Recent content by accord1999

If you have Google Earth on the desktop, often its historical imagery will allow you to select a newer image set than the default used by it or Google Maps. For that area, there is imagery from last October:

The original schedule (from 2015) was construction to start in around 2017-2018, but the massive plan change in 2017 pushed the start date back to 2020. Given the provincial economic and political issues, Alberta wasn't in a good position to offer more money (beyond the promised $1.5B) and the...

From the July 30 press conference, it was reported that deferring the Centre Street station was also going to save $400M. And I think from the way they phrase it as a "deferral", that they were still going to build the station box for it which would be still a significant expense. I wouldn't...

Here's a low-resolution overview map of the challenging area from the 2014 North Central LRT Corridor Study Appendix E

The NC corridor already has a large number of buses running through it during work days. That is where LRT should have gone.

Even in 2019, it was estimated at upwards of $1B. Basically the side effect of the joining the SE to the NC. Since the NC portion was supposed to need LRT soon as bus capacity would not be adequate for Centre Street N, the whole project skipped BRT. But then chose to prioritize the SE at...

I think they're commenting on Austin's Project Connect plan, which originally prior to 2021 was an ambitious multi-billion dollar LRT expansion with a significant downtown tunnel. However like the Green Line, construction costs skyrocketed and the downtown tunnel was effectively canceled when...

It could be with the second phase still needing over $150M even after the recent large private donation, the design could be pushed out since they wouldn't be able to start construction on it for many years...

The modernization is the second phase for the Arts Commons Transformation projection. The new building is the first phase ($270M) and is fully funded. https://www.calgarymlc.ca/projects/arts-commons-transformation?sheet=b8b8cf216967

That's really all it is. A tiny bone for the NC in 2021 to take away attention from the Bow crossing likely not going to be be part of Stage 1.

The best source I've found is the North BRT functional study that was presented to council in 2021 (Attachment 2 especially) which presents some numbers and breakdown of short to long-term improvements and their costs...

You can't just look always at the long-term, you also have to consider the short-term and medium-term ROI. You're spending more than a generation worth of transit capital funding for a cut-down segment that doesn't fulfill any of the Green Line business case priorities (replaced overloaded buses...

I've seen estimates of property value declines of up to $160M. But as this twitter poster notes, given the likely difference in cost today between tunnel and elevated, it would probably be much cheaper just to pay off the property owners for that "loss". And to make up for it, charge an extra...

At some point you can't have the hard part continuously eat up all the funding so you can't do any other part and have no immediate benefit. And they've been using this excuse since 2017. What they should have saw was "doing less with more" as the gamble. I was surprised that Alberta...

The lack of planning or past spending makes it very hard to switch to this direction, no matter how much it makes more sense based on ridership. Given the animosity in 2019-2021, I'd expect that Alberta warned Calgary that it would support it but it wouldn't tolerate any more reduction in scope...