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

[O-tac]

Also this is just one of out to three alignments AECOM presented. The scope of work says develop two to three alignments. Maybe the City decides another alignment in the report is better? Perhaps the province would still back that? Or is it this or nothing?

They've repeatedly stated the city must accept their choice or nothing. But it also sounds like they won't cover cost overages. They basically just want to draw a line on a map and say "you deal with it" to the city. Dreeshan is a useless twit and Smith thinks she's smarter than everyone due to DunningKrueger effect.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Might be cheaper to go underground! lol

I think you could do a Platform/Scotia Fireplace style metal fin on the concrete column, add some hardy vine and lighting and you could get close to a affordable version of it. Would definitely make for a more appealing ground-level feel.

They've repeatedly stated the city must accept their choice or nothing. But it also sounds like they won't cover cost overages. They basically just want to draw a line on a map and say "you deal with it" to the city. Dreeshan is a useless twit and Smith thinks she's smarter than everyone due to DunningKrueger effect.

Would've saved 2.5 Million+ and a bit of time for the province to just say, "the underground thing is too much". Find a at-grade or elevated route that works for the same money and we'll fund it. The city could then just go back to the best elevated option they ditched in 2015? and move on.

Now, I doubt it would've been that simple, they probably would've wanted a whole new study. So really maybe the province did save us some time and money...

 

[darwink]

The city could then just go back to the best elevated option they ditched in 2015? and move on.

Would they have though? Or would they continue to exhibit capture by large property owners and have just said no. Elevated was continuously rejected along the way.

 

[Mountain Man]

How much would have been saved if the Province didn't need to do a feasibility study every 2 years?

 

[O-tac]

As much as I despise Smith's bully tactics demanding the city decide by January, I'm so sick of the 10 year back and forth on this project that I'm ready for them to just pull the trigger even if the UCP is wrong and it costs a bit more. LEt's get moving on it and work out the specs during construction of the 4th to Shepard portion.

 

[DougB]

"with the only exception being the Core"

That's the thing though, the single busiest +15/30 in the entire system is the one from the Core across 2nd street. No way the mall owners go for that +15 coming down.

How about a

How much would have been saved if the Province didn't need to do a feasibility study every 2 years?

Less than if the City had presented an honest proposal in 2015

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I think you could do a Platform/Scotia Fireplace style metal fin on the concrete column, add some hardy vine and lighting and you could get close to a affordable version of it. Would definitely make for a more appealing ground-level feel.
View attachment 620237

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Would've saved 2.5 Million+ and a bit of time for the province to just say, "the underground thing is too much". Find a at-grade or elevated route that works for the same money and we'll fund it. The city could then just go back to the best elevated option they ditched in 2015? and move on.

Now, I doubt it would've been that simple, they probably would've wanted a whole new study. So really maybe the province did save us some time and money...

I went to AI... Stretch your imagination and you can see what I was thinking.

 

[doughflow]

How about a

Less than if the City had presented an honest proposal in 2015

It was so dishonest that the Province didn't' change anything

 

[badc0ffee]

The Sunalta LRT station is 85 feet wide at the access point; it's only 75 feet across 10th St from building to building. I think that fitting 85 feet of station into a 75 foot wide space probably requires more than handwaving, and a "surely it can't be that bad".

The 10 Ave station doesn't have to be literally elevated over 10 Ave. Keeping in mind that the line will be using low floor trains/trams that can do tight turns, the station could be built over the parking lot north of 10 Ave between 1 and 2 St SW.

 

[darwink]

How much would have been saved if the Province didn't need to do a feasibility study every 2 years?

TBH, the city should have just pulled the trigger on the risky and expensive big bore to 16th Ave in 2018 ish as a single contract Design Build Finance.

It would have blown its budget, but no more than it already has, and the time savings would more than pay for the overruns.

But we don't have a time machine.

The city spent so much time/so many iterations trying to optimize that it didn't realize it had made decisions that broke the ultimate ability to deliver the project, because project governance was held by the city directly for way too long, and the city kept bending over backwards to do things to make stakeholders happy.

The 2021 project/delivery plan would have blown up in the city's face, leaving us in a similar spot. The tunnel component would have had a failed procurement, and the rest of the project would be under-construction by the time it was realized. Without the tunnel component, the federal and provincial funding agreements would be in substantial breach, and the city would have been forced to go back to elevated, as that is all they would have had resources to do to complete the project's goals within the available budget.

 

[CBBarnett]

As much as I despise Smith's bully tactics demanding the city decide by January, I'm so sick of the 10 year back and forth on this project that I'm ready for them to just pull the trigger even if the UCP is wrong and it costs a bit more. Let's get moving on it and work out the specs during construction of the 4th to Shepard portion.

Hindsight is 20/20 on these things.

We forget all the details over a decade, but political battles interfered with this one from the beginning at all levels of government, at all levels of design - from the first funding announcements through to random unexpected delays for various unplanned rounds of feasibility testing, through alignment discussions (e.g. SE v. N) and technology discussions (e.g. low-floor, no automation) being locked in too early or too late in the process. Allowing endless grandstanding by some connected advocacy groups and various councilors helped muddle everything along the way, further contributing to yet more interventions and delays by various levels of politics and governments.

Meanwhile, the great transit cost escalation crisis of the anglosphere marched on - a critical sub-plot to all this, that is only in part a result of the political battling I am describing. Cost increases are increasingly unsustainable regardless of what alignment or technology we choose.

Back to politics - pretty much everyone had their hand on the ball at one point. Only in hindsight is it possible to claim that maybe we'd all be better off if any single faction had just had their way and we'd stopped the arguing ten years ago (or if not better off, at least some form a project would have been completed and we'd all be arguing about the next project instead). I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I think about 75% of options discussed since 2014 were "good enough" if they were able to prevent a decade of churn simply by being chosen quicker.

It's not a clean project at any level - perhaps a project this big can't be clean given how we build stuff today?

How to prevent this kind of churn in the future? Perhaps a non-political technocratic regional-scale transit corporation that has it's own funding sources and authorities to build and deliver this stuff in perpetuity, setup in a way where it can be more insolated from politic interference, while also retaining technical know-how to cost-effectively develop the transit system...

 

[haltcatchfire]

It is interesting that this is AECOM document is so secret. The City seems confused as to what is so secret about it. They want to be able to talk about it out in the open but the need for secrecy is preventing that.

They want the info to come out on December 25th while everyone is pre-occupied.

 

[darwink]

It is interesting that this is AECOM document is so secret. The City seems confused as to what is so secret about it. They want to be able to talk about it out in the open but the need for secrecy is preventing that.

This is a fundamental difference between how the city does a project, and how the province does a project. The province does not release its cost estimates if it can help itself, if it hasn't already gone to market to lock in bids. The city releases its estimates all the time, with varying degrees of confidence. This is the difference caused by cabinet, a closed body, being the executive, versus council, as an open body, being the executive.

 

[haltcatchfire]

How much would have been saved if the Province didn't need to do a feasibility study every 2 years?

Enough to pay for the entirety of a subway through downtown.

 

[kora]

I think it's time to skip the downtown portion entirely for the moment. Time to press pause. Perhaps build into the Beltline and use the money saved from the downtown portion to extend to Seton. Focus on hooking up to the Red Line in the Beltline by building a Green Line station as close as possible to a Red Line station. Personally I would build a Green Line station at Macleod Trail. That would mean a 2 or 3 block walk to the 17 Avenue Red Line station with a dedicated protected pedestrian corridor connecting the 2 stations.