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

[accord1999]

Were the objectives officially published at any point? In the very simplest terms, I'd have to think the primary objective was something like: build the best possible transit for about $5B (of course with a whole bunch of points to define what that means in terms of service, ridership, targetting the North/SE, and the need to satisfy requirements from Prov/Feds for funding, etc)

Yeah, I don't think there were any officially enumerated list of objectives and how important they were. You only had business case documents (https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/green-line/documents/GL-Business-Case-2016.pdf) and presentations listing the general benefits and the need:

This allowed a lot of leeway to the planners to decide on their own what was most important and only needed to report back to Council very infrequently, leading to these continued surprises where the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.

 

[TooBizzy]

Here's what I would do to mitigate costs downtown.
View attachment 585247
Guessing it's too late to go this route? But if y'all think there's any chance otherwise I would happily send this to every city councillor.

8 gorillion dollar engineering overhaul

 

[accord1999]

I have mostly been a lurker here but this image makes me feel a bit better about the 4 St SE station change for what the above ground portion will look like in Victoria Park (assume it will still be shorter than this). Seems to have minimal impact on any C+E district redevelopment plans and might even be easier to integrate if they do end up building a central train station here. Kind of makes me wonder why they didn't have this as the plan in the first place.

The versions before 2020 had the 4 St station above-ground. Perhaps after changing Eau Claire to 16th from a tunnel to bridge+at-grade, they now had a "surplus" itching in their pockets that they had to immediately spend.

Agree this is way overkill for what this station needed to be. The purpose of the mezzanine level seems to just be to allow access over the top of the track or the escalator would go right through it, but it could have been 1/3rd of the size easily. No real need for elevators to even stop at that level. If this is the scale they're building it at, I don't see how this station would ever be worthwhile to add to the line down the road - if that's even planned, or has it been fully cut?

With the Green Line now being unfunded by at least $8B, there's absolutely no reason to spend $400+M for a station that was only forecasted to have 3600 riders/day a fully built-out Green Line. The fact that they didn't defer it back in 2017 and use that money to go further north (at least on paper) just shows how poor the prioritization has been for the Green Line.

 

[darwink]

I've been big on this 1st St SW idea for a long time. Even just having the 1st Street underpass as an already dug out starting point will fully supported walls would have to make things so much easier (though I imagine it would need to go a bit deeper there, too).

Lots of options for what to do south of the heavy tracks. I know we've discussed it a lot, but I could talk myself into at grade across the Macleod Trails, though certainly not ideal. Funny how that option suddenly seems a lot more tolerable in this new state of affairs.

Or...if you ran down 10th, what about extending the Macleod underpasses 1 block further south (like how 4th St W goes under 9 Ave)? Still gotta figure out Olympic Way



Where was the spur going to split off to the east?

Anderson was what was on the maps iirc

 

[ahuch]

Is cost at all a factor? Do you need to pay for parking downtown? Do you find yourself stuck in traffic often on that route?

If the actual traffic isn't much of an issue where this line serves than it is vital to add on to this ASAP. I think you need to get Justin's crew to commit to something before they're gone. I do not see Pierre scuttling the commitment to building a train out to Conservative voters in the SE.

I do pay for parking downtown, but rarely find myself stuck in traffic. Inglewood and Ogden Rd flow relatively well, even in peak rush hour. Alternatively, Deerfoot is typically jammed and all the neighborhoods that feed Deerfoot further south keep growing. So even with the Deerfoot improvements, by the time Green Line is built I think this will be a much bigger issue.

 

[outoftheice]

Opinion: Green Line is the transit 'feeder main' for the city

North Calgary should not have to wait any longer for improved transit.

calgaryherald.com

 

[konradiical]

So will the 4th Street station be built at the same time as Scotia Place?

 

[CalgaryTiger]

So will the 4th Street station be built at the same time as Scotia Place?

No, the Green Line won't be done until at least 2031 at the earliest; Scotia (Fire)Place... I mean the Events Centre will open fall 2027. It should be said there is no guarantee of shovels in the ground this year for the Green Line. They still need to go back to the federal government and get signoff on their portion. The city is obviously confident they'll get the money as they've been having some dialogue with the requisite minister but still. I've said it before, they're celebrating this minor milestone a bit too much in my mind.

On a side note... They know what it would cost to go to Shepard right? Is it too early to put that number out there and start looking for committed $? I know the province is waiting for the cocaine (fueled) rail plan but is there any reason the federal minister can't get some good will and wink at funding to Shepard and put the pressure on their best friends in the provincial government. Perhaps it will be a 2025/6 election promise from who ever the liberal leader is to try and get some votes from that part of the city? Keep in mind we're about a year away from a municipal election where the mayor and council chairs seem wide open and any candidate could bring some hefty promises.

 

[outoftheice]

Sounds like the answers are Yes, they know how much it will cost and Yes they are already advocating with the Feds

https://twitter.com/x/status/1818465414881702179

https://twitter.com/x/status/1818465893225316775

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

Hi All, former Calgarian here. I haven't kept close tabs on this project since moving a little over a decade ago, and it's sad to see not much progress has been made. Too bad things didn't get started back then with how construction costs have increased!

I seem to recall that when the SE LRT planning was in it's early stages they were going to take a phased approach to it's construction, where the ROW would be built out for BRT initially, but with 3 'lanes' so that it could be converted to LRT later on, with the 3rd 'lane' being used for cyclists at first, then as construction swing space, then back to cycle use at the end. Is this still a viable option?

As it seems the biggest cost/risk issue is the downtown tunnel, why not at least get on with getting service established to the most far flung quadrant while a more cost effective solution to the DT/north leg can be found?

I realize that leaves the north central neighborhoods hanging, but maybe a similar solution could be found in the meantime that would get BRT connected to the proposed YYC/DDT/Banff rail line.

I've been spending a lot of time in various Asian cities lately and it's so easy to get by without a car here! It would be so great to see that level of rail and transit connectivity built in my former hometowns.

 

[MichaelS]

If politicians can admit (which means take blame for the lost decade and $Billion spent) that they actually don't know more than the professional transit planners, maybe we will get back to that initial vision, but I think it will take an election that completely removes anyone who has been involved in this so far.

Bell: Calgary Green Line, former city transit planning boss speaks out

Calgary Green Line under fire as former city transit planning boss speaks out on an LRT losing support as costs go up and the line shrinks

calgaryherald.com

 

[O-tac]

Please don’t quote Rick Bell articles. Just a smear job of Nenshi for his pal Danielle Smith. Bell finds every excuse to avoid building any new lrt.

 

[lemongrab]

If politicians can admit (which means take blame for the lost decade and $Billion spent) that they actually don't know more than the professional transit planners, maybe we will get back to that initial vision, but I think it will take an election that completely removes anyone who has been involved in this so far.

Bell: Calgary Green Line, former city transit planning boss speaks out

Calgary Green Line under fire as former city transit planning boss speaks out on an LRT losing support as costs go up and the line shrinks

calgaryherald.com

While agree with the overall argument, there is a lot of specious reasoning here, and I am highly skeptical of how he paints the process wrt to Nenshi. I found a city org chart from 2016 and McKendrick isn't listed. Most likely he reported to the Director of Transit who reported to the Transpo GM who reported to the City Manager who reported to Council. So I'm definitely going to take a grain of salt his supposed version of history with so many degrees of separation.

“It was Nenshi who came up with the grandiose idea of building a north line and a southeast line coming together and we could do the whole thing for $4.5 billion. That was pretty much the amount of study that went into it.”

I find it hard to believe that Nenshi sketched out the budget on the back of a napkin, but who knows. Seems more likely that McKendrick's team had the responsibility to come up with those numbers...the lady doth protest too much, me thinks. It'll be interesting to see if there is ever an academic case study on this...I suspect there will be plenty of damning quotes/info to go around. McKendrick may well be the most culpable 'patient zero' in opening this pandora's box with an absurd initial budget/scope, but who knows.

As for the city transit staff?

“Nobody was even asking us: Can you do this?”

“That was the end of their input to the project. It’s been all politicians since then. The politicians have done this all their own.”

So...if they weren't asked at all, what constitutes "the end of their input"? (presumably it "started" somewhere. Shirley Rick Bell wouldn't possibly string together two quotes wildly out of context!?!?!?

But there are huge problems. Running a train up Centre St. with its many intersections would be slower than the current buses.

No quotes here so this is just Bell spewing nonsense. The only reasoning I can think of here is that current busses are overloaded so early that they don't have to stop at all for the last half of the journey? (except for the traffic lights that apparently affect trains more than them or something).

The rest of the points are fairly reasonable, but I gotta question McKendrick's competence and credibility for using Rick Bell as his bullhorn (though tbf he wrote his own editorial on this in the past which was quite reasonable). It's nice to have experts speak up and raise issues the general public often doesn't consider, but it's a bad look to do it in service of grinding a political axe!

 

[outoftheice]

I enjoy how Sonya Sharp, as chair of the arena committee, gets called out on her shiny stars comment. I think the arena is a good investment for our city but to pretend it is an essential investment and expanding the LRT isn't is just eye-rolling to me.

The downsizing of Calgary’s Green Line | The Sprawl

And the upscaling of the Flames' new arena.

www.sprawlcalgary.com

 

[Surrealplaces]

Interesting video from a few days ago regarding the LRT and where it's at.