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

Go Elevated or try for Underground?

  • Work with the province and go with the Elevated option

    Votes: 57 69.5%

  • Try another approach and go for Underground option

    Votes: 22 26.8%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 1 1.2%

  • Go with a BRT solution

    Votes: 2 2.4%
  • Total voters
    82
I have to say though this is probably the nicest landscaping ever seen along an industrial road in the city

green-line-78-ave-lrt-bridge-2.jpg
 
I think the end of 2026 is actual decision time, that will be when the province's alignment has been fully fleshed out. Until then it is all just ideas in people's heads and talk. Curious if we'll have a provincial election by then, I don't we'll make it to spring 2027 (the set election time) before we go to the polls. A different provincial government is the only thing that makes an underground alignment possible. Danielle Smith and her government will never admit or allow their idea to be wrong.
 
Why does everyone continue to think that a tunnel is somehow feasible (without billions and billions more in funding)? The City spent a decade (and a billion dollars) trying to figure a tunnel out, and only came up with the idea to continuously and dramatically shrink the rest of the line.
 
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I was hoping to vote for a mayor who A) doesn't want to repeal the zoning changes, B) is realistic about the Green Line alignment, and C) is not a fringe candidate (Gustafson/Prior/Heather). But I don't think anyone is all of those things.
 
MichaelS said:
Why does everyone continue to think that a tunnel is somehow feasible (without billions and billions more in funding)? The City spent a decade (and a billion dollars) trying to figure a tunnel out, and only came up with the idea to continuously and dramatically shrink the rest of the line.
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Because they think that you must go with the “best” option even if it explodes the budget while at the same time gives us the least amount of coverage.

It’s fine to have a bit of fantasy, but you need to know when to stop day dreaming and be realistic.

The weird thing is, the elevated option isn’t even bad at all. They just picture the Chicago L instead of, being again realistic, modern systems like Tokyo, Taipei etc
 
badc0ffee said:
I was hoping to vote for a mayor who A) doesn't want to repeal the zoning changes, B) is realistic about the Green Line alignment, and C) is not a fringe candidate (Gustafson/Prior/Heather). But I don't think anyone is all of those things.
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I think Brian Thiessen is all of those things no?
 
Dārayavauš said:
I think Brian Thiessen is all of those things no?
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He supports the rezoning I am pretty sure. He wants to build more. He’s definitely not fringe.

I guess this is the first time he’s said he said he wants underground, which is unfortunate. I wonder where this sentiment is coming from though? Bc we aren’t getting it underground unless someone decides to pony up billions more for it.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
I think the end of 2026 is actual decision time, that will be when the province's alignment has been fully fleshed out. Until then it is all just ideas in people's heads and talk. Curious if we'll have a provincial election by then, I don't we'll make it to spring 2027 (the set election time) before we go to the polls. A different provincial government is the only thing that makes an underground alignment possible. Danielle Smith and her government will never admit or allow their idea to be wrong.
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I think they already re-set the election date for October 2027 (because that one time we had wildfires in May, but of course there's no chance we'd ever have fires into October since August/September are such wet+cool months...or something).

There were several reasons why an immediate election would have made sense: do it before riding realignment with 2 more probably urban ridings, do it before the MHCare report, do it before the Forever Canadian petition result (though at a certain point that would have meant it coming during the campaign), do it before the teacher strike (but again it could have come during campaign), do it before Nenshi has had a ton of time to organize, etc.

I think they'll just take their guaranteed time at the trough, and I won't be at all surprised if Danielle gets booted before running again, as is tradition.
 
Dārayavauš said:
Where is all this pressure for only accepting underground coming from? It’s a wish is all. It’s far too expensive for a city of 1.8 million
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It's all debatable, but underground is probably the best option on most dimensions apart from cost, but its outrageously expensive so trade-offs are required. Elevated makes sense in this context and gives many of the same benefit at an expected lower cost. Of course, "expected lower cost" is doing a lot of work here - we don't know the actual cost of the downtown elevated section, as it hasn't had detailed design completed yet. An elevated line can be all three of these things: much cheaper than tunnel (1), outrageously expensive (2), and subject to cost overruns and delays (3).

I think that's the bigger picture takeaway here - we have to fix the cost escalation crisis of transit projects in Calgary (and Canada overall), and find ways to make these things cheaper and simpler while still being fast, efficient and high capacity. This is beyond what the Green line can solve as it's a problem that's been brewing for too long everywhere. It's systemic to the industry, not project-specific.

IMO, much of the back-and-forth on the Greenline over the years was important but ultimately myopic engineering approaches to the problem (e.g. adjusting alignments, station design) while failing to tackle the primary drivers in cost escalation that has more to do with things like political interference, long-term funding availability and predictability, procurement processes, standardization (or lack thereof), regulations and design standards.
 
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