It was frustrating enough that the light rail trains were a full two years late before making their debut in Waterloo Region this June. To add insult to injury, the project ran $50 million over budget, too.

But now it turns out these trains are running less frequently than originally promised - precisely when people want them most each day.

To make it even harder to swallow, it's all because Grand River Transit's 14 Bombardier-built Ion trains aren't yet reliable enough.

Good grief! The region's taxpayers paid plenty into this $1-billion, supposedly state-of-the-art mass transit system. They deserve better.

Grand River Transit had hoped and planned to run one train every eight minutes through Kitchener and Waterloo during peak travel periods, which come in the morning and afternoon rush hours.

Technical problems with the trains, however, have convinced the transit authority to curb its ambitions and run one train every 10 minutes instead. That might not sound like a great difference, especially to those who don't rely on the trains to get around.

But look at it this way. The vision was for riders to have 15 train trips to choose from during every two hours of peak travel time. The reality is they have 12. That's three fewer trains every 120 minutes.

That means the planned frequency of trains was up to 25 per cent higher than what's been delivered. That means people are waiting longer for trains. And because it's taking longer to travel to bus-stop connections, some Ion riders may find themselves waiting longer than expected to complete their journey by bus.

None of these criticisms is meant to take anything away from the major accomplishments in design, engineering and construction the LRT system represents. People love it. Ridership seems healthy. To a large degree, the trains are doing what they're meant to, not only in transporting people but acting as a magnet for billions of dollars in new development.

It's also true that having to wait no longer than 10 minutes to hop a train in peak periods isn't terribly onerous.

Except this is the time, as we move into autumn, when young people are returning to school and people are back from summer vacations, that the demand for public transit is on the rise. This is the time this 2-month old light rail system should be proving its worth and winning over thousands of new riders, getting cars off our streets and lowering our carbon footprint.

The more convenient light rail proves to be, the more people will use it. Indeed, if you can expect to wait no longer than eight minutes for a train, you don't even need a schedule.

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Yet this is the time, when the stakes couldn't be higher for light rail, when some trains are in the shop instead of on the rails so repair crews can fix broken doors, faltering lights, heating and ventilation challenges and malfunctioning interior speakers.

The regional government and its transit officials promised more. It's time they delivered on that promise with more trains on the tracks.

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