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

Go Elevated or try for Underground?

  • Work with the province and go with the Elevated option

    Votes: 29 76.3%

  • Try another approach and go for Underground option

    Votes: 6 15.8%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Go with a BRT solution

    Votes: 2 5.3%
  • Total voters
    38
Extending low floor platforms is at least not as expensive an undertaking as extending high floor platforms. I cant imagine there will be demand for anything over 2 trains for a while anyway with the line mostly serving downtown and industrial. Also this could be a definitive sign that stage 2 is being shelved due to cost.
 
whatchyyc said:
I think it'll be fine as the LRVs themselves are only 42m long
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Edmontons Valley Line that just opened only has 90m platforms, I would have assumed the same-ish for Greenline - I am actually surprised to hear they were ever envisioned up to 120 or 140m

100m+ platforms aren’t as common in these new systems. Only when you get into the next tier of design for a higher capacity metro do they seem to get longer again.

If demand is so high that a 90m platform is at capacity, add more frequency. Or upgrade them at a future date - more costly, sure, but it might be decades away (if ever) there’s an advantage of the longer platforms.
 
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CBBarnett said:
Edmontons Valley Line that just opened only has 90m platforms, I would have assumed the same-ish for Greenline - I am actually surprised to hear they were ever envisioned up to 120 or 140m

100m+ platforms aren’t as common in these new systems. Only when you get into the next tier of design for a higher capacity metro do they seem to get longer again.

If demand is so high that a 90m platform is at capacity, add more frequency. Or upgrade them at a future date - more costly, sure, but it might be decades away (if ever) there’s an advantage of the longer platforms.
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When the studies started pushing platform length up, it should have been a message to change train technology/form. Alas, too late now.

Edit: Calgary's study had max frequency at 3 minutes with the level crossings that exist for the Greenline. I believe Edmonton's had max frequency at 5 minutes due to the plethora of level crossings.
 
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Three-cars are probably a design remnant from when Green Line was supposed to be built out all at once and were needed for the predicted opening day ridership from the NC.

Prior to the economic problems of the 2014 oil crash and COVID, NC bus capacity on the Centre Street corridor was already comparable to GL two-car train capacity (of around 6.5 minutes frequency) and NC transit ridership was expected to grow to 7000 trips peak hour at Calgary's current population level and upwards of 10K at 1.5M. 3 minute frequencies with short stations would just be enough but I really wonder if they can maintain it . Did Ottawa's Confederation Line ever use three minute frequencies when it was operating normally?
 
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lemongrab said:
Such a long rambling post that somehow seems to be a perfectly concise synopsis of so many issues. It's a really great point about not overreacting to the perception of things like grade separation being of benefit to cars.

It's such a weird thing here where the only way to mitigate horrific car sewers is through other kinds of infrastructure projects like bike lanes and transit, and somehow both the intention to remedy road designs AND the need to not impact traffic too much manage to both take precedence over designing transit or a bike lane to actually be most effective in itself.
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Personally I don’t care about impacting traffic on 16th, but I’m more concerned about it being safety issue with such a high volume of traffic. I would hate to see train service interrupted because it hit a car, or two vehicles hit each other in the intersection, or because some semi truck got stuck in the middle of the intersection (which has happened before). The fact that semi trucks traverse that road often is already a concern for me. I’d prefer to see the train kept away from those elements.
 
Duck Lightning said:
Extending low floor platforms is at least not as expensive an undertaking as extending high floor platforms. I cant imagine there will be demand for anything over 2 trains for a while anyway with the line mostly serving downtown and industrial. Also this could be a definitive sign that stage 2 is being shelved due to cost.
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90m platforms and 2-car trains sounds like a smart decision to me if longer trains won’t be required for decades.
I sure hope it means Stage 2 is being shelved - gives time for a re-think of the bonehead thought of a surface-running streetcar up Center St.
 
Beltline_B said:
Personally I don’t care about impacting traffic on 16th, but I’m more concerned about it being safety issue with such a high volume of traffic. I would hate to see train service interrupted because it hit a car, or two vehicles hit each other in the intersection, or because some semi truck got stuck in the middle of the intersection (which has happened before). The fact that semi trucks traverse that road often is already a concern for me. I’d prefer to see the train kept away from those elements.
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Another big thing would be MAX orange...a level crossing would really hurt it, while separation would remove the current challenge between orange and the NC busses
 
Beltline_B said:
Personally I don’t care about impacting traffic on 16th, but I’m more concerned about it being safety issue with such a high volume of traffic. I would hate to see train service interrupted because it hit a car, or two vehicles hit each other in the intersection, or because some semi truck got stuck in the middle of the intersection (which has happened before). The fact that semi trucks traverse that road often is already a concern for me. I’d prefer to see the train kept away from those elements.
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I agree with this.

Generally, grade-separation for rapid transit is a good idea at 16th for speed, reliability and safety reasons.

The real trick - is that any grade-separation at this location needs to be only that - transit, and by extension people that use transit (pedestrians). Sure there's definitely benefits that drivers will get, but that absolutely cannot be the goal.

If vehicle capacity, level of service and vehicle throughput slips into the transit project as another "requirement", we will get an outcome that is yet another disaster for transit, pedestrians and transit-supportive land uses. Overly-wide lanes, higher travel speeds, more land for slip lanes, more turning movements, wider crossings for pedestrians to access the transit - more land claimed for the "transit project".

Better yet - if grade-separation of the Green Line proves to be radically more efficient, we should then reduce the amount of speed, space and lanes given to vehicles here in every dimension as they can maintain today's level of service, but with less infrastructure and space needed. Return all that land to development and pedestrians - again that's the whole point of developing a major grade-separated transit station here in the first place.
 
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Beltline_B said:
Personally I don’t care about impacting traffic on 16th, but I’m more concerned about it being safety issue with such a high volume of traffic. I would hate to see train service interrupted because it hit a car, or two vehicles hit each other in the intersection, or because some semi truck got stuck in the middle of the intersection (which has happened before). The fact that semi trucks traverse that road often is already a concern for me. I’d prefer to see the train kept away from those elements.
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Myself, I'm not concerned about traffic on 16th either, but definitely would prefer to have 16th ave underground for sake of transit operability and safety. I'd like to see it underground from McHugh bluff to at least around 20th ave somewhere. After that, I don't care as much if it's at grade as long as it has the right of way.
 
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