Hopefully Nenshi’s interpretation isn’t true. But there are a number of conditions that O’Toole outlined including provincial approval, which as we all know, has been a major stumbling block in this whole debacle!
I mean, wouldn’t federal funding be contingent on provincial approval regardless of which party is in power? Without the provincial portion of funding, there is no project, so it seems like it’s a moot point who is Prime Minister.
I think I missed the nuance that the Conservatives said funding would be conditional on the City developing a plan to build the Green Line in its entirety.
I can’t decide if the Conservatives would actually withhold funding for Phase I and II unless the City comes up with a plan to build the entire Green Line. What does “reasonable amount of time” really mean with respect to building the other segments of the line, especially when the City has always expressed its intention to build the entire line once funding was available.
I don’t really see the Conservatives inserting themselves when the feds have never been the problem (despite O’Toole’s claim that the delays are Trudeau’s fault). I also disagree with Nenshi’s assessment that the delays are all Jason Kennedy’s fault. The City shares plenty of blame. Maybe it’s because I ignore news about Edmonton, but it doesn’t seem like Edmonton has this much trouble building transit.
I think the Conservatives are trying to appeal to undecided voters, and voters in Rempel’s riding by indicating their commitment to fund the entire line, and at the same time, appealing to their base by appearing cost conscious, but I don’t really see them pulling current funding when the City and the Province have finally come to terms.
Speaking of route 305, when they give it the MAX upgrade, I think it should take a different routing than it does currently. Instead of turning off 14 Street NW to go into Kensington, it should continue down Bow Trail, and get to Parkdale Blvd via Crowhcild instead. And then when it gets to Bowness, it should take a different route so it can go through the Trinity Hills area rather than down to the Bowness turnaround point for buses. The route 1 can handle the ridership for the current route it does west of downtown.
The 305 should be focused on getting people from West Calgary to downtown as quickly and direct as possible, while hitting hotspots along the way. I'm conflicted if it should directly hit the Foothills Hospital by going down 16th Ave rather than Parkdale Blvd.
Speaking of route 305, when they give it the MAX upgrade, I think it should take a different routing than it does currently. Instead of turning off 14 Street NW to go into Kensington, it should continue down Bow Trail, and get to Parkdale Blvd via Crowhcild instead. And then when it gets to Bowness, it should take a different route so it can go through the Trinity Hills area rather than down to the Bowness turnaround point for buses. The route 1 can handle the ridership for the current route it does west of downtown.
The 305 should be focused on getting people from West Calgary to downtown as quickly and direct as possible, while hitting hotspots along the way. I'm conflicted if it should directly hit the Foothills Hospital by going down 16th Ave rather than Parkdale Blvd.
I don't have a strong opinion on what the 305 should do on the west end past 77th St; it currently goes to Bowfort Road and COP, maybe it should stop at Greenwich, maybe Trinity Hills, who knows -- there's so many little nodes scattered around there, none of them super vital. I don't know what sort of visitorship COP gets (in a normal tourist / sports season). Heck, this area is building out and maybe the best answer today is different in two years.
However, I think it'd be a mistake to take Crowchild when running as a MAX service. It does save time; Google says that it's 5 minutes from Parkdale/29th to 9th/11 St via Crowchild and 7 minutes via Kensington Road. The difference might be a little more when there's more traffic -- although the Crowchild route would skip what might be the only transit priority feature on the corridor, the bus advance light at Kensington/Parkdale by Pizza Bob's. So there is a benefit; it's 31 minutes from 77 St W to 2nd St downtown and it might save 2 or 3 minutes, maybe 10%.
But there's a cost for this benefit; the 305 would skip three stops, on Kensington Road at 14th St, at 19th St and then at Crowchild. And those are significant nodes.
Here's the entire corridor. The dots at each stop represent the activity; the orange ones are scaled to population within 400m walking distance (the largest is 1750 people at 14th St), and the blue ones are scaled to the number of businesses (the largest is 83 in Bowness). There's 14 stops on the route; the 14th St stop is #1 for people and #2 for businesses, the 19th St stop is #2 for people and #4 for businesses, the stop at Crowchild is #7 and #8, about the corridor average.
BRT should in theory -- if operated frequently, not six times a day like the 305 -- draw from further than 400m. But it's hard to evaluate individual stops at that level, since what's 800m from one stop might be right at the next one. So I looked at groups of stops in the four communities served; here's a map if needed:
The three stops in Hillhurst have about 1/3 of the population of the corridor and half of the businesses. Some of the businesses on the longer end is that Kensington Rd up to 10th St is within 800m of the 14th St stop, but I'd note that 1) this stop provides corridor residents access to Kensington, and 2) even without the further stops, there is more within 400m of the Hillhurst stops than there is within 800m of Montgomery or Bowness.
I think that serving all of the people with all of the travel time is better than serving 2/3 of the people with 10% less travel time.
Bonus fun fact: The reason the 305 doesn't follow the 1 all the way to 10th St is that the corner of Kensington Rd and 10th St is too tight for bendy buses.
I don't have a strong opinion on what the 305 should do on the west end past 77th St; it currently goes to Bowfort Road and COP, maybe it should stop at Greenwich, maybe Trinity Hills, who knows -- there's so many little nodes scattered around there, none of them super vital. I don't know what sort of visitorship COP gets (in a normal tourist / sports season). Heck, this area is building out and maybe the best answer today is different in two years.
However, I think it'd be a mistake to take Crowchild when running as a MAX service. It does save time; Google says that it's 5 minutes from Parkdale/29th to 9th/11 St via Crowchild and 7 minutes via Kensington Road. The difference might be a little more when there's more traffic -- although the Crowchild route would skip what might be the only transit priority feature on the corridor, the bus advance light at Kensington/Parkdale by Pizza Bob's. So there is a benefit; it's 31 minutes from 77 St W to 2nd St downtown and it might save 2 or 3 minutes, maybe 10%.
But there's a cost for this benefit; the 305 would skip three stops, on Kensington Road at 14th St, at 19th St and then at Crowchild. And those are significant nodes.
Here's the entire corridor. The dots at each stop represent the activity; the orange ones are scaled to population within 400m walking distance (the largest is 1750 people at 14th St), and the blue ones are scaled to the number of businesses (the largest is 83 in Bowness). There's 14 stops on the route; the 14th St stop is #1 for people and #2 for businesses, the 19th St stop is #2 for people and #4 for businesses, the stop at Crowchild is #7 and #8, about the corridor average. View attachment 350713
BRT should in theory -- if operated frequently, not six times a day like the 305 -- draw from further than 400m. But it's hard to evaluate individual stops at that level, since what's 800m from one stop might be right at the next one. So I looked at groups of stops in the four communities served; here's a map if needed:
The three stops in Hillhurst have about 1/3 of the population of the corridor and half of the businesses. Some of the businesses on the longer end is that Kensington Rd up to 10th St is within 800m of the 14th St stop, but I'd note that 1) this stop provides corridor residents access to Kensington, and 2) even without the further stops, there is more within 400m of the Hillhurst stops than there is within 800m of Montgomery or Bowness.
I think that serving all of the people with all of the travel time is better than serving 2/3 of the people with 10% less travel time.
Bonus fun fact: The reason the 305 doesn't follow the 1 all the way to 10th St is that the corner of Kensington Rd and 10th St is too tight for bendy buses.
Good reply. I had my opinion that the BRT should go down Bow, and turn onto Kensington RD/Parkdale BV via Crowchild for the time savings even at the expense of skipping the density of Hillhurt to avoid redundancy with the route 1. This is with an assumption that West Calgary residents would prefer directness to downtown rather than direct connection to the Kensington area. But the time savings could be very minimal, that still sticking through it's current route is an ideal option to provide rapid transit to a growing urban hot spot.
As for 10 ST corner. I believe (not 100%) the route 1 does have some articulated buses on it's route now. If it's indeed the case, then that corner may be not be the barrier it once was then. In that case, it makes the case for the BRT to go through the heart of Kensington on route to West Calgary a lot stronger in my mind. Residents in that part of town would be making Kensington their destination. So being dropped off right at the main corner of the street is very appealing. Same goes for those in that neighborhood that may appreciate having a stronger connection to Winsport and the development occurring around there.
I wonder if there is an opportunity to create an overpass or underpass for the road interchange there as well. Wouldn't work well for the urban vibe we want for either street...
I wonder if there is an opportunity to create an overpass or underpass for the road interchange there as well. Wouldn't work well for the urban vibe we want for either street...
Right now (2019 traffic flow map), the busiest road the LRT crosses at grade are 58 Ave SE and 162 Ave SW, at 24000 AAWT vehicles. Also in the same range are Heritage Dr, (22K), 32nd Ave NE (20K), and Saddletowne Circle (20K). There are some grade separated crossings of roads in this volume range; 64 Ave NE (26K), 42 Ave S (25K), Canyon Meadows Dr (21K), 69 St W (17K). A grade separation was added for 45 St W, which isn't on the flow map but has roughly half the traffic of 69 St (ie roughly 8K).
Meanwhile, 16th Ave at Centre St is at 48,000 AAWT vehicles -- it would be twice as busy as the busiest road currently crossed by the LRT at grade.
That said, it's entirely possible that the existing green time NB/SB on Centre St can just be given to the train, and it would have minimal impact. It's a hard choice -- if the 16th Ave expansion hadn't created such a high-capacity car sewer through the area, maximizing traffic flow would be of lower importance. On the other hand, just because we misprioritized cars in the past doesn't mean we need to do so again today.
Crossing mid block, versus at an intersection makes direct comparisons more difficult, as there are more variables. Every attempt to prioritize the Green Line will interfere with 16th. The Green Line will require its own phase unless turning movements are limited. This will extend the intersection cycle time, and will leave the ~800 people per train, and people on Orange MAX waiting longer while cars take priority.
Crossing mid block, versus at an intersection makes direct comparisons more difficult, as there are more variables. Every attempt to prioritize the Green Line will interfere with 16th. The Green Line will require its own phase unless turning movements are limited. This will extend the intersection cycle time, and will leave the ~800 people per train, and people on Orange MAX waiting longer while cars take priority.
Both would. Without the train on the surface for the intersection, you can really compress the phase/phases for Centre St's movements, since you'd have room for dual turns
