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

[accord1999]

I don't know about decades of pain. The next phase of federal transit funding launches in 2026. It will provide $3 billion per year towards projects across Canada. A future phase of Green Line that would extend the line north 96th Ave should easily qualify for some of that funding, especially since the last large federal funding commitment was announced in 2015 and the funds will be fully paid out by 2027.

Yeah, I could be too pessimistic. The new Green Line governance and management team hopefully will allow the project to progress better then before and the high oil prices give Alberta the financial resources to extend the Green Line (and hopefully not just to pay for Stage 1 overruns).

But I sure would like to see Route Ahead finally put on paper the prioritization of the future Green Line Stages. I don't understand why they've haven't considering the obvious answer of going to Beddington, the supposed minimal useful terminus for the NC LRT.

 

[zagox]

Yeah, I could be too pessimistic. The new Green Line governance and management team hopefully will allow the project to progress better then before and the high oil prices give Alberta the financial resources to extend the Green Line (and hopefully not just to pay for Stage 1 overruns).

But I sure would like to see Route Ahead finally put on paper the prioritization of the future Green Line Stages. I don't understand why they've haven't considering the obvious answer of going to Beddington, the supposed minimal useful terminus for the NC LRT.

My three theories:

1) More councilors can be made happy by vague promises in both directions than making a firm commitment to a second phase.
2) The Eau Claire to Crescent Heights section will probably need to be cut to keep the phase 1 cost within budget given inflation, which will make the Beddington extension that much more expensive. No one wants to admit that up front.
3) city wants to wait to see who wins the provincial election in May 2023 before deciding how/when to ask for more green line money

 

[FCC1982]

Surface running a streetcar on Center St. will be a disaster and is a very dumb idea.
I hope sanity prevails and the new LRT bridge over the Bow gets tunnelled into the bluff at it’s north end and the line doesn’t daylight until at least 24th Ave.
Terminate at Eau Claire for now until you can afford to build it properly.

 

[FCC1982]

Exactly. Upgrading that stretch of Crowchild according to the current plans is $2 Billion+, which is more or less the same cost as the Green Line's north segment. In my opinion that's an easy choice to make.

Exactly. The Crowchild upgrades 10 times out of 10.

 

[FCC1982]

Stoney Trail might/should be the last large investment in major road projects for the city (understanding the city only really paid for approach road improvements). At least in the context of making roads bigger and faster.

Crowchild between the river and 24th is being looked at but what if we kept it as is and only made safety and aesthetic improvements? NW drivers are well served by the ctrain, north central drivers can be well served by the Green line? We would save a lot of money on projects that would only make a small difference. Heck, don't bother doing those deerfoot improvements either, lets get radical! Haha

No. Stoney Trail should not be the last large investment in major road projects for the City.

No. Do not leave Crowchild as it is between 24th & the river.

No. Do not cancel the Deerfoot improvements.

 

[darwink]

Surface running a streetcar on Center St. will be a disaster and is a very dumb idea.
I hope sanity prevails and the new LRT bridge over the Bow gets tunnelled into the bluff at it’s north end and the line doesn’t daylight until at least 24th Ave.
Terminate at Eau Claire for now until you can afford to build it properly.

Taking two lanes is fine. The north river crossings/escarpment roads carry far less volume today than in 1999, and we shut down 4 lanes right around then. Crossing one of those lanes, adding major delays to the Green Line? No dice for me.

 

[lemongrab]

Taking two lanes is fine. The north river crossings/escarpment roads carry far less volume today than in 1999, and we shut down 4 lanes right around then. Crossing one of those lanes, adding major delays to the Green Line? No dice for me.

What are the major delays? The north section is useless until it gets to at least 64th. This whole psychology notion of crossing the river now or never is silly to me.

I know a tunnel wouldn't be cheap. But I can't imagine a dual curve inclined bridge is going to be cheap, either...You can talk me into losing lanes, but I think there are some potentially big drawbacks to the public realm and pedestrian connectivity. I do see how running at surface could also have positive effects to the vibe of the area, but I think there could be better ways to neuter the road a bit. I also wonder if this will simply shift the 'car hell' more over to Edmonton Trail?

Would a full blown tunnel even be necessary? What about a portal near the bus pullout and then cut/cover to north of 16th?

 

[FCC1982]

North-south and east-west LRT lines cross at grade in downtown Portland (it's even one 1970s high-floor line and one current low-floor line like we have), so it should be possible to do that here as well, although our east-west corridor has higher train volumes, and eventually there will need to be a tunnel downtown somewhere.

I’ve ridden Portland’s LRT system and it’s painfully slow.


lemongrab:
“This whole psychology notion of crossing the river now or never is silly to me.”
Exactly!

 

[jhappy77]

Exactly. The Crowchild upgrades 10 times out of 10.

The Crowchild upgrades essentially accomplish the following:

• Adds one lane of throughput between 5 Ave and 16 Ave
• Removes 3 traffic lights for Crowchild users (Kensington, 5 Ave, 24 Ave)
• Makes it faster to go across Crowchild on 24th, 5th, and Kensington Rd (nice, but these roads aren't high throughput roads anyways, and you're shaving off a couple minutes of time. Do we invest billions to save a couple minutes of time for other modes?)
• Makes it easier to access on and off ramps to 24th and 16th

The question we have to ask is: is that really worth over $2 Billion? What's the opportunity cost? Where could we have invested $2 Billion to achieve better returns?

If our problem is that Crowchild has too much rush hour traffic, there is mountains of evidence that freeway expansions can't actually solve that - it will just induce additional demand for the road. People who were taking other roads will switch to Crowchild, people who were taking transit will switch to driving on Crowchild, new Calgarians in Airdrie and the far north communities will take Shaganappi+Crowchild instead of Deerfoot. And then we end up right back where we started: a congested road (but this time with slightly more people stuck in congestion).

On the other hand, congestion pricing is a proven way of reducing traffic while also being revenue-positive instead of costing over $2 Billion.

Then you can look at throughput. A lane of private vehicles has a human throughput capacity of 600-1600 per hour. A rail transitway has a human throughput capacity of 10,000 - 25,000 per hour. Rail simply blows private vehicle traffic out of the water.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Do you need access to and from Kensington and 5th? Or can you eliminate those lights? Aren’t the interchanges with 16th being improved? Still do 24th but save the massive infrastructure required for the Kensington-5th section.

 

[lemongrab]

Do you need access to and from Kensington and 5th? Or can you eliminate those lights? Aren’t the interchanges with 16th being improved? Still do 24th but save the massive infrastructure required for the Kensington-5th section.

Ya, it seems like there should be some much cheaper compromises to improve flow (if that is the primary goal):

Kensington could be dual left turns onto Crowchild only (no straight through). No more left turns off Crowchild there (use Memorial). You'd probably need a pedestrian bridge (or maybe a diagonal crossing) since there wouldn't be a movement allowing peds to cross Crow.

5 Ave could be straight only (no left turns)...but maybe a small traffic circle on the west side of Crow, since everyone seems to do U-turns there anyways (you can even see the pattern on google maps). Crowchild would probably need to keep its left turns.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Ya, it seems like there should be some much cheaper compromises to improve flow (if that is the primary goal):

Kensington could be dual left turns onto Crowchild only (no straight through). No more left turns off Crowchild there (use Memorial). You'd probably need a pedestrian bridge (or maybe a diagonal crossing) since there wouldn't be a movement allowing peds to cross Crow.

5 Ave could be straight only (no left turns)...but maybe a small traffic circle on the west side of Crow, since everyone seems to do U-turns there anyways (you can even see the pattern on google maps). Crowchild would probably need to keep its left turns.

I wanted so badly to find a way to completely eliminate the lights at both Kensington and 5th, but I just can't reasonably make it work without an overpass...

The way I wanted to do it was only allow right turns off of and onto Crowchild via a dedicated lane separated from Crow by a curb or even boulevard. If you wanted to go from Kensington to SB Crow you could go 19 St to Memorial and then loop to Kensington west of Crow, even squeeze in a ramp from NB 14 St to WB Memorial to access Memorial. Kensington to NB Crow is easy, they'd use the dedicated lane to eventually merge. Same thing with 5th to SB Crow. But the problem is 5th to NB Crow. I can't find a viable alternate route... Maybe you need a overpass over Crow on 5th like they have at 26th?

Much like 33rd, Kensington and 5th are destination intersections, the traffic is (pretty much) local, so I really don't think the price tag of the 'big dig' will be worth it, as you say.

 

[darwink]

Traffic is pretty good now for Crowchild. I doubt it will ever be worth it. Turns out targeted debottlenecking works.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

West Stoney will help with this too. People won't be using Crowchild as much to go between Stoney (north by Tuscany) and Glenmore.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Honestly I think the best way to improve this section of Crowchild would be to expand the section on the hill near 16th to 3 lanes each way. This is the primary bottle neck that really slows things down. Not sure how they'd do that though, it's a pretty tight spot.