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

[CBBarnett]

With the City asking for $166M from Alberta for the NC BRT that is now supposedly costing $500M (roughly enough for Green Line to go from 16th to 40th Avenue) and the Blue Line/People Mover to YYC now rising to the top of budget wishlists (at around $850-900M), it seems to me that they won't be able to cross the Bow and Green Line North is dead for this generation of transit spending.

Airport train, and housing among Calgary’s funding requests for provincial budget - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

It's unclear how much of Calgary's budget wishlist will be fulfilled after Premier Danielle Smith signaled spending restraint in the upcoming provincial budget.

globalnews.ca

$500M for NC BRT seems high - transit cost disease strikes Calgary just like almost everywhere else in North America.

I would be curious how much of the price is actually just accommodating cars circulation while expanding bus capacity. I get why taking 2 lanes permanently for buses 24/7 on Centre Street would be politically expensive, but struggle why you'd need half of billion dollars in actual money beyond that. The road already exists and is already majority transit trips. Just take the lanes and don't repave or widen anything except in a few pinch points. A few new signals, a few new barriers, a few more polished stops - easy.

Here's what Translink would have done in Surrey, cost $33M and improved bus service by up to 20% in speed on a 12km corridor :
https://www.translink.ca/plans-and-projects/projects/bus-projects/r6-scott-road-rapidbus

How:

• Actual bus priority in street - either narrowing existing lanes to make room for a bus lane or physically taking a dedicated lane from vehicles. This was almost always done within the existing right-of-way.
• Stop spacing of 800m instead of every 200-300m
• All door boarding

For transit to ever be successful, it simply cannot afford to bloat it projects to undercut it's own competitiveness by maintaining substantial vehicle capacity on a corridor dominated by transit already.

 

[darwink]

for the NC BRT that is now supposedly costing $500M (roughly enough for Green Line to go from 16th to 40th Avenue)

$550 in 2017-9 ish numbers. $776 million + or - what, 50%?

Anyways, got to go up to 64th, for a cool inflated $1.2 billion + or -. Not counting the 16th Ave crossing/station rebuild

and Green Line North is dead for this generation of transit spending.

There is still plenty of money in the Banana stand to do south and north.

The feds if not in this budget, in the fall, will outline the next 10 year infrastructure funding envelope available 2028 onwards. Expect $210 billion over 10 years, with over $130 billion of that being for infrastructure transfers. 'Calgary''s share is around 5%, or $6.5 billion. Or around $20 billion of total project value. Some will be absorbed by Deerfoot, other interchanges, and some by the train to Banff/Airport. The rest is there to divide up.

 

[accord1999]

$500M for NC BRT seems high - transit cost disease strikes Calgary just like almost everywhere else in North America.

Here's what Translink would have done in Surrey, cost $33M and improved bus service by up to 20% in speed on a 12km corridor :

I recall that they were talking about ~$50M in improvements (similar to Translink) so the leap to $500M is quite a surprise for me. There was a study in 2021 (GC2021-0747) and all the possible improvements they looked at totaled only $120M so I'd really like to know where the extra $350+M would go to.

$550 in 2017-9 ish numbers. $776 million + or - what, 50%?

Anyways, got to go up to 64th, for a cool inflated $1.2 billion + or -. Not counting the 16th Ave crossing/station rebuild

My thinking is that $50M is a minor investment that can easily be discarded if funding for Green Line North extensions become available in the near future. But $500M is a pretty significant sum. If they're using it for BRT instead of saving it for GL Stage 2, then that strongly suggests that the BRT will be in place for 15-20 years at least to amortize it.

And the public documents for the Green Line Board meeting point to more bad news for the Bow crossing.

 

[Unknown User]

$550 in 2017-9 ish numbers. $776 million + or - what, 50%?

Anyways, got to go up to 64th, for a cool inflated $1.2 billion + or -. Not counting the 16th Ave crossing/station rebuild


There is still plenty of money in the Banana stand to do south and north.

The feds if not in this budget, in the fall, will outline the next 10 year infrastructure funding envelope available 2028 onwards. Expect $210 billion over 10 years, with over $130 billion of that being for infrastructure transfers. 'Calgary''s share is around 5%, or $6.5 billion. Or around $20 billion of total project value. Some will be absorbed by Deerfoot, other interchanges, and some by the train to Banff/Airport. The rest is there to divide up.

I was under the impression that there is always money in the banana stand.

 

[darwink]

But $500M is a pretty significant sum.

got to include utility work, intersection widening/rebuild) (which will be needed for Greenline).

then that strongly suggests that the BRT will be in place for 15-20 years at least to amortize it.

That isn't how the city works. The city was instructed to build a BRT by Council. It will do so whether it makes sense or not, at a scope that is gradually expanded due to random thoughts about LRT convertibility, and the preferences of Councillors, the Mayor, and local stakeholders all wanting their piece that is a little bit extra. The project team for the most part won't push back because all the pieces are logical and make the project better, and a bigger project means more prestige for future jobs, talking at conferences, etc.

 

[darwink]

the public documents for the Green Line Board meeting point to more bad news for the Bow crossing.

 

[trtcttc]

Clearer Green Line cost to come in June: CEO

Sounds like we'll find out soon how much it'll be and how much more it'll be to cross the bow.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Clearer Green Line cost to come in June: CEO

Sounds like we'll find out soon how much it'll be and how much more it'll be to cross the bow.

Saved 400M already. This may be an odd idea but to save money could you hold on statins south of Douglas Dale and just build the track and maintenance facility? I think that's only one station that's at the maintenance facility so maybe the savings is small? May you do Douglas Dale too?

 

[ahuch]

Saved 400M already. This may be an odd idea but to save money could you hold on statins south of Douglas Dale and just build the track and maintenance facility? I think that's only one station that's at the maintenance facility so maybe the savings is small? May you do Douglas Dale too?

Stations are a lot more peanuts when you start talking low floor LRV, especially one like Douglas Glen where the parking lots already all built out for park and ride. You'd just be cannibalizing ridership at that point.

 

[trtcttc]

I hope they can get funding to get across the Bow, which then makes it easier to justify extending it North. But if they don't, chances are the North extension will be dead for at least a while. I'm kind of glad the province didn't give the city the funding for the BRT North (half a billion?!) and hopefully put more of that towards the actual line.

 

[Joborule]

I hope they can get funding to get across the Bow, which then makes it easier to justify extending it North. But if they don't, chances are the North extension will be dead for at least a while. I'm kind of glad the province didn't give the city the funding for the BRT North (half a billion?!) and hopefully put more of that towards the actual line.

I don't even see the benefit of the 301 BRT Max upgrades. The 301 and Route 3 seem to operate fine right now, and have rapid frequency throughout the whole day. Unless it's to build a transitway to setup the foundation of the NC Line (like how SETWAY was suppose to be foundational work for the SE Leg before the jump to the Green Line), seems like it would be better to put that money to other bus routes instead, or to other LRT lines to improve service throughout the city.

 

[CBBarnett]

I don't even see the benefit of the 301 BRT Max upgrades. The 301 and Route 3 seem to operate fine right now, and have rapid frequency throughout the whole day. Unless it's to build a transitway to setup the foundation of the NC Line (like how SETWAY was suppose to be foundational work for the SE Leg before the jump to the Green Line), seems like it would be better to put that money to other bus routes instead, or to other LRT lines to improve service throughout the city.

I can see some value as Route 3/301 is the busiest combo route by far in the city. Lots of improvements to do:

• Consolidate some bus stops and ensure they have actual priority (no bays or merging)
• Allow for all-door boarding and implement app scanning at backdoors.
• Repurpose lanes from general traffic to permanent bus-only lanes where appropriate.
• Upgrade some pavement, sidewalks and crosswalks to facilitate better boarding and connection to stops.

With that said, none of this should be particularly expensive - a few fresh curbs, a bit of paint, and some technical bus upgrades that can be used on any route eventually. Don't widen anything, repurpose what's already built. Keep that price cheap but impactful to only improve bus speeds and reliability. Don't give any dollars for anything else.

 

[badc0ffee]

The city's strategy so far to speed up the route 3/301 has been queue jump lanes. Basically there's a signal phase that allows buses to go straight forward from the right turn lane, while other traffic waits. It's not always as cheap as you might think - one such improvement on Centre St required property acquisition to enlarge the intersection, and involved building a bunch of retaining walls on the shortened lots.

 

[trtcttc]

The city's strategy so far to speed up the route 3/301 has been queue jump lanes. Basically there's a signal phase that allows buses to go straight forward from the right turn lane, while other traffic waits. It's not always as cheap as you might think - one such improvement on Centre St required property acquisition to enlarge the intersection, and involved building a bunch of retaining walls on the shortened lots.

That’s just ridiculous. Unless this work is needed for the actual line as well? Why spend so much for the marginal time saved when putting more of that money towards the actual Green Line?

 

[CBBarnett]

The city's strategy so far to speed up the route 3/301 has been queue jump lanes. Basically there's a signal phase that allows buses to go straight forward from the right turn lane, while other traffic waits. It's not always as cheap as you might think - one such improvement on Centre St required property acquisition to enlarge the intersection, and involved building a bunch of retaining walls on the shortened lots.

I mean that's the whole problem - the cost of the project is because we aren't actually prioritizing transit. The only reason this costs so much and we need expropriation is that we want to maintain priority of car capacity along the corridor.

Yes, on occasion a bus will get a head start by a few seconds. But most of the time that bus will immediately stop in a bus bay on the other side of the intersection and then be forced to merge back into that same traffic.

Why should the transit budget pay for this? It does almost nothing for transit and costs are substantial because we must maintain the competitive advantage of cars on a corridor where the majority of people ride transit. Makes no sense.