darwink
Senior Member
It is slower than the bus it replaced iirc. It’s a weird project, driven by politics more than anything.
Green Line LRT | ?m | ?s | Calgary Transit
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I'll say this has little to do with the Green Line, other than it could've been a bus... I do think it should be a low-floor train.
I'm a "busses can be great, they don't need to be replaced with train" guy now. Being a MAX Yellow rider there's no good way a train could try to replace that service (maybe that's what they tried to do in KW. If you're going to do busses like MAX Yellow though, we need to do bus lanes downtown. @Surrealplaces mentioned 6th Ave Cycletrack, a 6th Ave Cycletrack AND bus lane, the city might swallow itself.
I really liked it. I don't remember any significant delays in the street-running section downtown, and the trip down into the valley and back out again was fast. Frequencies were good, too.
It made me excited for the next phase to West Edmonton Mall.
lemongrab
Active Member
For the SE it seems like it shouldn't have been too hard to have the best of both worlds, by sinking the tracks a bit as they approach stations. Perhaps they aren't the fairest examples because they are on hills, but the ramps at 45 St and Sirocco stations are pretty subtle. I don't think I've ever used Shaganappi station, but it only looks a little more pronounced on streetview. And 3/6 stations on blue line west are grade separated so it doesn't really matter.
I'm not too well versed on specific station details, but they wanted grade separation for everything west of the Elbow. Ramsay is essentially grade separated; 26th fully grade separated. The next 7 stations are all ground level...but are any of them tightly constrained that you can't play with the grades a bit - even if it means more expensive and land intensive stations?
I also wonder how the accessibility experience differs on the trains themselves - is it worth navigating an extra foot or two of elevation to have more space once you're on the train? Of course gentle ramps means more distance to cover to cross the tracks or access a middle platform, but I'm not sure how often that really comes into play (only if you have a perpendicular approach to the station does it really increase the distance you have to travel). I think we tend to picture the challenges with much older stations like Sunnyside or Banff Trail (ironically the issue there is needing to descend from street level), but we've gotten pretty good at mitigating it more recently.
Of course that takes us back to the north...and if it ever gets built half the stations will probably switch to grade separation as seems to be the trend, so let's just make them all that way and go fully automated!
trtcttc
Senior Member
This is essentially the same station design (Spadina/St Clair grade separated parts) and uses the same trains as the Toronto Streetcar/Eglinton Crosstown (yet to open). The raised seats are to accommodate the wheels. Not sure if it's due to regulatory issues but the Canadian trams have a very low floor design, most of the US is only 70% low floor, and Europe is mostly higher too. A very similar model of tram running in Berlin (Adtranz/Bombardier/Alstom Flexity) have the seats level with the ground as they're able to fit the wheels under there since the low floor requirements there are higher. Whereas the Flexity Freedom vehicles (Eglinton Crosstown, Edmonton Valley Line, Waterloo ION) have a raised platform.
The Green Line Urbos mock up had raised seats as you can see in the right. But hopefully the trains are wider to encourage movement. As a former frequent rider of the Toronto Streetcars, the narrow sections are terrible and you end up with 1/2 people standing there and not moving down so one side of the car is much busier than the other.
I have mixed feelings about low floor systems.
From an outside urbanist view, I like the feel of the stations being at ground level. It feels more human scale to me and the stations integrate well with the surroundings. It feels easier to access the stations.
From a rider's point of view I prefer high floor cars. I don't like the feeling inside the low floor cars once on the train, they feel kind of awkward, and somehow less roomy to me. Also passenger flow doesn't seem great. The systems I've been on (Portland, Ottawa) have varying levels within the cars, and though they didn't have a lot of passengers the flow of people moving within the cars wasn't very good.
From an outside urbanist view, I like the feel of the stations being at ground level. It feels more human scale to me and the stations integrate well with the surroundings. It feels easier to access the stations.
From a rider's point of view I prefer high floor cars. I don't like the feeling inside the low floor cars once on the train, they feel kind of awkward, and somehow less roomy to me. Also passenger flow doesn't seem great. The systems I've been on (Portland, Ottawa) have varying levels within the cars, and though they didn't have a lot of passengers the flow of people moving within the cars wasn't very good.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Hmm I don't get the gripe with the lack of room on low floor trains, even slightly busy high floor trains have the awkward of need to work your way towards the the door if you want to be able to exit. It is an issue on any train. You should only move away from the doors if you're going to be on the train for awhile.
I will say, a style of train I never felt like I was stuck on, automated people-movers with no seats at all. That's obviously not great for the people who need to sit down.
I will say, a style of train I never felt like I was stuck on, automated people-movers with no seats at all. That's obviously not great for the people who need to sit down.
trtcttc
Senior Member
I wonder if that's configuration more than anything. C-train's layout is not as common in North America compared to Asia where almost all trains have row seating to maximize standing room. Same with trams, they usually prioritize seating, which leads to the narrow walking paths.
Low floor makes sense for the Centre St N portion, and maybe some of Seton, with downtown being elevated (or underground lol) there's almost no advantage to low floor. Blue/Red line arguably benefits more from low floor that it doesn't take up as much of the street.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Interesting point, wouldn't elevated low floor actually be smaller than elevated high floor, at least the stations? Maybe not.
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whatchyyc
Active Member
The Green Line vehicles (and afaik all other low floor LRVs in Canada) are 2.65m wide, which is the same as our current high floor fleet.
Every door except the cab end ones will lead into an open "floater" segment which you can see in @trtcttc post, but unlike all other Canadian vehicles ours have two doors which helps in several ways:
- Improves passenger flow, a 2-car Urbos trainset has four more doors than a 3-car HF CTrain
- Passengers with a stroller or wheelchair could enter through one set of doors, then easily exit through the other without having to turn around inside the train
- The aisle in the bogie segments is not wide enough for certain mobility devices and strollers to pass. On other LF vehicles with one door, if that door fails, the entire train must be taken out of service. With two, the failed door can be deactivated, and the train remains in service as they do on the HF CTrain
Flexity Freedom (ion, Valley Line, Eglinton Crosstown) vs Urbos 100
Every door except the cab end ones will lead into an open "floater" segment which you can see in @trtcttc post, but unlike all other Canadian vehicles ours have two doors which helps in several ways:
- Improves passenger flow, a 2-car Urbos trainset has four more doors than a 3-car HF CTrain
- Passengers with a stroller or wheelchair could enter through one set of doors, then easily exit through the other without having to turn around inside the train
- The aisle in the bogie segments is not wide enough for certain mobility devices and strollers to pass. On other LF vehicles with one door, if that door fails, the entire train must be taken out of service. With two, the failed door can be deactivated, and the train remains in service as they do on the HF CTrain
Flexity Freedom (ion, Valley Line, Eglinton Crosstown) vs Urbos 100
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whatchyyc
Active Member
I'll also say that the lower platform height allows for not only a smaller ramp, but things like sidewalks/bus loops connecting directly to the platform. So for one of the platforms there's no need to walk to the end, which also improves passenger distribution since more people will be standing around the middle. You can see in the Green Line stations how the landscaping is designed to guide people to the centre of the platform:
ahuch
Active Member
I do think we'll see better integration of these stations with low floor, but I also think stations are going to be hit hard with value engineering on a project that's ballooned in costs with the political scope change and uncertainty. Curious how it'll all play out in the end.
outoftheice
Active Member
Green Line's future secure, Calgary city council committee to hear Tuesday
Procurement is underway for construction of the southeast segment, according to the city, with work slated to begin soon.
calgarysun.com
ahuch
Active Member
There's a couple of interesting tidbits in the agenda, as expected not too much kicking off in 2025.Green Line's future secure, Calgary city council committee to hear Tuesday
Procurement is underway for construction of the southeast segment, according to the city, with work slated to begin soon.
ByeByeBaby
Active Member
Low floor LRT cars make sense because that's what LRT cars are now.
Seattle is a great example. Their main line starts elevated south of the airport, runs elevated for 17 km alongside freeways, then runs for 7 km at grade up the median of a 4 lane stroad (sort of like 36 St NE), then 2.5 km tunnel/elevated, then 2 km at grade alongside a busway without sidewalks in an industrial area, then underground for 13 km through the downtown and university, then elevated for 14 km alongside freeways. There is no reason for low floor trains from integration or community access or whatever other urban design reason. But they use low floor trains because that's what all new trains are, and you have to pay a premium for the modifications for a non-standard platform height.
We were first movers and wound up building the first part of a system with a 1970s design, and within a decade or so train manufacturers figured out how to make trains with the more sensible height, and we have a legacy system that isn't compatible with the global standard. Nobody designing a new LRT system has a debate over low floor or high floor trains, in the same way that nobody designs subways with 400m stop distances and express tracks like they built in Manhattan before everybody figured out the right way to do it, or nobody builds subways with the weird gauge that BART uses because they thought that was a good idea, or nobody designs at-grade stations to have the massive pedestrian overpass structures like we have on the older parts of our system.
Seattle is a great example. Their main line starts elevated south of the airport, runs elevated for 17 km alongside freeways, then runs for 7 km at grade up the median of a 4 lane stroad (sort of like 36 St NE), then 2.5 km tunnel/elevated, then 2 km at grade alongside a busway without sidewalks in an industrial area, then underground for 13 km through the downtown and university, then elevated for 14 km alongside freeways. There is no reason for low floor trains from integration or community access or whatever other urban design reason. But they use low floor trains because that's what all new trains are, and you have to pay a premium for the modifications for a non-standard platform height.
We were first movers and wound up building the first part of a system with a 1970s design, and within a decade or so train manufacturers figured out how to make trains with the more sensible height, and we have a legacy system that isn't compatible with the global standard. Nobody designing a new LRT system has a debate over low floor or high floor trains, in the same way that nobody designs subways with 400m stop distances and express tracks like they built in Manhattan before everybody figured out the right way to do it, or nobody builds subways with the weird gauge that BART uses because they thought that was a good idea, or nobody designs at-grade stations to have the massive pedestrian overpass structures like we have on the older parts of our system.