured if extended to Cambridge now (south Cambridge to RIM, K-W to ComDev), not in 2033 or 2036. Too, this would also help redress Cambridge's long-time unfair treatment as listed recently by Claudette Miller.</div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Further, Claudette said correctly says that the LRT "... improves the health, environment, economy and travel movement within the cities ... (while) buses do not produce the same improvements." </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><b>She also asks, "... what (is) the advantage of (Cambridge) being ... within the the Region?"</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b><br></b></div></div><div>WHAT THEY PRINTED:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://news.therecord.com/article/744673">http://news.therecord.com/article/744673</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Focusing on the main disputed difference, I had written:</div><div>"And high middle class LRT ridership -- necessary de-jam traffic and intensify -- would be more assured if extended<b> to Cambridge now (south Cambridge to RIM, K-W to ComDev)</b>, not in 2033 or 2036."</div><div><br></div><div>but they wrote:</div><div>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 64, 72); font-family: Verdana; line-height: 18px; ">Middle class ridership on the LRT — necessary to de-jam traffic and intensify development — would be more assured if it is extended <b>from Waterloo’s high-tech business park to Cambridge </b>now, not in 2033 or 2036.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; ">"</span></span></div><div><br></div><div>Notice the highlighted sections. The 2 examples that I gave, were very specific examples of potential longer types of trips to illustrate the greater middle-class attracting power of a Cambridge extended LRT. Also, I had mentioned earlier in the letter a possible Northfield terminal which they contradicted in their mis-inclusion of "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 64, 72); font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; ">Waterloo’s high-tech business park<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">" which also made me look inconsistent further detracting from the positive impact of my letter. (Citizens don't make the effort to write letters -- that might help better their community -- so that the print media can advance their own limited agenda by letter distortions!)</span></span></div><div><br></div><div><b>Unfortunately, communities around the World are at the mercy of a grossly insufficient (I'm trying to be kind) media. But three cheers for Internet advancement!!</b></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></body></html>