A study that looked at four locations for the south terminus of the ION has concluded the Ainslie Street bus terminal should be the last stop on the light rail transit route in Cambridge.
In a report headed to the region's planning and works committee next week, regional staff name Ainslie Street as the preferred location for the Stage 2 ION south terminal and is recommending regional councillors vote to proceed with that plan in a business case for the provincial and federal governments.
Council had previously endorsed Main and Bruce streets in Downtown Cambridge as the preferred terminus after the region undertook a valid, comprehensive evaluation process for the south terminal location in 2018.
New information that came to light in the years since then warranted further study and the region began evaluating three other locations last August.
They included Ainslie Street, Concession Street and, at the urging of Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett in May of this year, Main and Dundas.
Liggett pitched Main and Dundas knowing the city's secondary plan for that area envisions redevelopment, mixed uses and higher densities she believed would be better served by the LRT than Galt's core.
Although it's still under review, the city's Main and Dundas Secondary Plan targets an ultimate density of 100 residents and jobs per hectare.
The provincial target for planning around LRT stations, however, has a target of 160 people and jobs per hectare.
"The location scored poorly because existing planning policies don’t go far enough to achieve the target density around an LRT station, and because it had fewer pedestrian and cyclist connections compared to the other alternatives," reads a staff report.
The cost of getting track to that intersection is another factor affecting its viability.
Staff said the project team developed a “best case scenario” design concept for the alternative and the only viable route is along Dundas Street from Beverly Street to Main Street.
To accommodate bus turn-arounds and direct transfers, the LRT station would need to be off-street, like the Conestoga station in north Waterloo, staff said.
Using a common end-point just north of the Beverly Street and Dundas Street roundabout, staff also measured the length of track needed to get to each terminus.
Track from that location to the preferred terminus on Ainslie is 1.29 km long. All other locations that were considered needed 1.56 km of track, 270 metres longer than Ainslie.
Also weighing into the decision is the fact that far fewer properties are impacted with the Ainslie terminal when compared to the other locations.
Building the terminal at Ainslie will affect 37 properties, and will require the full expropriation of six.
Building the terminal at Main and Dundas would affect 76 properties and would require the full expropriation of 23.
Those numbers play into the final cost of the project.
Building the terminal at Ainslie will cost an estimated $137 million while building the terminus at Main and Dundas would cost an estimated $245 million in today's dollars.
As directed by regional council in May, the Stage 2 ION business case will include several options for full analysis and comparison.
They include an LRT extension from Fairway station to Pinebush station; an LRT extension from Fairway station to Delta station; an LRT extension from Fairway station to the south terminal; a new, stand-alone LRT system from the south terminal to Preston station; and a bus rapid transit (BRT) system from Fairway station to downtown Cambridge.
