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

[LostinSpace]

But Being the Devil’s Advocate.

Scenario 2 - Scrap the Green Line. Most of the money sunk was for utility, land acquisitions and design which can be used in the future.

Does Calgary benefit more from building the following below instead of the Green Line to get more ridership.

1. Blue Line Extension to 128th Ave.(1 billion)
2. Blue Line Extension to Airport , Airport Hotel & Casino Area or regional rail hub. (600-800 million)
3. Blue Line Extension to 85th St (125 million)
4 Red Line South LRT Extension to 210th Ave with new LRT Maintenance Facility. (1 billion)
5. 8th Avenue Subway. Allows the City to get their feet wet with a tunnel to get better cost estimates and a tunnel that will get far more use than the current Green Line. Also with the aforementioned extensions 7th Ave will be over capacity.

Other ideas.

MRU Extension (Chinook to Westbrook) which would create the first leg of an orbital line.

Removal of at grade crossing for Red Line to increase speed , safety and allow more ATC in the future. (Heritage Ave, James McKevitt, etc).

Retrofitting stations with proof of fare.

By having more smaller projects shovel ready the better ability we will be able to raise provincial and federal funds.

It also lowers costs by having less project risks.

 

[DougB]

But Being the Devil’s Advocate.

Scenario 2 - Scrap the Green Line. Most of the money sunk was for utility, land acquisitions and design which can be used in the future.

Does Calgary benefit more from building the following below instead of the Green Line to get more ridership.

1. Blue Line Extension to 128th Ave.(1 billion)
2. Blue Line Extension to Airport , Airport Hotel & Casino Area or regional rail hub. (600-800 million)
3. Blue Line Extension to 85th St (125 million)
4 Red Line South LRT Extension to 210th Ave with new LRT Maintenance Facility. (1 billion)
5. 8th Avenue Subway. Allows the City to get their feet wet with a tunnel to get better cost estimates and a tunnel that will get far more use than the current Green Line. Also with the aforementioned extensions 7th Ave will be over capacity.

Other ideas.

MRU Extension (Chinook to Westbrook) which would create the first leg of an orbital line.

Removal of at grade crossing for Red Line to increase speed , safety and allow more ATC in the future. (Heritage Ave, James McKevitt, etc).

Retrofitting stations with proof of fare.

By having more smaller projects shovel ready the better ability we will be able to raise provincial and federal funds.

It also lowers costs by having less project risks.

Probably

 

[Nawads]

At the end of the day, the Green Line will be needed one day if the city keeps growing and costs are not going to get any better. Does it make sense to cancel it now, and then in ten years spend 10 billion, or spend 6 billion now and have it ready for the new growth rather than building retroactively?

I think its way smarter to get ahead and start building now. Especially when we've already spent a billion dollars on the project. I don't see how cancelling and losing that investment is a smart idea.

 

[Golfing guy]

To me if the UCP cut funding for the green line it would be suicidal for them. Calgary is the reason they hold power. You start meddling in every commitment you’ve made down here it could swing the election in those 6+ needed ridings.

 

[darwink]

Scenario 2 - Scrap the Green Line

The problem is that then necessitates the red line tunnel/capacity improvements decades earlier, which is likely in the $2-3 billion range now, as you identify.

There is no world where the red line tunnel does not suffer from the same contractibility problem as the green line tunnel.

Still dig the tunnel for events centre and build that station underground while the arena is under construction.

An underground station is not necessary there, unless one wants to pass the red line underground.

Elevated in the belt line would save a lot of money.

Retrofitting stations with proof of fare.

This would be a huge waste of money.

Removal of at grade crossing for Red Line to increase speed , safety and allow more ATC in the future. (Heritage Ave, James McKevitt, etc).

Heritage has been identified as the capacity point - the intersection fails pretty soon after you implement either 5 car trains or shorter headways. I'd say there are only minimal benefits for ATC on the existing system, since a big benefit is being able to build smaller stations and use lighter rolling stock. With the Green Line, when cost drivers became apparent, should have seriously examined a fully grade separated system to shrink station box volumes.

At the end of the day, the Green Line will be needed one day if the city keeps growing and costs are not going to get any better. Does it make sense to cancel it now, and then in ten years spend 10 billion, or spend 6 billion now and have it ready for the new growth rather than building retroactively?

I think its way smarter to get ahead and start building now. Especially when we've already spent a billion dollars on the project. I don't see how cancelling and losing that investment is a smart idea.

Pretty much. The trains are already ordered, (though perhaps with a development cost plus cancellation clause) we're path dependent on this one with lots of money spent. The development phase (design, optimization, and negotiation) would have to go entirely bonkers to pull the plug. When the RFP was successful enough to select a development partner, it is now mostly set.

I know it might not feel that way with how the contract is set up, as contracting with uncertainty isn't what most people are used to.

What was in the March Green Line Board progress report:

Development Phase negotiations continue with acute focus on evaluating all financial and technical options available within the Board’s mandate to address the higher than anticipated estimates from some sub-contractors.

...

While the design is being advanced, all options are being considered as risk allocations, price, and project schedule are negotiated with the Development Partners.

 

[MichaelS]

To me if the UCP cut funding for the green line it would be suicidal for them. Calgary is the reason they hold power. You start meddling in every commitment you’ve made down here it could swing the election in those 6+ needed ridings.

I don't think they will cut funding, but they have clearly stated they won't shovel more money into this. Would that be perceived as negative? Who knows, but just cutting a bigger and bigger check for what is shaping up to be a white elephant (to some) may not be as unpopular as you hint at.

 

[DougB]

At the end of the day, the Green Line will be needed one day if the city keeps growing and costs are not going to get any better. Does it make sense to cancel it now, and then in ten years spend 10 billion, or spend 6 billion now and have it ready for the new growth rather than building retroactively?

I think its way smarter to get ahead and start building now. Especially when we've already spent a billion dollars on the project. I don't see how cancelling and losing that investment is a smart idea.

The $1B is an irrelevant sunk cost. The challenge with the Green Line is that its ridership projections aren't that great relative to the cost. Would other LRT investment deliver better cost-benefit? The current Green Line plan seems purposely designed to build a white elephant to force future governments to fund extensions. The City mismanaged it from inception by quoting optimistic cost numbers either through incompetence or deception and too long chasing the dream of a bored tunnel. Much of the Green Line right of way is easy: paralleling freight rail tracks, through industrial corridors and through a reserved corridor along 52nd St SE. This should have been a low risk project.

 

[darwink]

Some old math did for a client based on 2021 cost estimates including operating costs and projected ridership to see which projects were/are efficient:

Projects I recommended beyond the greenline as presented in 2021

 

[accord1999]

At the end of the day, the Green Line will be needed one day if the city keeps growing and costs are not going to get any better. Does it make sense to cancel it now, and then in ten years spend 10 billion, or spend 6 billion now and have it ready for the new growth rather than building retroactively?

But does the full Green Line, from Panorma Hills to Seton even justify $10B (which is already the likely pricetag) in spending for maybe 100K-140K ridership/day? Or is it even justified to spend over $5B on initial portions of the Green Line that deliberately ignores the area of the most immediate need. The supposed rationale for the Green Line jumping directly to LRT was that future BRT capacity was inadequate on Centre Street N.

I think that this argument about we need to build now because more money will be available in the future was a great mistake starting from 2017 as it never forced the GL team to make hard choices. So they were able to keep the expensive DT tunnel and the giant maintenance and storage yard at Shepard even as further cost overruns and reduced expected ridership eroded their actual benefits.

 

[ahuch]

But does the full Green Line, from Panorma Hills to Seton even justify $10B (which is already the likely pricetag) in spending for maybe 100K-140K ridership/day? Or is it even justified to spend over $5B on initial portions of the Green Line that deliberately ignores the area of the most immediate need. The supposed rationale for the Green Line jumping directly to LRT was that future BRT capacity was inadequate on Centre Street N.

I think that this argument about we need to build now because more money will be available in the future was a great mistake starting from 2017 as it never forced the GL team to make hard choices. So they were able to keep the expensive DT tunnel and the giant maintenance and storage yard at Shepard even as further cost overruns and reduced expected ridership eroded their actual benefits.

I would argue that the SE is one of the most underserved areas of the city for transit so I'm not sure how that's not the most immediate need. Ridership is low in these areas because there's no good alternative to driving today, it's a really difficult thing to quantify and articulate but in the interest of converting drivers to riders and avoiding expensive roadwork improvements, there's a lot of stuff at play here.

 

[DougB]

Some old math did for a client based on 2021 cost estimates including operating costs and projected ridership to see which projects were/are efficient:
View attachment 577332
Projects I recommended beyond the greenline as presented in 2021
View attachment 577331

The message is that all of these are poor investments.

 

[DougB]

I would argue that the SE is one of the most underserved areas of the city for transit so I'm not sure how that's not the most immediate need. Ridership is low in these areas because there's no good alternative to driving today, it's a really difficult thing to quantify and articulate but in the interest of converting drivers to riders and avoiding expensive roadwork improvements, there's a lot of stuff at play here.

Agreed. The transit investments need to be compared to incremental road capacity investments.

The Deep SE is also experiencing enormous growth so congestion is likely to worsen significantly.

 

[accord1999]

I would argue that the SE is one of the most underserved areas of the city for transit so I'm not sure how that's not the most immediate need. Ridership is low in these areas because there's no good alternative to driving today, it's a really difficult thing to quantify and articulate but in the interest of converting drivers to riders and avoiding expensive roadwork improvements, there's a lot of stuff at play here.

The SE has low service/capita and is the rationale for the Green Line to the SE, but is that under-served relative to demand, or are SE residents simply less interested in using transit?

The immediate need argument comes from early Green Line related documents.

The 2016 Green Line Business Case document also expected that ridership will be higher in the North; off-peak frequencies would be twice that of the SE.

Now compare that to the 2020 Business Plan and current LRV order. With only 28 LRVs on order, it looks Green Line SE will just have 8 minute peak headways and peak hour capacity will be less than half of the 2016 plan.

Converting drivers to transit users is always a challenge, and using very expensive rail to try do so often results in disastrous results (as seen in the US). A great quote I saw on another forum regarding LRT is that "LRT is the solution for heavy bus usage, not low bus usage". There's a big spectrum of improvements that can still be done in the SE between what it has now and going directly LRT.

 

[darwink]

There's a big spectrum of improvements that can still be done in the SE between what it has now and going directly LRT.

Further study showed the travel time savings for a SE BRT busway was pretty small for the cost and wouldn't drive ridership, while much larger benefits came from much more rapid access downtown via exclusive ROW, which necessitated expensive grade separation whether LRT or BRT (option not explored).

 

[O-tac]

Agreed. The transit investments need to be compared to incremental road capacity investments.

The Deep SE is also experiencing enormous growth so congestion is likely to worsen significantly.

I live across from the South Health campus. With the ring road and Deerfoot improvements on the way the road network has gotten enough attention. The lrt is the most desperately needed infrastructure for the SE.