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During the 2016 Oktoberfest parade, an estimated 150,000 lined the streets along the route. The median age was 37 years, younger than the 39 years for Ontario, and 40 years for Canada.

The median age was 37 years, younger than the 39 years for Ontario, and 40 years for Social. The speed dating kitchener waterloo ontario, the Huron Business Park, is home to a number of industries, from seat manufacturers to furniture components. Railways Passenger rail service has long been a point of frustration for residents of Kitchener and its neighbouring cities. The groundbreaking ceremony for the and downtown health custodes campus took place on 15 March 2006, and the facility opened in spring 2009. Retrieved 16 October 2014. Where else can you meet 15 similarly aged matches over the course of a couple of hours. Eby was also responsible for the growth of the Idea church in Waterloo County. This southern line is the primary rail corridor for CN, while the northern line through Kitchener is owned by a short-line railway called the Goderich-Exeter Railway GEXR. Some were from Switzerland, like the founder of. The festival attracts an average of 700,000 people.

Retrieved 13 March 2017. KOI Music Festival KOI Music Festival is a three-day festival held annually in downtown Kitchener each September. Council is responsible for policy and decision making, monitoring the operation and performance of the city, analyzing and approving budgets and determining spending priorities.

Singles Meetups in Waterloo - PDF from the original on 13 January 2015.

Located approximately 100 km west of , Kitchener is the seat of the. It was the from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The City of Kitchener covers an area of 136. The Kitchener , which includes the smaller, neighbouring cities of to the north and to the south, has 523,894 people, making it the tenth largest CMA in Canada and the fourth largest CMA in Ontario. All are part of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, which was created in 1973, when it replaced Waterloo County, which had been created in 1853. Geography Kitchener is in , in the. This geological and climatic region has wet-climate soils and deciduous forests. Located in the Grand River Valley, the area is generally above 300m 1000' in elevation. Kitchener is the largest city within the watershed, and the largest city on the Haldimand Tract. Just to the west of the city is , in. This glacial remnant formation is the highest elevation for many miles. The other dominant glacial feature is the , which snakes its way through the region and holds a significant quantity of , from which the city derives most of its drinking water. The settlement's first name, Sandhills, is an accurate description of the higher points of the moraine. Climate Kitchener has a of the warm summer subtype Dfb under the ; there are large seasonal differences, usually warm and humid summers and cold to occasionally very cold winters. Winter-like conditions generally last from the mid-December until mid-March, while summer temperatures generally occur between mid-May to close to the end of September. March 2012 went down in the history books for Kitchener — between 16 and 22 March, temperatures ranged from 21. Temperatures during the year can exceed 30 °C 86. The frost-free period for Kitchener averages about 147 frost-free days a year, a much more limited number than cities on the Great Lakes due its inland location and higher elevation. Snowfall averages 160 centimetres 63 in per year, high but not nearly as areas more directly affected by. The highest temperature ever recorded in Kitchener was 38. From 1796 and 1798, the Six Nations sold 38,000 hectares of this land to a by the name of. The portion of land that Beasley had purchased was remote but it was of great interest to German farming families from. They wanted to live in an area that would allow them to practice their beliefs without persecution. Eventually, the Mennonites purchased all of Beasley's unsold land creating 160 farm tracts. Many of the pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania after November 1803 bought land in a 60,000-acre section of Block Two from the German Company which was established by a group of Mennonites from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The tract included most of Block 2 of the previous Grand River Indian Lands. Many of the first farms were least four hundred acres in size. The German Company, represented by Daniel Erb and Samuel Bricker, had acquired the land from previous owner Richard Beasley; he had gotten into financial difficulties after buying the land in 1796 from Joseph Brant who represented the Six Nations. The payment to Beasley, in cash, arrived from Pennsylvania in kegs, carried in a wagon surrounded by armed guards. By 1800, the first buildings had been built, and over the next decade several families made the difficult trip north to what was then known as the Sand Hills. One of these Mennonite families, arriving in 1807, were the Schneiders, whose restored 1816 home the oldest building in the city is now a museum in the heart of Kitchener. Other families whose names can still be found in local place names were the Bechtels, the Ebys, the Erbs, the Weavers better known today as the Webers , the Cressmans and the Brubachers. In 1816 the Government of Upper Canada designated the settlement the Township of Waterloo. Much of the land, made up of and swampland interspersed with rivers and streams, was converted to farmland and roads. Apple trees were introduced to the region by John Eby in the 1830s, and several and most notably Joseph Schneider's 1816 sawmill, John and 's grist- and sawmills and Eby's cider mill were erected throughout the area. Schneider built the town's first road, from his home to the corner of King Street and Queen Street then known as Walper corner. Later named the founder of Kitchener, Benjamin Eby made Mennonite preacher in 1809, and bishop in 1812 arrived from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1806 and purchased a large tract of land consisting of much of what would become the village of Berlin named about 1830. The settlement was initially called Ebytown and was at the south-east side of what would later become Queen Street. Eby was also responsible for the growth of the Mennonite church in Waterloo County. By 1811, Eby had built a log Mennonite meeting house first used as a school house but later also housing religious services. A new meeting house, known as Eby's Versammlungshaus, near Stirling Avenue replaced the log house in 1834 while a schoolhouse was built on Frederick Street at about the same time. Benjamin Eby encouraged manufacturers to Ebytown. Jacob Hoffman came in 1829 or 1830 and started the first furniture factory. John Eby, druggist and chemist, arrived from Pennsylvania in about 1820 and opened a shop to the west of what would later be Eby Street. Immigration from Lancaster county continued heavily in the 1820s because of a severe agricultural depression in Lancaster County. The home was renovated over a century later and still stands. Schneider Haus was built by one of the early settlers in Berlin, Ontario, circa 1816, and still stands. The village centre of what would become Berlin Kitchener was established in 1830 by Phineas Varnum who leased land from Joseph Schneider and opened a blacksmith shop on the site where a hotel would be built many years later, the Walper House. A tavern was also established here at the same time and a store was opened. At the time, the settlement of Berlin was still considered to be a hamlet. Immigration to the town increased considerably from 1816 until the 1870s, many of the newcomers being of German particularly Lutheran, and Mennonite extraction. Some were from Switzerland, like the founder of. In 1833 the town was renamed Berlin because of the recent German immigration from the Breuckmann family, and in 1853 Berlin became the County Seat of the newly created County of Waterloo, elevating it to the status of Village. Post Office, post twice a-week. At the time, many did not speak English. There were eight grist and twenty saw mills in the township. In 1841, the township population count was 4424. The first cemetery in the city was the one next to Pioneer Tower in Doon; the first recorded burial at that location was in 1806. The cemetery at First Mennonite church is not as old, but contains the graves of some notable citizens, including Bishop Benjamin Eby who died in 1853, Joseph Schneider, and Rev. Joseph Cramer, founder of the House of Friendship social service agency. After 1850 Waterloo County Jail and Governor's House, Kitchener, built 1852 Previously part of the United County of Waterloo, Wellington and Grey, Waterloo became a separate entity in 1853 with Berlin as. There had been some contentious debate between Galt and Berlin as to where the seat would be located; one of the requirements for founding was the construction of a and jail. When local merchant Joseph Gaukel donated a small parcel of land he owned at the current Queen and Weber streets , this sealed the deal for Berlin which was still a small community compared to Galt. The courthouse at the corner of the later Queen Street North and Weber Street and the were built within a few months. The first County council meeting was held in the new facility on 24 January 1853, as the county officially began operations. The Waterloo County Gaol is the oldest government building in the Region of Waterloo. Both have been extensively restored and are on. The extension of the from Sarnia to Toronto and hence through Berlin in July 1856 was a major boon to the community, helping to improve industrialization in the area. Immigrants from Germany, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, dominated the city after 1850 and developed their own newer German celebrations, and influences, such as the , gymnastics, and band music. A new streetcar system, the later called the began to operate in 1894 connecting Preston and Galt. In 1911, the line reached Hespeler, Berlin and Waterloo. The electric rail system ended passenger services in April, 1955. In 1869, Berlin had a population of 3000. On 9 June 1912, Berlin was designated a city. It was , after , a British Empire killed during the. Kitchener was the first city in Ontario to get hydroelectric power in long-distance transmission lines from Niagara Falls, on October 11, 1910. House of Industry and Refuge In 1869, the County built a very large so-called with an attached farm, the House of Industry and Refuge that accommodated some 3,200 people before being closed in 1951; the building was later demolished. It was on Frederick St. A research project by the Laurier School of Social Work has amassed all available data about the House and its residents, digitized it and made the archive available online. Some were single women who had been servants and became pregnant. Since there were no social services, they were sent to the House. German heritage Of the cities that are now part of Waterloo Region, Berlin, now Kitchener, has the strongest German heritage because of the high levels of settlement in this area by German speaking immigrants. Many of the Mennonite Germans from Pennsylvania arrived in Conestoga wagons. While those from Pennsylvania were the most numerous until about 1840, a few Germans from Europe began arriving in as 1819, including Fredrick Gaukel, a hotel keeper, being one of the firsts. He would build what later became the Walper House in Berlin. Two streets in present-day Kitchener, Frederick and Gaukel streets, are named after him. Other German-speaking immigrants from Europe arrived during the 1830s to 1850s, bringing with them their language, religion and cultural traditions. The German community became industrial and political leaders, and created a German-Canadian society unlike any other found in Canada at the time. They established German public schools and German language churches. Both the immigrants from Germany and the Mennonites from Pennsylvania spoke German, though with different dialects such as Low German or the incorrectly called , actually Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch German. This dialect is different from with a simplified grammatical structure, some differences in vocabulary and pronunciation and a greater influence of English. The combination of various types of German-speaking groups was a notable factor in the history of Waterloo County. The two groups of Germanics were able to understand each other quite easily and there was no apparent conflict between the Germans from Europe and those who came from Pennsylvania. Some sources estimate that roughly 50,000 Germans directly from Europe settled in and around Waterloo County, between the 1830s and 1850s. Unlike the predominantly Mennonite settlers from Pennsylvania, the majority of Germans from Europe were of other denominations: most in the first groups were Catholic and those who arrived later were primarily Lutheran. Eleven years later, the more than 2000 Germans in Berlin, Ontario, started a new event, Friedensfest, commemorating Prussian victory in the. This annual celebration continued until the start of World War I. In 1897, they raised funds to erect a large monument, with a bronze bust of Kaiser Wilhelm 1, in Victoria Park. The monument was destroyed by townspeople just after the start of World War I. By 1871, Berlin, Ontario, was a bilingual town with German being the dominant language spoken. More than one visitor commented on the necessity of speaking German in Berlin. Immigration from continental Germany slowed by 1880. First and second-generation descendants now comprised most of the local German population, and while they were proud of their German roots, most considered themselves loyal British subjects. The 1911 Census indicates that of the 15,196 residents in Berlin, Ontario, about 70% were identified as ethnic German but only 8. By the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Berlin and Waterloo County were still considered to be predominantly German by people across Canada. This would prove to have a profound impact on local citizens during the war years. During the first few months of the war, services and activities at Lutheran churches in Waterloo County continued. However, as anti-German sentiment increased throughout Waterloo County, many of the churches decided to stop holding services in German. I well know the admirable qualities - the thoroughness, the tenacity, and the loyalty of the great Teutonic Race, to which I am so closely related. Nonetheless, before and during World War I, there was some in Canada and some cultural sanctions on the community, particularly in Berlin. Those of the Mennonite religion were pacifists so they could not enlist, and the few who had immigrated from Germany not born in Canada could not morally fight against a country that was a significant part of their heritage. The anti-German sentiment was the primary reason for the in 1916. German clubs were ransacked through the course of the war. It was just a really nasty time period. The is a remembrance of the region's German heritage. The event includes beer halls and German entertainment. The second largest Oktoberfest in the world, the event is based on the original and is billed as Canada's Greatest Festival. It attracts an average of 700,000 people to the county. During the 2016 Oktoberfest parade, an estimated 150,000 people lined the streets along the route. Benton and Frederick Streets the name changes at the intersection with King Street in the foreground form one of the most important corridors for traffic and public transit routes entering Downtown Kitchener. Industrial artifacts are in public places throughout the city as a celebration of its manufacturing history. The city is home to four municipal business parks: the Bridgeport Business Park, Grand River West Business Park, Huron Business Park and Lancaster Corporate Centre. The largest, the Huron Business Park, is home to a number of industries, from seat manufacturers to furniture components. Beginning in 2004, the City of Kitchener launched several initiatives to re-energize the downtown core. These initiatives included heavy investment, on behalf of the city and its partners, and the creation of a. The Kitchener Market is one of the oldest consistently operating markets in Canada. The Kitchener Market features local producers, international cuisine, artisans, and craftspeople. In the reconstruction of King Street, several features were added to make the street more friendly to pedestrians. New lighting was added to the street, sidewalks were widened, and curbs were lowered. In 2010, the redesigned King Street was awarded the International Community Places Award for its flexible design intended to draw people into the downtown core. In 2009, Tree Canada recognized King Street as a green street. The redesigned King Street features several environmentally sustainable elements such as new street trees, bike racks, planter beds that collect and filter storm water, street furnishing made primarily from recycled materials, and an improved waste management system. The street was reconstructed using recycled roadway and paving stones. The groundbreaking ceremony for the and downtown health sciences campus took place on 15 March 2006, and the facility opened in spring 2009. The building is on King Street near Victoria Street, on the site of the old Epton plant, across the street from the Kaufman Lofts formerly the Kaufman shoe factory. Former Lang Tannery building, now used as hub for digital media companies In 2007, Cadan Inc. Supported by the local government, Cadan repurposed the building for use by commercial firms. Since its refurbishment, the Tannery has become a hub for digital media companies, both large and small. In 2011, Communitech moved into the Tannery. Home to over 800 companies, is a hub for innovative high-tech companies in the fields of information technology, digital media, biomedical, aerospace, environmental technology and advanced manufacturing. Also in 2011, high-tech giant became a tenant of the Tannery, furthering its reputation as a home for leading high-tech companies. The Kitchener office is a large hub for the development for Google's Gmail application. In 2016, the -sponsored startup hub Velocity Garage relocated to the building, bringing over 100 additional startup companies into the Tannery. The Province of Ontario built a new provincial courthouse in downtown Kitchener, on the block bordered by Frederick, Duke, Scott and Weber streets. The new courthouse is expected to create new jobs, mainly for the courthouse, but also for other businesses, especially law offices. The new courthouse construction began in 2010. Market Square, on the corner of Frederick St. This redevelopment project will include condominium units, new retail spaces, private and public parking, a gallery, and a boutique hotel. The former Arrow shirt factory has been converted into a luxury, high-rise apartment building, featuring loft condominiums. That would add 1,000 apartments and 1,800 condominium units. ±% 1871 3,473 — 1881 4,054 +16. In the , the population of Kitchener was 219,153. Children under five accounted for approximately 6. The median age was 37 years, younger than the 39 years for Ontario, and 40 years for Canada. In the five years between 2001 and 2006, the population of Kitchener grew by 7. Population density of Kitchener was 1,495 people per square kilometre. According to the 2006 Census, most of the population is of ancestry; the city has a substantial concentration of. The largest visible minority groups are: : 3. From the 2001 census, 78. Members of churches formed 41. Other religions include : 2. Region of Waterloo Headquarters in Kitchener Kitchener is governed by a council of ten councillors, representing or districts , and a mayor. Council is responsible for policy and decision making, monitoring the operation and performance of the city, analyzing and approving budgets and determining spending priorities. The residents of each ward vote for one person to be their city councillor; their voice and representative on city council. Municipal elections are held every four years in late October. Kitchener was part of until 1973 when amalgamation created the. The region handles many services, including fire, police, waste management, community health, transit, recreation, planning, roads and social services. Kitchener residents elect four councillors at large to sit with the mayor on the Regional council. The mayor of Kitchener is , who was elected to his first term in October 2014. See for a complete list of councillors. In 1976, residents of Kitchener voted almost 2:1 in favour of a ward system. The first municipal election held under the ward system occurred in 1978. In 2010, the city underwent a ward boundary review. A consultant proposed boundaries for a 10-ward system for the 2010 municipal election, adding 4 additional councillors and wards to replace the previous 6-ward system. The Member of Provincial Parliament MPP for Kitchener Centre is. Other MPPs include Kitchener-Conestoga and Kitchener—Waterloo who both represent small portions of the city in addition to adjacent areas. The federal Members of Parliament MPs are as follows: , , and. Kitchener has several public high schools, with , founded in 1855, being the oldest. It is located on King Street in the northern area of the city, not far from the boundary of Waterloo. In 2006, opened in southwestern Kitchener. It opened with a limited enrollment of only 9th and 10th grade students, and has since expanded to full capacity in the 2008-2009 school year. The oldest Catholic high school in the city is , which opened in 1907 as a girls-only Catholic school. It was transformed into a institution in 1990 after the closure of the neighbouring St. Jerome's High School, which had been a boys-only Catholic school. The same year, a second Catholic high school, , opened in the west of the city. Mary's abandoned its downtown location in favour of a new one in the city's southwest. Jerome's High School houses the Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work from. It opened at this location in 2006, bringing 300 faculty, staff and students to downtown Kitchener. Mary's High School building, meanwhile, has been transformed into both the head office of the and the Kitchener Downtown Community Centre. The neighbourhood, once a separate village, is now part of Kitchener. It is home to the primary campus of , one of the foremost non-university educational institutions in the province. For nine consecutive years, Conestoga has earned top overall ranking among Ontario colleges on the Key Performance Indicator KPI surveys, which measure graduate employment rates and satisfaction levels, and employer and student satisfaction. It is one of only seven in Canada. The opened a School of Pharmacy in the downtown area. Construction began in 2006, and the pharmacy program was launched in January 2008 with 92 students. The school is expected to graduate about 120 pharmacists annually and will become the home of the Centre for Family Medicine, where new family physicians will be trained, as well as an optometry clinic and the International Pharmacy Graduate Program. The University of Waterloo's UW Downtown Kitchener Health Sciences Campus is also the site of a satellite campus for 's School of Medicine. The admits 28 students per year to the MD program at the Waterloo Regional Campus. Students complete their clinical placements at hospitals and medical centres in the. McMaster's satellite campus also features the Centre for Family Medicine, a family health team, and the clinic. Kitchener—Waterloo is served by three hospitals, which is a system of two hospitals , , and Cambridge Memorial. Grand River treats patients with a wide range of problems and houses the psychiatric unit, trauma centre, women's and children's services, and the Regional Cancer Care Centre. It also houses a respiratory centre. Both hospitals have emergency departments and intensive care units. Cambridge Memorial is a general hospital, treating primarily patients from Cambridge and south Kitchener. Long term rehabilitation and physiotherapy is addressed at the , at the south of the city. Built originally as a tuberculosis sanatorium and home for the terminally ill, its last link with that past is the palliative care unit. It nestles along the banks of the Grand River, and is part of Grand River Hospital. Family doctors are in short supply in K-W, and a source of great concern among residents. The Chamber of Commerce runs a waiting list for people looking for a doctor, but as of 2006 the wait is over two years. Two urgent care centres cater for much of the routine services for thousands of people without a family doctor, from routine immunisations and health screening, to repeat prescriptions and referral on to specialist services. A third urgent care centre is being added to a renovated supermarket development in the desirable Forest Heights area of the city. Announced January 2006 was the inauguration of a new School of Medicine, the Waterloo Regional Campus of. The campus trains 28 students per year. From 2007, 15 new family doctors will be trained each year in new premises being constructed in the downtown core on rehabilitated industrial lands along the railway. In 2009, the mental health unit is slated for relocation from the downtown core to an unused floor at the Freeport site. By this, patients needing mental health care shall gain options for local long term care and monitoring. The site for the unit is in the basement of the downtown hospital in an area in dire need of renovations and the absence of options for local long-term mental care forces the transfer of such patients to 80 km to the west. After renovations, the Child and Adolescent Inpatient Program will be moved from a small 9-bed wing to the downstairs in place of the adult mental health unit. Once moved in 2009, upwards of 26 beds shall be available to this program. Kitchener is home to the largest outside of Germany. Kitchener's cultural highlights include , The Open Ears Festival, IMPACT theatre festival, the Multicultural Festival, the Kitchener Blues Festival and KidsPark, many of which are free to the public. Also the Cities recently had two local and regional museums built in the region, one being the Waterloo Region Children Museum and the Doon Heritage Museum. Live music by popular artists can be heard at venues such as Centre In The Square and The Aud. The is another community stalwart. Kitchener is also home to independent music label, which features the music of many Kitchener—Waterloo based musicians. Kitchener—Waterloo Oktoberfest Kitchener Waterloo Ontario Oktoberfest Parade Kitchener—Waterloo's celebration is an annual nine-day event that started in 1969. Based on the original German Oktoberfest, it is billed as Canada's Greatest Festival. It is held every October, starting on the Friday before Canadian and running until the Saturday after. It is the largest Bavarian festival outside of Germany. While its best-known draws are the -based celebrations, other family and cultural events also fill the week. The best-known is the Oktoberfest Thanksgiving Day Parade held on Thanksgiving Day; as it is the only major parade on Canadian Thanksgiving, it is televised nationally. Another icon of the festival is Miss Oktoberfest. This festival ambassador position is selected by a closed committee of judges from a panel of local applicants; community involvement and personal character are the main selection criteria. The festival attracts an average of 700,000 people. During the 2016 Oktoberfest parade, an estimated 150,000 lined the streets along the route. Kitchener—Waterloo in film and music Various locations in Kitchener and Waterloo were used to portray the fictional Ontario town of Wessex in the filming of Canadian television sitcom , starring star. Kitchener Blues Festival The Kitchener Blues Festival is a four-day festival in downtown Kitchener dedicated to music, always held in August on the weekend following the civic holiday. The festival has expanded to four stages and two workshop stages throughout the downtown area, with over 90 performances. It has grown from a one-day event with an attendance of 3,000 to a four-day event with over 150,000 attending. In 2014 the Kitchener Blues Festival celebrated its 14th year. Kitchener—Waterloo Multicultural Festival This is a two-day event in Victoria Park commencing usually on the first weekend of the summer. The festival features foods, dance and music from around the world. The festival also showcases several vendors that sell artifacts and crafts from around the world. This festival has been ongoing for well over 40 years. Well over 50,000 attend every year. KOI Music Festival KOI Music Festival is a three-day festival held annually in downtown Kitchener each September. The festival was started in 2010 and has since expanded to include a free concert on Friday and a full day of performance Saturday and Sunday. KOI features more than 100 rock bands every year, with a large focus on local, independent musicians. Notable past performers include , , , , , , , , , , , , , and several hundred more. Kultrun World Music Festival is an annual festival of world music, food, culture, and art that takes place in Victoria Park each July. Music from various cultures is performed on two stages, and the rest of the park is covered with vendors selling their goods. A key part of the festival is the large number of food stands selling foods from all different ethnic backgrounds. Victoria Park Another significant beauty spot in the city is Rockway Gardens. Adjacent to the Rockway golf course, the gardens occupy a long narrow strip of land alongside King Street as it rushes down to meet the Conestoga Parkway and become Highway 8. Here there are many fountains, ponds, waterfalls and rock grottoes. It is a popular site for wedding photos in the summer. Kitchener has an extensive and safe community trail system. The trails, which are controlled and run by the city, are hundreds of kilometres in length. Due to Kitchener's close proximity to the , several community trails and paths border the river's shores. This convenient access to the Grand River has drawn nature-seeking tourists to the city. However, Kitchener's trails and especially natural areas remain underfunded by city council and as a result, many are not adequately maintained. In 2011, a bike park at the newly constructed McLennan Park, in the city's south end, was hailed as one of the best city-run bike parks in by and enthusiasts. The bike park offers a section, a section, a , and a course. McLennan Park also features an accessible play area, a splash pad, basketball courts, beach volleyball courts, a leash-free dog area, and a toboggan hill. Subsequent upgrades took the Conestoga west beyond Trussler Road and north towards , with eight lanes through its middle stretch. The Conestoga Parkway bears the provincial highway designations of Highways and. King Street becomes Hwy 8 where it meets the Conestoga in the south and leads down to the 401, but Old King Street survives as the street-route through Freeport to the Preston area of. Up until construction of the Conestoga, Highland Road through had been the primary highway to. Victoria Street was then and remains the primary highway to but this is slated to be bypassed with an entirely new highway beginning at the Wellington Street exit and running roughly north of and parallel to the old route. There are two interchanges with on Kitchener's southern border. In addition to the primary link where Hwy 8 merges into the Hwy 401, there is another interchange on the west side with Homer Watson Boulevard. In order to reduce the congestion on Highway 8, a new interchange has been proposed on Highway 401 at Trussler Road, which would serve the rapidly growing west side of Kitchener. Although this proposal is supported by the Region of Waterloo, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has no plans to proceed with an interchange at Trussler Road. City streets Unlike most southern Ontario cities whose streets follow a strict British grid survey pattern, Kitchener's streets are laid out in a complex radial pattern on the Continental models most familiar to the German settlers. There is good historical reason for this. Kitchener was one of the few places in Ontario where the settlers arrived in advance of government surveyors. When it came time to punch roads through the wilderness, the farmers modelled the road network on what was familiar to them, which was the pattern of villages in Switzerland and southern Germany. This is a Continental Radial pattern and the result was major streets extended through diagonals cutting across the grid of smaller streets and converging at multiple-point intersections which, as the communities became more prosperous and if the automobile had not displaced the horse, might someday have become decorated with circular gardens, fountains or statuary in the style of European cities. Five-point intersections created by converging diagonals are legion in the older areas. In 2004, were introduced to the Region of Waterloo. Besides improving traffic flow, they will help the region lower pollution from emissions created by idling vehicles. In 2006, the first two were installed along Ira Needles Boulevard in Kitchener. A controversial plan would extend River Road through an area known as Hidden Valley, but the pressure of traffic and the absence of any other full east-west arterials between Fairway Road and the Highway 401 is forcing this development ahead. Most streets that cross the municipal boundary between Kitchener and retain the same street name in both cities. However, several streets which are divided into east and west sections in Kitchener shift to a north-south division in Waterloo. This primarily affects and Streets and Westmount Road. However, it also reduces the potential confusion that would result from having separate west and east segments of the same street existing simultaneously in both cities. The problem with giving streets in Waterloo Region compass-based labels, and attempting to divide each of the cities into quadrants comes from the radial layout of the roads, and the historical patterns of development. Waterloo's quadrants, created by the intersection of King and Erb Streets, roughly correspond to compass directions, but Kitchener's quadrants, delineated by King and Queen Streets, do not resemble compass directions whatsoever. Public transport GRT iXpress bus to be adapted for the ION bus service Since 2000, public transport throughout the has been provided by , which was created by a merger of the former Cambridge Transit and Kitchener Transit. GRT operate a number of bus routes in Kitchener, with many running into and two connecting to. In September 2005, GRT added an route called iXpress from downtown Cambridge through Kitchener to north Waterloo. On 31 October 2009, began to provide service to Kitchener with regional bus service from to on weekdays and weekends. On 19 December 2011, began train service to Kitchener with two weekday each direction to Union Station in Toronto. The route has been renamed from Georgetown GO Line to Kitchener GO Line to reflect this extension. Construction on the light rail system began in August 2014 and the Stage 1 service was expected to begin in 2017. Most of the rails had been installed by the end of 2016; the maintenance facility and all underground utility work had been completed. The start date of service was postponed to early 2018, however, because of delays in the manufacture and delivery of the vehicles by ; as of 24 February 2017, only a single sample of a train car had arrived for testing. In late February 2017, plans for the Stage 2 Cambridge section of the Ion rail service were still in the very early stage; public consultations were just getting started at the time. Railways Passenger rail service has long been a point of frustration for residents of Kitchener and its neighbouring cities. Two main lines come westward out of and then meet up again in. The northern line passes through , Kitchener and before arriving in London. The southern line goes along the heavily populated lakeshore to , , northern , , , and then to London. This southern line is the primary rail corridor for CN, while the northern line through Kitchener is owned by a short-line railway called the Goderich-Exeter Railway GEXR. The track and signalling conditions on the north and south route are very different, so that trains on the southern route can operate more frequently and faster, while trains on the northern route take 1 hour and 40 minutes on average to get from Kitchener to Toronto. In addition, because it is a single-track route, trains often need to pull into sidings to let oncoming trains pass. Consequently, Kitchener, with a regional population base equal to London and situated much closer to metropolitan Toronto, gets less than one third the frequency of passenger rail service. Passenger service is provided by. Two trains in each direction travelling between Sarnia and stop at the daily. The station is slightly to the northeast of the city's downtown on Weber Street near its intersection with Victoria Street. GO Train service from the Kitchener railway station began on 19 December 2011. On May 19, 2017, at Google's Canadian headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario Premier announced funding for an environmental assessment for high speed rail service to Toronto, London and Windsor. The proposal, if approved, would provide a 48-minute trip from Kitchener to downtown Toronto. Depending on the outcome of the environmental assessment and the 2018 provincial election , Toronto service could begin in 2025. Freight trains in Kitchener are operated by the and the. These railways serve several customers, many of which are in industrial parks in southern Kitchener. Air The closest airport to Kitchener is the in nearby Breslau, about 12 km by road from downtown Kitchener. While it is a thriving field, it is not heavily served by scheduled airlines. Most air travellers use Toronto's or. There is a in Kitchener near Google's Kitchener offices. In June, 2017 the helipad was temporarily closed due to possible interference from a construction crane on the flight path. There are 10 wards, and 53 planning communities or neighbourhoods. There are also 29 neighbourhood associations recognized by the city, which in some cases do not correspond to the names and boundaries of planning communities designated by the City. The Stanley Park Neighbourhood Association, for example, covers much of the eastern and southeastern area of the city including the planning communities of Stanley Park, Heritage Park, Idlewood, and Grand River North and South. Further complicating things is that the first area of development named Stanley Park, which is where Stanley Park school is located and where Stanley Park Conservation Area is located, has been included within the city's planning district of Heritage Park, leaving only later-developed areas of Stanley Park plus an adjacent residential neighbourhood to the south, originally referred to as Sunnyside, in the Stanley Park planning neighbourhood. A Lacrosse of the who play at the Kitchener Memorial Complex Kinsmen Arena. Member of Ontario Rugby Union. Offers social and competitive sides for ages 4 and up. A member of and. 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