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

[lemongrab]

In the end the boring is too much. Too much risk of unknowns, and just too much money because of that risk. Lemon has some interesting ideas but the conflict with the 8th Ave subway cannot be brushed off.

Sure it can. Just live a little and giv'er with one of these! What could go wrong?

Spoiler

Or another outside the box idea: the 8th Ave subway comes to street level just east of 1st St - the tracks themselves being 35 inches below street level so you have a de facto low-floor station between 1st and 2nd, where it goes back underground. This would mean a portal for ~half of the 100 block, and then a shallow trench down most of the 200 block.

Under my plan 1st St is ped/bike only, so you ramp the middle of the former roadway down/up, while the sidewalks stay at street level. Overall you're substantially changing the character of ~1.5 blocks of Stephen Ave (probably not popular), though I think the portals are a real visual placemaking opportunity, and you're saving money by bringing an 8th Ave station to surface. And you're also adding 6-7 short blocks of new ped zone running N-S.

 

[Dārayavauš]

Has any city built an elevated transit system downtown recently? I'm curious what the streetscape under them is like. Everyone knows the classic Chicago and Brooklyn streets, has it improved since?

Danhai light rail in Taipei is new and has elevated stations. So is the Yellow Line in Taipei, and through a densely developed area.​

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Sure it can. Just live a little and giv'er with one of these! What could go wrong?

Spoiler

Or another outside the box idea: the 8th Ave subway comes to street level just east of 1st St - the tracks themselves being 35 inches below street level so you have a de facto low-floor station between 1st and 2nd, where it goes back underground. This would mean a portal for ~half of the 100 block, and then a shallow trench down most of the 200 block.

Under my plan 1st St is ped/bike only, so you ramp the middle of the former roadway down/up, while the sidewalks stay at street level. Overall you're substantially changing the character of ~1.5 blocks of Stephen Ave (probably not popular), though I think the portals are a real visual placemaking opportunity, and you're saving money by bringing an 8th Ave station to surface. And you're also adding 6-7 short blocks of new ped zone running N-S.

You can do this at 4th Street or 5th Street but not 1st Street.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

Danhai light rail in Taipei is new and has elevated stations. So is the Yellow Line in Taipei, and through a densely developed area.​

Well yeah, all of Taipei is densely developed! I will say though that their LRT line was easily the least impressive part of their overall excellent metro system, very very loud with all the track noise. But that's more to do with their routing and tight turns, Kaohsiung's LRT wasn't noisy like that.

To Mountain Man's Q, newer elevated rail lines aren't as obtrusive as the old one in Chicago, but 2nd st isn't as wide as say Sukhumvit where much of Bangkok's skytrain is run, so the impact will be noticeable. That said, with so many downtown Calgary streets being canyons already, it may not make that much difference on the ground.

In spots where stations would require additional width, I suppose light tubes could be used to illuminate the street areas below, but in the end I think an elevated DT section would just disappear into the mental background quickly enough.

It would mean that 2nd st would have to go on a lane diet though, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Remove all parking, one through lane each way with space between the rail pillars used for turning lanes. Might even be enough space left over for bike lanes or expanded sidewalks.

 

[Tothewest]

I haven't read the previous replies, i am sure they are all over the map. Now that it's a few days old, some things are a bit clearer, easier to unemotionally type. The politics are fairly irrelevant here, who is at fault, ect....bottom line is even if project had started 2 years ago, the cost overruns would still be what they are, with worse optics because of a 20% completed project.

1) $6.2B is a patently INSANE amount of money for 30,000 ridership on the route described. You can still be a transit focused city, with an incredible existing system....AND think this was turning into a VERY bad idea
2) Cant tunnel, it's that simple. Light rail transit, if you want to maximize your dollars for km's...function over form. Nobody talks about the elevated Sunalta leg, everyone's used to it....they'll get used to at-grade and elevated stations on the green line.
3) 100% supportive of a provincial body for mega projects, especially one that aligns a green line, airport line, and banff train into a hub downtown. These are beyond city's scope, this project, the valley line, and the rogers place rail spur are examples of that.

Onward and upward, but we need to start getting comfy that this project might not be as visually appealing in the downtown core and other areas....but honestly who gives a shit, every other city does this

 

[accord1999]

For the elevated line discussion, from reading the Alignment Options document from 2020 it appears that for the non-tunnel options they don't require NC and SE to connect which would simply things a lot. The elevated option presented won't even have the SE line cross the CPR tracks:

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=131770

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

For the elevated line discussion, from reading the Alignment Options document from 2020 it appears that for the non-tunnel options they don't require NC and SE to connect which would simply things a lot. The elevated option presented won't even have the SE line cross the CPR tracks:

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=131770

I can't help thinking this is one of those deliberately bad options that gets included in proposal reports to help guide the decision makers to the consultant's preferred choice.

It's not really a transit network if the lines don't connect or interconnect..

 

[accord1999]

I can't help thinking this is one of those deliberately bad options that gets included in proposal reports to help guide the decision makers to the consultant's preferred choice.

It's not really a transit network if the lines don't connect or interconnect..

It could be a "situating the appreciation" type review in order to get the favored option look good and selected. That seems to have happened a lot with the Green Line.

But they had mentioned in 2019 that not connecting the two line would only cause a modest loss of long-term ridership. With the original concept of Green Line far more expensive than what the UCP is willing to pay for (and even more favorable governments will probably stretch out their payments over decades), more compromises need to be made.

 

[YYCguy]

For the elevated line discussion, from reading the Alignment Options document from 2020 it appears that for the non-tunnel options they don't require NC and SE to connect which would simply things a lot. The elevated option presented won't even have the SE line cross the CPR tracks:

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=131770

In this scenario, could the NC line go all the way to Calgary Tower and then somehow punch through an underground or elevated and covered pedestrian pathway from a Calgary Tower NC line station to a Green Line station on 10 Ave and Centre Street? Not ideal but I recall making quite a lengthy connection between lines in NYC via an underground pedestrian pathway. Just my two cents worth and I have no engineering background so feel free to give any feedback you wish!

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

It could be a "situating the appreciation" type review in order to get the favored option look good and selected. That seems to have happened a lot with the Green Line.

But they had mentioned in 2019 that not connecting the two line would only cause a modest loss of long-term ridership. With the original concept of Green Line far more expensive than what the UCP is willing to pay for (and even more favorable governments will probably stretch out their payments over decades), more compromises need to be made.
View attachment 594492

Well if the SE isn't going to connect, it doesn't really need to be LRT either does it?

As I'd mentioned a few weeks back, I suspect the dedicated ROW BRT plan would service the SE just fine for a generation or so. Plus it would have the advantage of also being a bicycle freeway, as well as providing unimpeded emergency vehicle access to the SE hospital if needed.

 

[Ramsayite]

I've always been a fan of the BRT option initially.

What is by far the most important option is selecting a right-of-way that is appropriately grade separated everywhere. Second to that is appropriate integration into the core, vis a vis pedestrian realm. Everything else is secondary.

We had that with the shortened line.

Now we roll the dice.

My worry is we will get an option that butchers the public realm in the core at the expense of kilometers of track. Good on paper, but something that can never be unf*cked if we screw up the grade profile or street interaction.

 

[ahuch]

It could be a "situating the appreciation" type review in order to get the favored option look good and selected. That seems to have happened a lot with the Green Line.

But they had mentioned in 2019 that not connecting the two line would only cause a modest loss of long-term ridership. With the original concept of Green Line far more expensive than what the UCP is willing to pay for (and even more favorable governments will probably stretch out their payments over decades), more compromises need to be made.
View attachment 594492

Ridership is one piece of the puzzle (and I suspect new modelling might show some minor differences with post-covid shifts out of downtown cores), but there are also a ton of operational considerations with disconnected lines. Then you end up with the need for a minimum of two facilities to maintain, wash, store trains and no real ability to get trains between the two segments in peak demand periods (e.g. a hockey game lets out, lets increase the number of trains in the south segment).

I'm not claiming to be a transit expert by any means, but every time you add a connection or mode change there has to be some expectation of ridership drop. If you make transit faster or more convenient, people may actually see it as a viable alternative which it rarely is today in our city.

 

[Gazyyc]

Could the current station box under City Hall be repurposed as an interim terminus for the Green Line? Drop under 11th after the 4th St station, tie into the existing City Hall/CP tunnel and interline the short distance to the station junction. Gets the line into the actual core, an interchange with the Red and Blue lines and could feasible act as a kick start to the eventual build out of the 8th ave tunnel. And just a few blocks of tunnel build out.

With the complaints about tunneling the Green line, I can't see 8th Ave being built out in anyone here's lifetimes or grandkids.... without some sort of kick in the teeth to get started.

It might mean station boxes need to be larger, either longer platforms( 1a high floor, 1b lowfloor) so a station less along the route or dual island platforms in the eventual (if ever) build out and you could ( not an engineer so Im guessing ) have the NC run on street into the core, then drop it for a block or 2 ( depending on grade ) to get down to the 8th ave tunnel.

Just a thought I had whilst driving by Olympic Plaza the other day .

The Province is going to throw every pie in the sky idea out there so may as well start

 

[darwink]

Could the current station box under City Hall be repurposed as an interim terminus for the Green Line? Drop under 11th after the 4th St station, tie into the existing City Hall/CP tunnel and interline the short distance to the station junction. Gets the line into the actual core, an interchange with the Red and Blue lines and could feasible act as a kick start to the eventual build out of the 8th ave tunnel. And just a few blocks of tunnel build out.

With the complaints about tunneling the Green line, I can't see 8th Ave being built out in anyone here's lifetimes or grandkids.... without some sort of kick in the teeth to get started.

It might mean station boxes need to be larger, either longer platforms( 1a high floor, 1b lowfloor) so a station less along the route or dual island platforms in the eventual (if ever) build out and you could ( not an engineer so Im guessing ) have the NC run on street into the core, then drop it for a block or 2 ( depending on grade ) to get down to the 8th ave tunnel.

Just a thought I had whilst driving by Olympic Plaza the other day .

The Province is going to throw every pie in the sky idea out there so may as well start

There isn’t a station box under city hall. It is a double crossover track. Station boxes were to be under Olympic plaza.

You’d be introducing a second interline for little reason (to save a few hundred metres of tunnel) which would mean all three lines would interact greatly complicating operations and signalling.

 

[moshua]

Is this proposal back on the table then??