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

[Red Star]

It's too bad the SE LRT isn't a high-floor system as you could have tied in the REM-style line to the SELRT in Inglewood:

Now the province has to figure out how to get commuter trains and HSR into downtown.

 

[Red Star]

Ugh that would be so small-city of us. Haven't we moved beyond the LRT in a rail corridor with park-and-rides? Especially with commuter rail being closer than ever.

Plus,

There is massive TOD potential around the the Nose Creek Corridor:

 

[lemongrab]

He specifically campaigned on this with his initial run back in 2010 if I recall, with the slogan of "because that is where the people are". No analysis of if it was feasible, no costing apparently, completely ignoring decades of long-term planning that went into our LRT network.

To clarify, his campaign slogan was about doing SE LRT ASAP, right? (not about centre street north?). Based on the timelines from 2005 I posted above jumping straight to LRT for SE wasn't an unreasonable idea (we just did the same for the west line...)

The long article outlining the history since 2011 supports that, but also indicates Nenshi was supportive of the busway https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgarys-green-line-lrt-future-to-be-decided-this-week

Naheed Nenshi, who began his job as Calgary mayor promising a southeast LRT to Douglasdale as the first priority for transit grants, said the north-southeast debate shouldn’t exist. He pointed out LRT legs would be connected and built in segments starting in 2012 and continuing over the next 28 years.

“We are allowing ourselves to be drawn into a debate where none exists,” Nenshi said at the time. “According to your thinking, it’s all one line,” he told the RouteAhead authors.

Nenshi supported the bus-only lanes, saying a $300-million busway from downtown to the south would shave significant time off current commutes, which was the primary concern heard from area residents. Documents at the time suggested it would save almost as much time as a full LRT would, for about one-tenth the cost.


A lack of money at the time meant the city could only partially start either leg of the north-southeast line until 2022, or fund bus lanes from Douglasdale to north of Glenmore Trail in the southeast, and on Centre Street from downtown to 24th Avenue N.

The article goes on to detail how they didn't really even have enough money for the BRT concepts and were having to carve up those plans to fit their funding at the time. So that just sounds like scaling back on ambitious campaign promises when faced with financial realities...what's the issue?

It also mentions

By the end of 2014, the Green Line — at the time, a 40-kilometre LRT line that spanned the city and linked through a downtown tunnel — was seen as unobtainable due to its approximately $5-billion price tag.

The federal government, led by then-prime minister Stephen Harper, announced in 2015 a Public Transit Fund which promised $750 million over the first two years spread across the country, with a $1-billion annual fund by 2019.

Nenshi, who at the time was still the mayor of Calgary, hoped this would be a fund the city could potentially rely on to upgrade the planned Green Line route between the South Health Campus to Country Hills from a bus-only route into a low-floor CTrain link.

With the announcement of federal funding, council put forward a motion to extend the city’s commitment of $52 million per year from 10 years to 30 years, ultimately providing $1.5 billion toward the project.

Up to this point, the Green Line’s multibillion-dollar conversion to LRT had been forecast for the late 2020s or 2030s, with no reliable funding stream to deliver it.

So we were struggling to even pay for BRT until the feds swooped in with cash to jump straight to LRT. Should we have refused the offer? SE was always the next project planned to go LRT by the professional planners whether it started as BRT or not.

Personally I'd have preferred a timeline of: 1) SE BRT 2) NC automated LRT 3) 8 Ave subway 4) A bunch of other stuff 5) SE --> LRT; but that didn't work with the funding available. With hindsight Nenshi et al. could have done more to manage expectations (of both public and feds) in summer 2015, but at the time it felt like a huge windfall that would let us build nearly everything we wanted - which was based on what the professional planners said at the time.

 

[YYCguy]

w

Plus,

There is massive TOD potential around the the Nose Creek Corridor:
View attachment 711245
View attachment 711246

I don’t think there’s an appetite to pave over golf courses and athletic amenities. Although I do think that have two golf courses side by side is a bit overkill. I wonder which one of those two is more desirable/used more? Maybe redevelop the one that isn’t?

 

[Golfing guy]

w

I don’t think there’s an appetite to pave over golf courses and athletic amenities. Although I do think that have two golf courses side by side is a bit overkill. I wonder which one of those two is more desirable/used more? Maybe redevelop the one that isn’t?

why would anyone want to build anything (even industrial) along Deerfoot? There is a big plot of land (midfield) that has nothing built on it yet.

 

[badc0ffee]

why would anyone want to build anything (even industrial) along Deerfoot? There is a big plot of land (midfield) that has nothing built on it yet.

I think that part of the Nose Creek corridor is also under a main flight path.

 

[Roaring Flames]

I've never understood the Nose Creek route. Living here in Beddington the stations would be so out of the way, it would be easier just to catch a bus on centre street

 

[darwink]

I've never understood the Nose Creek route. Living here in Beddington the stations would be so out of the way, it would be easier just to catch a bus on centre street

The bus network south of nose creek would continue as today and was deemed adequate if it wasn’t serving north of nose creek, and was assumed to be much cheaper. They never did solve the downtown access problem and it likely would have necessitated the Red Line Tunnel to create the necessary downtown capacity.

For Centre St until there were somewhat urban examples elsewhere to convince local councillors, I suspect the options were seen as expropriation like what happened in Sunnyside but for 40x the distance or subway—both non starters at the time.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

The good and bad thing, nothing has really been decided beyond 4th Street SE. Everything anybody says could happen just depends on money and appetite really. This story is long from over it has really only just begun. I assume we'll continue to be paralyzed by indecision, second-guessing, and finger pointing. If that pipe panel thought water decisions were political, I'd like to see an analysis done on Rapid Transit, are we really getting good value for our money? It is time for the same setup for passenger rail in the region and/or Province, at least when it comes to building and maintaining the infrastructure. Calgary Transit could still operate it, but it might make sense for this entity to do it all, so rail and other rapid transit (BRT and Express Buses) could be well integrated.

It would have its own board of directors to ensure long-term, accountable management and an independent Passenger Rail Oversight Board (PROB lol) to provide technical guidance and reduce political influence on infrastructure decisions.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

Using the nose creek alignment is cheap and fast as it's mostly grade-separated and the alignment is straight.

In the Nose-creek corridor, the city and province could build a REM style train system similar to what Montreal uses. Maybe it doesn't have to be automated, but it could have stops at:

-64th Ave.
-32nd Ave.
-16th Ave. (with a transfer to MAX orange)

The system would have:

-High-floor trains that can reach speeds of 100-120km/h
-Longer distances between stations
-Stations that have a bypass that could allow HSR to pass

There could be three lines:
1. Harvest HIlls
2. Airdrie
3. The Airport

View attachment 711241

I understand and support the intent here, the best part of the old nose creek route was how fast it could be with few to no stops between beddington and DT.

In an alternate scenario commuters north of Bd could take the airport connector to the commuter rail station and get similar express service, but fewer transfers is always better.

A cheapish solution could be to borrow from the setway plan, and run an automated BRT from the north terminus of GL, down towards bd, then break east along airport trail to meet with blue line, with a stop at the CR station.

Just one transfer for DT commuters that way, and it leverages cheap commuter rail and cheap BRT.

Can't rack up billions in new debt with ideas like that though, so the various govs will never go for it!

 

[Surrealplaces]

The NC leg being tied to the SE has always been the issue. The SE leg is more like a commuter train which is how the Nose Creek path would be. The route up Centre street has more potential given the amount of inner city development within a kilometer east and west of the Centre street line, but it's efficiency fades off once you get further north. The Nose Creek route is cheaper and better for speed, but is only effective at getting people from the far north burbs to Downtown. The stations from downtown to about Beddington Trail area would be kind of useless, whereas Centre Street route has so much potential for TOD and other development, but again not as fast and cost effective as the Nose Creel route.

If money was no object, we could've gone with the Nose Creek route and SE route as one high floor line (still the green line) and built a separate low floor line up Centre Street from downtown to say....64th ave and called it the Orange line.

 

[trtcttc]

Having every community amalgamated into Calgary gives this sense that the entire city is the same, that the North LRT needs to cover all the way North. The system's that's needed is what Surreal mentions, an LRT south of 64th (or even Beddington) and a commuter rail for the Northern communities. If they build a Nose Creek commuter rail, I'm also imagining branching to reach North Centre, North West, and maybe the airport. If you look at a Toronto transit map (Apple Maps has lines for Go + TTC), the subway goes North until it becomes more suburban, then the communities after are served by the GO. The RH line from Union actually starts along the DVP, a highway similar to the Nose Creek alignment, and doesn't have any stops until it gets to the 401 (almost the terminus of the subway).

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

The NC leg being tied to the SE has always been the issue. The SE leg is more like a commuter train which is how the Nose Creek path would be. The route up Centre street has more potential given the amount of inner city development within a kilometer east and west of the Centre street line, but it's efficiency fades off once you get further north. The Nose Creek route is cheaper and better for speed, but is only effective at getting people from the far north burbs to Downtown. The stations from downtown to about Beddington Trail area would be kind of useless, whereas Centre Street route has so much potential for TOD and other development, but again not as fast and cost effective as the Nose Creel route.

If money was no object, we could've gone with the Nose Creek route and SE route as one high floor line (still the green line) and built a separate low floor line up Centre Street from downtown to say....64th ave and called it the Orange line.

Actually I think its the other way around. NC doesn't get the priority it should because it is primarily a commuter route, there are no big destinations for the network on either Center or Nose Creek, save the Airport/Rail link. No big employment or commercial nodes.

SE on the other hand had the Seton hospital and office TOD node planned, plus quarry park and CP as major employment nodes.

If money wasn't a constraint, the network ideal IMO would be a clone of Canada line with NC on center, have the branch to the airport eventually linking up with purple line east of stoney and creating a loop that would double the train frequency on the portion with the most infill potential, Center St from 16 to Beddington. And of course full ALRT for the rest of the route.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Actually I think its the other way around. NC doesn't get the priority it should because it is primarily a commuter route, there are no big destinations for the network on either Center or Nose Creek, save the Airport/Rail link. No big employment or commercial nodes.

SE on the other hand had the Seton hospital and office TOD node planned, plus quarry park and CP as major employment nodes.

I'm not saying that the SE section shouldn't be built, only that it's more of a commuter style rail line with long stretches of emptiness and that it matches up more with a Nose creek style line. It has QP, CP, and South Campus, but most employees will still drive to those sites. The NC up Centre street would be a lot of commuter traffic towards downtown where it works for people to take transit. also the Centre street corridor has a large population over a short distance. a population that is still growing.

 

[lemongrab]

I think you could pretty easily jog the nose creek alignment over to Centre St at 64th Ave instead of Beddinton/96th. There's a bunch of ways you could do it - below is about a 100m turn radius and then you keep it trenched until you cross 4 St NE

I think it sets you up better for a hub at Aurora before the lines split (line to airport isn't really the route)