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

[Stephen Ave]

What are people's thoughts on the chances of the green line getting built? When I first heard about the Green Line funding change it was only a delay in the funding, but now the talk is about Bill 20 and the government being able to renege on their funding deal.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Frankly, I think the odds of the original green line vision (LRT end to end, tunnel from 16th Ave to the east Beltline) being built in the next decade are about 10% higher than the odds of an NDP government being elected in Alberta. I don't think the suburban communities on the line are themselves entirely to blame, but 8 of the 10 ridings on the Green Line have UCP MLAs.

 

[darwink]

What are people's thoughts on the chances of the green line getting built? When I first heard about the Green Line funding change it was only a delay in the funding, but now the talk is about Bill 20 and the government being able to renege on their funding deal.

I still think it is 100% going ahead. I think the UCP can’t let it die - it would be too easy of an example to point to a lie. They’ll (the province) write a letter confirming the funding and offering to make the city whole by the end of the ten year period, probably. And the city will just suck it up and get on with it.

the city has a powerful move to play if things get worse: offer to give the entire project to the province with the municipal funding if the province thinks it can deliver it better.

 

[gsunnyg]

My fear for the Green Line is that we get a short sighted dumbed down line with no consideration for urban planning. Something similar to the NE blue line where the goal is to cover as much distance but limiting opportunities for future development around stations to help increase long term ridership. I would hate to see the downtown-centre street segment put on grade level, it would be 36 St. NE all over again.

 

[Mountain Man]

3 Councillors are pushing for the BRT for the north leg now. Not a terrible idea as it can be upgraded to LRT down the road. We need the central part to be constructed as grade separated LRT ASAP, the north and south can be the BRT until more funding comes available.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

3 Councillors are pushing for the BRT for the north leg now. Not a terrible idea as it can be upgraded to LRT down the road. We need the central part to be constructed as grade separated LRT ASAP, the north and south can be the BRT until more funding comes available.

The current problem is that the province has effectively cut their funding and there isn't enough money to build the project. The central grade separated LRT is by far the most expensive part. The central grade separated LRT is also the least useful as an isolated project in and of itself; inner city LRT stations have low ridership* for a number of reasons, and all of the benefits to riders of building actual BRT are lost if you force a transfer 3/4 of the way through the trip to a stub LRT.

* There are 13 LRT stations within 5 km of the downtown (excluding 7th Ave stations) -- the first 3 on each line plus Banff Trail; they average 5,300 weekday boardings; the 23 suburban stations past 5 km average 10,300 weekday boardings -- almost double. Half of the ridership of the 13 inner stations are at Victoria Park/Stampede, SAIT (both very unique locations) and Westbrook (just inside the 5km band). The other 10 inner stations average 3,300 boardings, i.e. 1/3 of the typical outer suburban station. The 5 km range on the Green Line would be just past 40/41 Ave north, and around Bonnybrook in the south.

 

[CBBarnett]

3 Councillors are pushing for the BRT for the north leg now. Not a terrible idea as it can be upgraded to LRT down the road. We need the central part to be constructed as grade separated LRT ASAP, the north and south can be the BRT until more funding comes available.

Definitely not a bad idea but goes back to the main catch-22 of the Greenline and any other major transit project: transit is way more affordable to build if we don't care about preserving car-access/mitigating impacts to drivers on every possible destination, always and forever.

We want (1) good, reliable transit and (2) minimum impacts to drivers.

Everyone can't stop talking about the first goal, but everyone takes the second goal as a given to such an extent politicians, the public, engineers and designers forget that the 2nd goal is where all the cost problems lie.

Want to make a cheap Greenline you can afford and be reasonable reliable? Ban cars on Centre Street forever. Dedicate space at grade for the train and give 100% signal priority and all the little design features needed to minimize car interaction. Ban cars from going near the thing as much as possible. Stop thinking Sky Train or subway, start thinking car-free European tram line, many of which are far more reliable and higher capacity than anything we build even with all our extra grade separation costs.

If we took 6 lanes downtown and along Centre Street and permanently dedicated to buses tomorrow we'd probably improve transit for more people than any iteration of the Phase 1 Greenline proposed so far, and we could implement soon while the South leg is completed.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Definitely not a bad idea but goes back to the main catch-22 of the Greenline and any other major transit project: transit is way more affordable to build if we don't care about preserving car-access/mitigating impacts to drivers on every possible destination, always and forever.

We want (1) good, reliable transit and (2) minimum impacts to drivers.

Everyone can't stop talking about the first goal, but everyone takes the second goal as a given to such an extent politicians, the public, engineers and designers forget that the 2nd goal is where all the cost problems lie.

Hear, hear.

The other thing that people can't talk about is that if we want to have good public services and there isn't money in the current budget, we could increase taxes to pay for them. Extra taxes to cover the Green Line would be probably a couple of lattes per month for the average Calgarian. I'm tired of the broadly held idea that Calgary and Alberta are both such shit places that the only way anyone would live here or start a business here is if they had to pay the absolute minimum of taxes.

 

[Silence&Motion]

It's crazy to me that Alberta still has the highest GDP per capita of any Canadian province - by a lot - and our governments act like we're living in the great depression. The province can absolutely afford to build LRT lines in both Calgary and Edmonton the proper way. Instead, we're letting them die by a death by 1000 cuts.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but as we diversify our economy, our cities are our greatest assets. As O&G investment declines, the main reason people will be investing in this province is because they want to be located in and around our cities.

 

[darwink]

our governments act like we're living in the great depression

For some people it is like that, average wages for males have dropped by 20% iirc, which means some have dropped a lot. For them and their families, it feels like a depression. And they are angry. Geo-scientists for example, I remember reading that only 20% are working in their field now. Overtime is non-existent and a lot of trades had built lifestyles dependent on overtime pay.

Who do you think showed up at the polls and drove electoral turnout to near 50 year highs?

 

[Silence&Motion]

For some people it is like that, average wages for males have dropped by 20% iirc, which means some have dropped a lot. For them and their families, it feels like a depression. And they are angry. Geo-scientists for example, I remember reading that only 20% are working in their field now. Overtime is non-existent and a lot of trades had built lifestyles dependent on overtime pay.

Who do you think showed up at the polls and drove electoral turnout to near 50 year highs?

I understand that, but I really don't understand the mentality of "because the world has a lot of oil available at the moment and there isn't as much demand for geo-scientists, we should also cut back on the number of teachers, nurses, cops, bus drivers, and construction workers".

The province is very rich, but there are a lot of people who are facing economic uncertainty. Therefore the province should be investing in things that will create jobs and provide services to people who need it.

 

[darwink]

I understand that, but I really don't understand the mentality of "because the world has a lot of oil available at the moment and there isn't as much demand for geo-scientists, we should also cut back on the number of teachers, nurses, cops, bus drivers, and construction workers".

The province is very rich, but there are a lot of people who are facing economic uncertainty. Therefore the province should be investing in things that will create jobs and provide services to people who need it.

At this point it is a cultural thing, more than anything else. And the NDP didn't dismantle it by rebuilding the tax nexus, so they lost, as they were fighting on the battlefield of 1995 not 2019.

 

[zagox]

3 Councillors are pushing for the BRT for the north leg now. Not a terrible idea as it can be upgraded to LRT down the road. We need the central part to be constructed as grade separated LRT ASAP, the north and south can be the BRT until more funding comes available.

I think there's a compromise brewing here that makes a lot of sense to me. LRT from Shepard to Eau Claire, then a BRT over the Centre St bridge to the North.

As soon as it was determined that a pure tunnel from Beltline to Crescent Heights was not technically viable, the economic rationale for bringing LRT from Eau Claire to Crescent Heights is gone. If the tunnel has to daylight in Eau Claire anyway, you can build a bridge, tunnel, or whatever across the river later at minimal additional cost. The only problem with not building to 16th Ave N in phase 1 is a political one ... the tenuous consensus that getting to 16th Ave N was good enough to satisfy the North Calgary councillors.

Cancelling the Eau Claire to Crescent Heights LRT should save roughly enough to do BRT of some description from Eau Claire to the North - maybe as far as North Pointe but far enough to make it politically palatable.

As to the timing of the funding, if I were on City Council I would be pushing ahead at least on the Shepard - Beltline segment ASAP on the basis that the UCP will eventually cough up the money even if it has to be borrowed in the short term -- putting shovels in the ground is probably the best way to pressure them into action. The purse strings will open up as we get closer to the next election.

 

[darwink]

I don’t think BRT from the north would even cost that much. I doubt the northern councillors actually want BRT, it seems like a bad faith demand.

 

[zagox]

I don’t think BRT from the north would even cost that much. I doubt the northern councillors actually want BRT, it seems like a bad faith demand.

I think they haven't pushed for it until now because it makes it easier to push back a North LRT into the indefinite future. But the project is already on the ropes so I suspect their calculus has shifted to seeking something rather than nothing.