'Green Line and 'ahead of schedule' are two things rarely ever mentioned in the same sentence lol.
In all seriousness, it's nice to see some progress.
Green Line LRT | ?m | ?s | Calgary Transit
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
In all seriousness, it's nice to see some progress.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
If you're always changing the schedule you're never behind schedule.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Don't know if I already asked this but.................when building the downtown tunnel for the GL are they planning to make it a double level station so any future East/West trips thru the downtown could potentially be tunneled more easily?
whatchyyc
Active Member
I just hope to be alive to see the 8th ave subway built
I just hope to be alive to see the Green Line finished firstI just hope to be alive to see the 8th ave subway built
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
That’s really great to hear, been wondering this for years. Historically the city has had a “we’lol deal with it later” approach rather than this level of proactive approach.
SlippinJimmy
New Member
The actually did an update to RouteAhead no too long ago and all but removed the plan stating that they don't see a need for it for the foreseeable future which sadly means mass transit in Calgary having a considerable constraint on frequency and having to wait at red lights for years to to come... In the plan they seemed to be more interested in extending the Blue Line west, Red Line south, iirc blue line further north as well, and considering some infill stations (stations that imo maybe aren't worth the disruption and cost).
The Green Line will already have to be deep enough to cross the below the rather shallow CP Tunnel that goes into downtown, so that's 1/2 hypothetical crossings with an 8th Ave subway already considered, the other would be at 2nd and 8th right at the corner of Banker's Hall and The Core. At any rate I personally think there is a good chance this is 2km of tunnel none of us will get to see in our lives, further supported by the fact that if built some time down the road there would effectively be no easy way to transfer from a Red Line station under 8th to the 7th Ave Green Line station that unfortunately seems like it would be located north of 7th. This would mean that transferring customers would have to walk 1-2 blocks outside. One would think if the 8th Ave subway really was a serious consideration, 7th Ave station would be between 7th and 8th to allow for a future easy transfer. Then again it is Calgary and they may just say that they find a 2 block outside transfer completely acceptable.
I do wonder how they would rework the Red Line's west departure from downtown to accommodate this; I often will just look around that area when going through it and wonder where they could possibly build a portal for the tunnel and whether or not the existing track would be replaced by that portal. I imagine they would leave the library portion alone for sure as the connection between the two lines in any event. Ripping up existing tracks along 9th St and replacing with a portal would be a massive disruption, but it also would allow them to then build a westbound 9th St station on 7th Ave if they so wanted.
Sometimes I think this city really does think underground infrastructure is the enemy, which is sad because that's my favourite kind.
Golfing guy
Active Member
After reading this I had a thought. If it costs maybe 1-2 billion $$$ to put red and blue lines under ground through downtown. Would that money not be better spent extending the green line north or south from this initial phases. I’d rather have the line extended right up through NC Calgary than use that money to sink existing downtown stuff. Get as much new stuff built before we glamor things up
SlippinJimmy
New Member
Well that could be done forever, just minimize costs and just keep building new things. The problem is that this leads to the question that has been beaten to death, is a street car up Centre St (or anywhere else they would end up building one with this mentality) worth the money and appropriate for that corridor. In my opinion, no it isn't. With that plan, all we end up getting more and more street cars that they will call "rapid transit" and have something like San Francisco's MUNI, the worlds slowest subway because it's also a street car, but with all of ours minus the subway part.
There is a place trains like those of course, it works great in places that have them, and it's a step above busses, when considering a Vancouver style BRT not even a very big one, but for much, much more cost.
Until I see busses and stops as busy as R4 or 99B-Line, maybe this very light rail that seems to be the future of just about everything in this part of the continent is just not even worth it. Then just spend that money on making the actual dedicated ROW real rapid transit even better than it is. To be clear, I'm saying 8th Ave subway, shovels in the ground tomorrow, I'm speaking in general. I remember having a discussion with some urban infra nerds about this before and we all agreed that ideally a corridor like Center St is more deserving of something more closely resembling the Broadway subway, especially since it will be a crucial part of the rapid transit access to the airport, but that this city would never want to pay for that.
A little off topic, but when they changed the design north of the river on the GL, it's really a shame that all of it was seemingly changed to street level. Too bad they couldn't at least go with the compromise from earlier that had tunnel to lower bridge to another tunnel until after 16th.
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
The west portal of the 8th Avenue Tunnel already exists, it was the only portion ever built. It was included in the construction of City Hall/Olympic Plaza in the 80s. That section is of least concern I’d say.
darwink
Senior Member
There is sufficient room right now for both ends for the red line. Blue line ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
CBBarnett
Senior Member
A bit of a rant:
Another factor that should be discussed about downtown metro tunnels is how much these choices depend on the future growth pattern of the city - we might not need a tunnel soon if we continue to grow the way we do - spread out mostly, with incremental intensification. This pattern means that demand is also spread out, boosting the need for new lines to new emerging places and incremental bus upgrades, rather than demand for the capacity along the main rapid transit Blue/Red backbone.
To make a very expensive downtown grade-separation more obviously worth it, we really must be out of capacity and used all tricks to keep things moving at-grade. Because 7th Ave works reasonably well today, there is less momentum to fix it compared to any number of other new projects, lines and extensions.
"Reasonably well" is an underwhelming position to take on transit service, but it's where we have been stuck in Calgary for what kind of transit system we want. This is probably unlikely to change soon, however that does not mean it won't change ever. If Calgary starts growing differently - for example, and an increasingly large share of growth occurs in TOD along the Red Line, that equation changes. Demand growth will necessitate intervention and capacity increases eventually. A city of 2 million is not far off, with many trips and demands pushing up the need for better transit.
A modern example of this in action is Vancouver. Back in the 1980s when the Skytrain was first developed it's capacity was nothing close to today. The system even had doors on the trains open by push button, rather than automatically (sound familiar?). Growth in the region, but also growth clustered at TOD areas, resulted in pressure to continually upgrade the system in small (e.g. automated doors as of the early 1990s to reduce inefficient operation issues) and big ways (e.g. add more and longer trains, expand stations capacities for circulations). Finally, and most expensive of all, they also added new lines and extensions, included fully tunneled ones like the Broadway Subway project currently underway.
Calgary has been no where near as successful at concentrating growth on the LRT, but that will change as commute times stretch and the sprawl gets worse. Inevitably, Transit will need to keep addressing the existing system's capacity and reliability issues. Automating doors, upgrading switches and electrical systems, adding trains outside of peak, increasingly make 4 car trains standard, upgrading the fleet to have open-gangway trains, upgrading stations, removing at-grade crossings elsewhere - all these are cheaper options to address system operations than a downtown subway, however eventually we run out of tricks and will have to add a downtown tunnel. This will occur sooner if growth is concentrated and ridership booms, less soon if growth isn't and the incremental improvements will be enough.
Overall, I am liking what I am seeing with the long-term thinking on the BRT routes and the increasingly coherent message from Calgary Transit that we need service frequency on the primary transit system. Ridership is responding after a decade of stagnation, weekend ridership are at all time highs while weekday ridership is fast growing to reach previous peaks in many areas. Quality of life improvements have been made and are increasingly successful, like the ticket app, real-time train/bus information being more common and reliable etc.
We just have to stay focused - after frequency, the next step is to start acting like a bigger city metro system and prioritize reliability, capacity and speed are the goals. It's easy to stray from this; things like adding new inner city at-grade sections (i.e. 17th Avenue SW extension) won't help long-run system capacity, speed and reliability. And for god sakes, automate the doors.
It seems like we are all about adding level crossings nowadays - first with the accessible entrances on all the south platforms, and now with both Victoria Park and Chinook having bridges over the tracks removed. But I suppose that is at stations, where the train is stopping anyway.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
If the system gets up to 5 minute frequencies for more of the day and ridership/activity at the stations increases, these at-grade locations will start becoming focus points again.
Accessibility and connectivity benefits are good things that are helped with at-grade station designs, but the trade-offs with increased risk of delays, collisions and safety are more noticeable in a more finely tuned and utilized system - delays can occur more often and impact more people when they do occur.
Collisions, deaths, and delays will compound more systemically in a busier system and (hopefully) push for a reversal of some of this at-grade upgrades in the long-run.
To be clear it's not a panacea - grade-separated systems are subject to delays too, but adds a layer of control that can help keep things moving and trains moving faster, more often.
To my post above, systems that prioritize reliability and speed will prioritize grade-separation. Ours doesn't yet, but will once capacity is reached in the current system design.
whatchyyc
Active Member
If it makes you feel better, the S200s can actually operate in an automatic door mode but they just don't 99% of the time
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