I sympathize with "it's too expensive" after seeing the proposal for the $6 billion Eau Claire-to-Lynnwood line.
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
darwink
Senior Member
There are many things at play which drove that. It is entirely viable to build on 8th, but the businesses aren't going to like the tradeoffs that enable that, and if council starts imposing criteria on the project without understanding the cost of those requirements, the project would descend into Greenline style madness.
Golfing guy
Active Member
The reason they didn’t do subway initially was to get more line built. I believe it’s one of the reasons are lines are so successful is because the built out so far in The early days. Didn’t Edmonton build subway like through downtown and didn’t get that far out initially?
darwink
Senior Member
Edmonton also was much more fiscally conservative in the 80s and 90s than Calgary, and ended up with much less stuff as a result. Pools, what eventually became the Arts Commons, City Hall (with office component), and LRT expansion all happened in Calgary and not in Edmonton because Calgary borrowed money and Edmonton didn't.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
The good old Can-Do Calgary attitude. Got us the Olympics too.
zzkwilliamcanada
Active Member
yeah.. that's why Edmonton looks depression
Albertasaurus
Active Member
To be fair, when Calgary and Edmonton built their LRT systems in the early '80s, the population of both cities was some 500-600,000. That's smaller than any North American city that currently has LRT, including Kitchener-Waterloo which recently completed a small line (and theirs is more "Streetcar" than "light metro"). I can see how going "subway" might have seemed like an unnecessary expense for what were then small cities.
The cities have literally tripled, give or take, in population since that time. Even if the systems aren't perfect, we are fortunate that we got LRT when both cities were relatively small, because I wonder if we'd ever be able to get systems properly funded and started today. A lot of comparably sized US metros (KC, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Vegas, etc) still don't have proper mass transit systems.
The cities have literally tripled, give or take, in population since that time. Even if the systems aren't perfect, we are fortunate that we got LRT when both cities were relatively small, because I wonder if we'd ever be able to get systems properly funded and started today. A lot of comparably sized US metros (KC, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Vegas, etc) still don't have proper mass transit systems.
Years after, the main planner of the Edmonton LRT project said he wished they had have gone the Calgary route instead of the tunnel. That was a few years back, and who knows he may change his mind now that the systems are built out more.
Personally I'm happy with the route Calgary took as it got an extensive system built and usage ramping up quickly. An underground section would have been sexy, but in the end it's all about moving people from A to Z.
Golfing guy
Active Member
Wonder how much of the green line’s ultimate buildout could get done if the same street level design was down today?
Albertasaurus
Active Member
One of the best things about Calgary building out its surface network rather than spending on burying the downtown section, is because the system was so extensive for a city Calgary's size, it was actually very useful for a large portion of the population and so really helped Calgary build a very strong transit culture early on. With such high ridership, it has been easier to justify the expense of extending lines (and now building a new one).
trtcttc
Senior Member
How difficult is it to make one of the lines low floor? I'm curious if they'd lower the platforms or raise the tracks. Curious if any cities have done such a retrofit. If we were to build another surface line downtown, it should be low floor, so we don't have the massive station area which makes the street a surface subway station rather than a mixed use area.
darwink
Senior Member
Lots of stations are close to road crossings, so platform modification it is. Replace all the platforms, and for others, replace platforms, elevators, and escalators. It would take a long time, and any savings over the very long term when the platforms came up for renewal, would be taken up having to buy more, more expensive, vehicles for similar capacity.
It is possible that loading gauge would be an issue, necessitating quasi bespoke vehicles with even lower capacity (like Brussels) to not need modifications in the tunnels/track works.
Calgcouver
Active Member
I just don’t think we need 4 oversized one way freeways through the downtown (4th, 5th, 6th and 9th). Repurposing most of the 6 Ave ROW to serve LRT and bus lines seems reasonable to me and I would imagine it would reduce a lot of the bottle necks we see with capacity on 7 Ave currently. We have so much space at grade downtown in the ROWs I think we don’t necessarily need to go underground.
darwink
Senior Member
If we figured out how to complete the vision of the Bow Trail Connector (connect 4 Ave east to Bow Trail west, and connect 5th Ave east with Bow Trail east), it would be much easier to do.
accord1999
Active Member
Back in 2020, they released a document that looked at various options. If you didn't have to cross the CPR tracks and connect North and SE you could save a lot of money. For about 15% more than $4.9B estimate of the selected 2020 plan, you could have a NC line from 64th run down Centre Street to 6th Av S (at-grade) and a SE line go from Shepard into the core then elevated on 10th Av S to 2 St SW.