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

Skipping Eau Claire & Beltline stations would make very little sense, if ridership and providing access is a goal. Eau Claire is a major destination in it's own right; not just the mall, but the hotels nearby, condos, major events in the plaza & Prince's Island Park, Chinatown etc. If the goal is to provide transit to places people go/live/work, that would be a weird one to skip. Beltline is similar. Obviously the highest density area of the city for population, but also a huge number of offices and destinations: nearly all of Calgary's nightlife, Stampede Park, etc.

A big problem with both the N & SE sections of this project is the lack of any real concentration of employment / destinations / population which is what makes transit effective. Inglewood is a great destination, but small in the grand scheme of things and limited in the ability to redevelop to high density. Quarry Park is developing into a node (but with limited transit appeal thanks to huge surface parking lots and lack of pedestrian-focused design) as well as Seton / South Hospital (unfortunately built as far on the edge as possible). The new neighbourhoods south of 22x are decently dense and transit supportive, however like the hospital, are very far away. Apart from Inglewood, there are no concentrations that would be services in the SE for the first proposed phase.

The Centre Street corridor does quite a bit better in current density & ability to redevelop, but again lacks any real large destinations along the route. The "town square" cluster in Panorama Hills could be considered one, however it is unfortunately completely car-oriented, limited transit appeal. At least it acts as a land bank for redevelopment. Again, the first phase doesn't get here either.

So, it sounds like the Greenline is stuck in a hard place: It needs to provide access to destinations of concentration, but those are clustered in the core and are the most expensive to service. The SE line seems to have a pretty weak ridership potential unless it is anchored by the South Hospital, which is won't be in the first phase as proposed. The Centre Street line is better for current density and redevelopment, but lacks any real large destinations of concentration. Meanwhile, the cycle of car-dependence marches forward, with new interchanges, car-oriented neighbourhoods and trip patterns being further developed and entrenched while the Greenline builds out over 25 years.

This seems like a case of funding priorities (i.e. a complete paradigm shift to never spend money on interchanges for 25 years so all road capital can go to the LRT) or accessing additional revenue sources. The SE line just doesn't seem to work without full build out.
 
I'm not too surprised they are phasing it in. Residents won't happy, but like Shane Keating said in the article, other lines have been phased in. It's nothing new. I just hope they don't skip the Beltline and Eau Claire station, it's one thing not to extend it, but another to skip areas in the middle of the line.

I'm with you guys on Mckenzie Towne. It's not that much further south and catches a lot of population. I would think getting past the ring road would add significant cost.
 
I don't mind them phasing it. The homer in me is a little sad that we won't be the first city in the country with a rapid transit network over 100 km long for a little longer, but whatever :p
 
According to LRT on the Green Twitter account, the city of Calgary is now proposing extending the tunnelled portion of the Green Line all the way from 24 Avenue North along Centre Street, to just before Inglewood Station inside the neighbourhood of Ramsay. This extension of the tunnel will bring the tunnelled portion of the line to around 1 km longer than previously proposed and will add 2 (Centre Street South and 4th Street SE) stations to the currently approved 4 subway stations. Under this proposal, the subway will go under both of Calgary's major rivers, the Bow and Elbow. The tunnelled portion will be approximately 5.5 kilometres long with 6 stations if this newest proposed routing is approved. Ultimately, Calgary now has nearly 10 kilometres of subway proposed with 9 to 10 stations, with 5.5 km and 6 stations for the Green Line, and 4 km and 3 - 4 stations for the Red Line.

https://twitter.com/LRTontheGreen
 
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Carbon tax green infrastructure money for things like transit in today's budget:
 

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AJX said:
Thanks Darwink. Any idea how much of that would go to the green line?
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I believe the federal contribution was envisioned over a 20 year period, so probably a match to that plus a top up to match the Calgary property tax downpayment from the construction years. Makes sense to do so to try to make it harder and harder for groups that want to cut either the carbon tax, or spending in general.
 
darwink said:
I believe the federal contribution was envisioned over a 20 year period, so probably a match to that plus a top up to match the Calgary property tax downpayment from the construction years. Makes sense to do so to try to make it harder and harder for groups that want to cut either the carbon tax, or spending in general.
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Match those funds out of the 4 years shown? I totally fine with them going that route. right now it's hard to justify spending, so doing it through the carbon tax makes sense.
 
Not out of the four years shown, well for the federal match. Well, depending on how delivery is it might be different cash flow vs. accrual accounting.

These things get nailed down far after the politicians make the announcement, but extending payments to include pre-delivery is a good way to increase support without causing cash flow problems, especially as it would get some money out the door. The province for that reason might even prepay some of its match to get money out the door, since the goal is to get carbon tax money out the door.
 
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