Cambridge’s light rail plan appears to be on track

Waterloo Region has one chance and one chance only to get Cambridge’s light rail transit project right — and that’s before construction starts.

Now, thanks to solid input from Cambridge citizens and real flexibility on the part of regional officials, there’s a greater likelihood than ever of that happening.

The new route being proposed by the region for this $1.36-billion infrastructure program has been altered largely to allay reasonable concerns being voiced by residents of Cambridge’s Preston community.

They warned the region that light rail would negatively impact too many properties as well as the traffic flows in their neighbourhood. Indeed, they were convinced Preston would be worse off with light rail than without it.

Good for the citizens who spoke up. The region also deserves credit for listening to them and revising its plan. That’s how local government is supposed to work. The newly proposed route, unveiled by the region last week, significantly differs from the one recommended in 2017.

And the biggest changes come in Cambridge. If this new route goes forward, light rail trains will use up far less of Eagle Street than originally planned.

This will be accomplished, in part, by running the light rail trains on an unused CP Rail line parallel to Eagle.

Meanwhile, although the new route still travels through the busy intersection of King and Eagle streets, it will make a sweeping curve across the Speed River from Shantz Hill Road rather than executing a hard turn directly onto Eagle.

This should reduce stress on that major intersection. Important modifications are being proposed in Kitchener, too. The new route avoids the previous one that detoured along old King Street in front of Freeport Hospital, and instead travels along Highway 8. This is far from minor tinkering.

The new route will affect 60 fewer properties than the original one and, as an added bonus, should be three minutes faster than the old one as it runs trains between Cambridge and Kitchener.

While all this is welcome news, it’s also important to remember that residents from across the region still have time to give their verdict on the new route.

They can also learn more about it at three open houses later this month. (For more information, go to stage2ion.ca.) It’s not easy to run a region of more than a half-million people in three cities and four townships, all with their own perspective on life.

So it’s not surprising that, from time to time, tensions arise between people in Cambridge and the regional government, which they sometimes consider to be removed from the realities of their city.

The ongoing controversy surrounding a supervised injection site the region is proposing for Galt is a case in point. But the compromise evident in the new proposed LRT route shows that through dialogue and with goodwill, annoying wrinkles can be ironed out to everyone’s satisfaction — and bring smooth results.

Cambridge residents should accept this as an olive branch from the region even as they continue to be engaged in the project.

As they do, they should look to the urban renaissance unfolding in the Kitchener and Waterloo cores to witness the benefits of light rail. Together, all of us in Waterloo Region are moving forward to a better future.

The newly proposed route, unveiled last week, significantly differs from the one recommended in 2017.