Green Line LRT | ?m | ?s | Calgary Transit

Go Elevated or try for Underground?

  • Work with the province and go with the Elevated option

    Votes: 52 76.5%

  • Try another approach and go for Underground option

    Votes: 13 19.1%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 1 1.5%

  • Go with a BRT solution

    Votes: 2 2.9%
  • Total voters
    68
outoftheice said:
I'm not sure why people talk about Stage 1 of Green Line like it's all that will ever be built. When the red line opened it ran from downtown to Anderson Station. Thankfully the city never stopped building and we now have the expansive LRT system we all enjoy today.
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The Red and Blue lines were built cheaply, the City in the past proudly pointed out how economical they were. And they were successful from the start because they ran through existing transit corridors of good ridership. And even then there was significant pauses in the expansion of the Red Line and the West LRT opened 27 years after the NE.

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Perhaps the success of the Green Line would be in question if there was no plan for expansion beyond 16th Ave to Shepard but that is not the case.
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The problem I see is that the Green Line got so much money because it was supposed to pay for the primary network, from Panorama Hills to Seton. With one project, the two main transit priorities in Calgary (replacing the overcrowded buses in NC Calgary, improving service to the growing deep SE) could be addressed. Effectively, an entire generation of of transit capital funding was assembled for this purpose. Calgary will have to wait its turn for more from higher levels of government as well as figure out where to get more money from its own resources. The City of Calgary's capital and financing spending for Stage 1 ties up $75M/year of property taxes for the next 30 years, and will have to find new funding to pay for the operating costs of Stage 1 And the cost of expansion is steep, going to Panorama Hills or even 96th by itself will be the second most expensive infrastructure project in Calgary history.

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RicoLance21 said:
That happened because Calgary was booming. For example, Edmonton's LRT was supposed to extend to Southgate in the mid 90s, but due to Klein's drastic infrastructure funding cuts, it terminated at University in 1992; it then stayed that way for over 10 years, and it only restarted because Edmonton became red hot again. Also, we shall see if any type of recovery will happen by 2027. Until then, I can see stage 2b shelved by a future plebiscite, and stage 2a only stayed afloat to completion as the sensible reason to connect the core part of the transit network. Prepare for a long drag of zero activity for the entire city after the completion of Eau Claire station except for minor improvements to the existing BRT lines.
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You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that it fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
 
accord1999 said:
The Red and Blue lines were built cheaply, the City in the past proudly pointed out how economical they were. And they were successful from the start because they ran through existing transit corridors of good ridership. And even then there was significant pauses in the expansion of the Red Line and the West LRT opened 27 years after the NE.

U9Ec4Yt.png



The problem I see is that the Green Line got so much money because it was supposed to pay for the primary network, from Panorama Hills to Seton. With one project, the two main transit priorities in Calgary (replacing the overcrowded buses in NC Calgary, improving service to the growing deep SE) could be addressed. Effectively, an entire generation of of transit capital funding was assembled for this purpose. Calgary will have to wait its turn for more from higher levels of government as well as figure out where to get more money from its own resources. The City of Calgary's capital and financing spending for Stage 1 ties up $75M/year of property taxes for the next 30 years, and will have to find new funding to pay for the operating costs of Stage 1 And the cost of expansion is steep, going to Panorama Hills or even 96th by itself will be the second most expensive infrastructure project in Calgary history.

hbhf0JD.png
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I just feel the North section won’t have immediate benefits compare to what’s already in place. There will be no improvement to commuting time, unlike the SE leg—thus no extra revenue generated at all to make up for the cost. This section will be massively expensive and disruptive (unless we go for something even more expensive like how Canada Line has been built under Cambie). Finally, Calgary won’t experience rapid growth for a while. I have lots of optimism for the SE leg. Commuting by car from the SE is basically hell—no easy route to downtown, so the SE leg will be an effective shortcut for the commuters, and it can complete a lot better with cars. At least there’d be new revenue from this.
 
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Dārayavauš said:
You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that is fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
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Oil & gas provided the tax revenue for both the province (in the form of royalties) and the city (business & property taxes) to fund these mega projects. Without a recovery in O&G (I would settle for average years rather than another boom), government will need to find other sources of tax revenue to fund infrastructure projects. As it is in other provinces who are providing infrastructure spending, that can only come from a PST and/or higher income/corporate taxes. We don't have a PST in Alberta and if I recall, we have a low (if not the lowest) provincial tax rate in the country.
 
Dārayavauš said:
You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that it fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
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I know this was thrown in there more for effect but the 'Calgary will become the next Detroit' is a very poor analogy. There were a lot of factors that led to a decline of Detroit proper well outside of the decline of the traditional auto sector in the U.S. These factors don't really exist in Calgary. I also wouldn't be so categorical about oil never booming again. People have been spectacularly wrong when predicting the future of oil prices far too often in the last 60 years. The lesson, I think, is to expect the unexpected when it comes to O&G prices

In saying that, I do think that a change in attitude about the role of the industry in this province needs to occur.
 
Disraeli said:
Is this par for the course for a major project of this scale or is this politics? Or both?
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That we hear about it is politics. That this happens is par the course. In other provinces provincial agencies now exclusively lead procurement at this scale.
 
Disraeli said:
Is this par for the course for a major project of this scale or is this politics? Or both?
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There was a report from the Green Line Technical and Risk Committee early in the year (Green Line committee meeting from February 21) that highlighted a number of similar issues, that are pretty troubling given that the project had been underway for 5+ years and construction was supposed to begin a few months later. But perhaps it's not surprising given the troubles the Green Line has had since 2015.


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It was mostly politics. People remember the attack on Nenshi’s train and like it, and aren’t paying attention when the province gives the thumbs up. Conversely, it was mostly politics when Nenshi was all of a sudden concerned by a pretty standard cancellation clause in the funding agreement.
 
darwink said:
It was mostly politics. People remember the attack on Nenshi’s train and like it, and aren’t paying attention when the province gives the thumbs up. Conversely, it was mostly politics when Nenshi was all of a sudden concerned by a pretty standard cancellation clause in the funding agreement.
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This is definitely par for the course with the province. They also jyst returned a similar assesment in Edmonton for our west valley line ftom downtown to West Edm Mall. The province needed to show they are in control so the hold funding or in another case cut conpletely (Edm and northern AB region superlab)
 
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