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

[outoftheice]

Great article by Ricky Leong today in the Sun...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1871231559455666563

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I'm not expecting the Province to step up behind this plan. I'm not sure what the point of this 5% report was, other than forcing council's hand. The decision to stop the small and expensive line from going forward was fair, every decision after that has been bad and in bad faith.

I've read up a lot on this and I still do not know what the province is asking the city to do to get the money. It could be; adopt a 5% plan, or it could be more broad and have them agree the tunnel costs too much and work with your private partner on an elevated alignment. I do see them getting to the more broad conclusion but why not save the months, skip the AECOM study, and just ask the city to do that in August. The province wanted to make the city look dumb and show the province could do in three months what the city couldn't do in three years. In that, the province failed. On this forum we're more thorough than AECOM has been and minus the pictures, could come up with a similar report.

I believe the back and forth and finger pointing needs to stop. The city needs to ask what the province wants, the province needs to clarify and clearly communicate the question in front of council to the city and Calgarians. Once we're at that point debate it.

 

[darwink]

Errors and omissions is very different than indemnifying every cost the city can dream up at 100 cent dollars.

 

[lemongrab]

It's worth noting that although BRT costs less in the short term, it costs a lot more in the longer term. An articulated bus in Canada can hold around ~110 passengers, while the CAF LRVs will be able to hold around 288. There are articulated bus variants internationally that can carry up to 270 passengers, but I can't speak to those. With the Canadian models, you'd need roughly five articulated buses with five operators to carry the same number of people as a two-car train with one operator. An LRV can last anywhere from 30 to 40 years (although, Edmonton is pushing its U2s to 50), but a bus only lasts 18-20 years if it is given a mid-life refurbishment; meaning you need to replace those buses roughly twice as often as the LRVs. You also need more storage space for all those buses than you would for LRVs, more people maintaining them, and a larger budget for fuel (and I presume parts too, but I could be wrong).

Although specific to Edmonton, this report to Council provides some interesting numbers (bolding is mine):

"A BRT scenario was evaluated with the assumption that articulated buses would be used, which can each accommodate 70-85 people.* For this exercise, the Valley Line LRT is assumed to operate with two 40-meter low-floor vehicles during peak hours, which can accommodate 275 passenger per vehicle, or 550 passengers per train. Therefore, seven articulated buses are required to provide the same capacity as a two-car train. The typical lifespan of an articulated bus is 12 years, whereas a light rail vehicle has a life expectancy of 35 years.

Therefore, to move the same number of riders by bus over the life expectancy of a single two-car low-floor train, a total of approximately 21 buses is required. This also results in a corresponding increase in staff time to operate and maintain the fleet of buses compared to LRT. Generally, LRT vehicles are less expensive to operate on a per-rider basis compared to buses, as the cost to maintain, operate and power a single two-car LRT train is less than that for seven articulated buses.

As a result of these factors, the total life cycle cost of a BRT system over a 35-year period could be 20-30% more than that of an LRT system. As LRT and BRT technology evolves, there may be new vehicle types such as double articulated buses or rubber-tire mounted trains, which may increase the capacity of BRT and make it more competitive with LRT."

Keep in mind that the original plan for the Green Line Transitway was that it'd be upgraded to LRT in roughly 10-30 years; I can certainly understand why the city jumped at the increased funding opportunity to skip all those operating costs and go right to LRT. With what's happening now, would it be worth to go the route that's cheaper now but pricier over time? I dunno, but I get why people find it tempting to at least consider.

*The capacity figure that I cited is different from the report's figure, but mine also comes from a City of Edmonton page.

Its unclear if their full analysis to reach that 20-30% follows this flawed logic, but using the max capacity of train cars is almost always a silly metric to base the comparison to BRT. Actual ridership projections are what matter, and what fleet/frequency you need to serve them.

What is better service: an articulated bus every 5 minutes, or a train every 10? Most indications are the two busses would still be cheaper, so the question is how well can you cope with peak demand? And how do shifting transit patterns affect that? Should we be a little bit more okay with possible overloads 3 days a week than 5 days a week? It's also funny that we're more worried about theoretical overloads than the actual overload problem existing on Centre St today.

I think we can all agree that the eventual outcome is a Seton to DT LRT line sometime within the next 20-40 years, so its just a question of which path gets us there. Which option offers better service in the interim period, and how do the total costs compare (including TVM)? Of course we can never really know the alternate timeline not taken, but at this point I'd be shocked if the delays haven't already blown through whatever cost savings (if it was ever true) might have applied from skipping straight to LRT (compared to just building BRT, whose costs also would have exploded and been viewed as a different kind of shit show at this point). With hindsight, I find it hard to argue that BRT was not the right choice 9.5 years ago (considering it would likely be fully built by now). I don't see any compelling reasons why its any different today

 

[CplKlinger]

Actual ridership projections are what matter, and what fleet/frequency you need to serve them.

Yes, and the original Transitway business case stated that the Centre Street North corridor already had the ridership levels that warranted LRT. The only reason they were originally doing a Transitway first was due to funding constraints. If the south leg of the Green Line had to happen first because the OMF couldn't go anywhere else, then Calgary's plan makes sense: Upgrade the BRT infrastructure on Centre Street to improve interim service, but build the first leg of the LRT so that the busier leg can be the next stage.

What is better service: an articulated bus every 5 minutes, or a train every 10? Most indications are the two busses would still be cheaper

Trains can go every five minutes too. I dunno about Calgary, but Edmonton's do in peak hours. And again, buses are cheaper up front but you need to replace them twice as often, and each bus needs its own operator—which is not insignificant considering personnel costs are some of the largest expenses for transit systems.

Of course we can never really know the alternate timeline not taken, but at this point I'd be shocked if the delays haven't already blown through whatever cost savings (if it was ever true) might have applied from skipping straight to LRT (compared to just building BRT, whose costs also would have exploded and been viewed as a different kind of shit show at this point). With hindsight, I find it hard to argue that BRT was not the right choice 9.5 years ago (considering it would likely be fully built by now). I don't see any compelling reasons why its any different today

I'm sorry, but I just don't think the Green Line debacle means yall should have started with line-wide BRT. Here's what they knew at the time: Part of the corridor already had enough ridership to warrant LRT and the other part (the south part) was projected to get there in the coming years. If they started with a Transitway, they'd get a lot of riders yes, but then they'd have to drastically disrupt/reroute the service while it got upgraded to LRT. And before then, they'd have significant operating costs. With increased funding on the table, they had a chance to skip those higher operating costs and transition disruptions on one part (albiet, the part with lower ridership), while ensuring the higher-demand area was next in line and still upgrading its interim BRT infrastructure. I think they'd have been lambasted if they rejected that extra funding because "future governments might fumble the LRT line". After all, in a city with two successful LRT lines, who could have really forseen back then what would happen? And if there's a precedent for opting against building LRT out of distrust for future governments, then why would any council ever approve it?

 

[CalgaryTiger]

From the presentation to council... Outstanding Considerations (my comments)

• Eau Claire Station (The province omitted it because it saved money, not sure it would serve that many more people)
• Connection for future phases to the north (7th versus Eau Claire isn't what's holding back the north phase)
• Input from key interested parties (I can imagine what the input will be)
• Impact on existing infrastructure (traffic impact on 10th should be minimal and removing that spiral ramp from 9th isn't nothing but it is likely worth it)
• CPKC Elevated (I'm not sure if they get compensated for going over the tracks, would definitely have to be engaged throughout design and construction)
• Utility conflicts (it was mentioned in the video just moved utilities off 11th to 10th, would need to relocate them back to 11th. Honestly that does suck and would be a sunk cost... Could go down 11th? That means tight turns and slower transit times)
• Land requirements (it is an empty parking lot but that lot between 10th Ave and the tracks is still going to cost money)
• Funding (I thought this was well understood)
• Building owner impact (I can imagine there is a gap what the impact will be versus what it will be perceived to be)
• Future transit operations
• Federal funding

So far as I can tell the biggest issues are utilities and land requirements, both can be mitigated to a certain extent with compromises but I'm not sure they're worth it.

The last minute change of heart from the Province was really bad and they're kind of getting a pass... The tunnel risks were well known, the UCP government has been in place for almost 6 years, to pivot now was in bad faith. As the city you can be angry with that but I still don't know if it is worth throwing the whole thing away. I don't know how these things work but maybe it was dumb of city to proceed with all the prework before they had a fully costed and endorsed plan. It will end up being a massive waste of money either way, so choose the least bad option.

 

[Red Star]

Its unclear if their full analysis to reach that 20-30% follows this flawed logic, but using the max capacity of train cars is almost always a silly metric to base the comparison to BRT. Actual ridership projections are what matter, and what fleet/frequency you need to serve them.

What is better service: an articulated bus every 5 minutes, or a train every 10? Most indications are the two busses would still be cheaper, so the question is how well can you cope with peak demand? And how do shifting transit patterns affect that? Should we be a little bit more okay with possible overloads 3 days a week than 5 days a week? It's also funny that we're more worried about theoretical overloads than the actual overload problem existing on Centre St today.

I think we can all agree that the eventual outcome is a Seton to DT LRT line sometime within the next 20-40 years, so its just a question of which path gets us there. Which option offers better service in the interim period, and how do the total costs compare (including TVM)? Of course we can never really know the alternate timeline not taken, but at this point I'd be shocked if the delays haven't already blown through whatever cost savings (if it was ever true) might have applied from skipping straight to LRT (compared to just building BRT, whose costs also would have exploded and been viewed as a different kind of shit show at this point). With hindsight, I find it hard to argue that BRT was not the right choice 9.5 years ago (considering it would likely be fully built by now). I don't see any compelling reasons why its any different today

Those are all good points.

But the LRV's have been ordered from CAF, so the system is going to use low-floor LRT technology.