whatchyyc
Active Member
Yeah they're drilling the piles for the elevated guideway over Barlow so they're going to be huge
This got me thinking, hopefully whoever ends up building the bridge on top of those piles takes notes from Edmonton and remembers to... account for the forces of the trainYeah they're drilling the piles for the elevated guideway over Barlow so they're going to be huge
My experience as well... pleasant experience, but empty.My experience aligns with the "underperforming" - while I was personally very impressed with the service, both times I took it the trains were nearly empty. It's a great deal for solo travellers, but if you get a family of 3 or more it's probably cheaper to take a taxi.
It'll probably be the same cantilevered box girder construction as we've done for West LRT. For Valley they even messed up the U girder segments and had to replace several of them, but the box girder guideway for Valley Line West seems to be going along wellWe've guideway'd before without issue; we can guideway again without issue. Their problem isn't our problem. But that is still wild they messed that up so bad.
Not just the train, but thermal expansion? Working engineering in Alberta and not accounting for thermal expansion?This got me thinking, hopefully whoever ends up building the bridge on top of those piles takes notes from Edmonton and remembers to... account for the forces of the train
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A lot of major cities have multiple links to the airport. Hong Kong has the bus service which most locals take, and the express train that mostly tourist and business people take. Seoul has the Express and Local service on the AREX. Even Toronto has the UP that goes to Union (and also stop on the TTC and GO which a lot of people get off at), but the TTC also runs a direct bus service that connects to Kipling on line 2 subway. The express type service only makes sense if there is significant business travel. If Calgary had a train to "Grand Central" direct and a rail link connecting to the Blue Line. Most locals would take the Blue line because most people don't live in the middle of the CBD, while those staying in a hotel downtown may take the direct route.Maybe it's just me, but anytime I've taken an airport train they are usually empty, or somewhat empty. The ones I've taken
Atlanta
Vancouver
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Osaka
Seoul
Chicago
London (Elizabeth line)
In all cases the trains were mostly empty except Osaka which was very busy. London's Elizabeth line wasn't busy when it left the airport, but became busy. My sister and brother in law took the Heathrow express and they said it was virtually empty, but maybe because it was quite a bit more money?
This isn't to say we shouldn't have a rail line to the airport, only that I think it's typical for airport trains to be less busy
The locals that take the blue line will be airport workers. People in the NE near the blue line fly less than average. People who fly most often tend to do it for business, where their taxi is expensed. It's pretty easy to talk yourself into a cab unless you're a solo traveller with minimal luggage and very close to a train station.Most locals would take the Blue line because most people don't live in the middle of the CBD, while those staying in a hotel downtown may take the direct route.
The Blue line is quite long and connects to the Red line. People in the NE are also really close to the airport, so a cab would also be much cheaper.The locals that take the blue line will be airport workers. People in the NE near the blue line fly less than average. People who fly most often tend to do it for business, where their taxi is expensed. It's pretty easy to talk yourself into a cab unless you're a solo traveller with minimal luggage and very close to a train station.
I think they're complicated, because they move both airport workers and travellers... Many airport workers work crazy hours and we rarely run transit at these hours in this city. Then you have the transit situation in the city at large, which has to be good enough to support connections without a crazy travel time that is significantly longer than driving.Airport-downtown rail links are far more politically popular than their actual ridership justifies.
It’s not rational, but it’s a reality. Just like “we need new transit expansion for the olympics / World Cup, etc.”
The cities that have done well with airport transit (eg Vancouver) are the ones that have used the airport link as an excuse to build useful local transit in the general direction of the airport.
The less successful approach is to build a nonstop airport-downtown link designed only for visitors (eg Toronto original UPX service).
In our case, the blue line extension further into the upper NE (hopefully 2-3 stops further than the airport) should have good local ridership and is the real benefit of a transit connection from the east side.
A heavy rail connection from downtown to the airport via the west side will on its own have low ridership, but that link is the “hard” part of making regional rail to Airdrie, Cochrane, Canmore, and Banff work.