While LRT trains aren’t coming into Cambridge until at least 2028, Cambridge city council wants the region to get its final plans rolling now.

In an update on Stage 2 for the ION coming to the city’s planning and development committee Feb. 11, council is requesting the region complete its final detailed design as soon as possible, but with consideration to items city staff believe are worth further discussion.

The reason for the push — development along the proposed route.

While increased ridership is part of the equation in bringing the LRT to Cambridge, Thomas Schmidt, the region’s commissioner of transportation and environmental services, said it’s “not the only part and probably not even a big part of the equation.”

“We are preparing the business case. I will tell you Chair (Karen) Redman is pushing for this to happen."

Helen Jowett

Cambridge regional councillor

“If you look back and look at the business case that we put together for ION Phase 1, it focused largely on the benefits rather than just the technical argument of, ‘we have so many riders here therefore we need light rail transit.’ In fact, at the time, we probably didn't have enough riders to justify light rail transit,” Schmidt said, adding that in a decade or more, the switch would have had to have been made from rapid bus to light rail anyway.

“For Stage 2, we would largely focus on the same types of benefits in Cambridge. We would look to what's happening in Kitchener-Waterloo, the types of changes we're seeing in growth and development, and project that we could anticipate seeing those types of changes in Cambridge as well.”

Before it gets to that stage, however, city staff concluded from a public consultation on preliminary designs that there should be some tweaks. Those include public washroom facilities installed at the Bruce Street terminal and a “boulevard multi-use trail” constructed adjacent to the sidewalk for cyclists instead of an on-road separated bike lane, as illustrated in the preliminary design.

In addition, there should be increased pedestrian crossings along Hespeler Road between Pinebush Road and Can-Amera Parkway, enhanced landscaping — particularly on Hespeler Road at Can-Amera Parkway — and underground services on each side of Hespeler Road or under a multi-use trail instead of in the centre of the road to avoid track disruption when maintenance is required.

Even with those provisions, the route through Cambridge is heading toward the final design and Cambridge Regional Coun. Helen Jowett said she understands why the city is keen on pushing the region for its completion.

“They are looking for us to motion the final route which has been received for information. The final motion is the indicator that city council requires to commence high-level planning, zoning and intensification strategies along the route, so we can employ smart growth philosophy rather than react to the growth that is predicted to happen,” she said.