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

Go Elevated or try for Underground?

  • Work with the province and go with the Elevated option

    Votes: 52 75.4%

  • Try another approach and go for Underground option

    Votes: 14 20.3%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Go with a BRT solution

    Votes: 2 2.9%
  • Total voters
    69
Update from the city:

Green Line Board and the City Award LRV contract
The Green Line Board and The City have selected CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) as the supplier of our new fleet of Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) for the Green Line LRT Project.

The contract includes 28 modern low floor LRVs that will improve accessibility, reduce station footprint and enhance safety for pedestrians and vehicles. Low floor LRV technology has been the standard in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand for decades. It is now becoming the choice for many new LRT systems across Canada and the United States including Ottawa, Waterloo, Toronto, Portland and Minneapolis.

In addition to the LRVs, the contract includes the tools and support for operating and maintaining this new fleet and an option to purchase additional vehicles to support the long-term vision for Green Line.

Green Line is the first project CAF will complete in Canada and follows more than 40 projects that the CAF Group is currently working on across five continents. They are a leader in the industry and our new LRV fleet will provide Calgary with a world class transit option.

The award of the LRV contract is an exciting milestone for the project and, coupled with the updated procurement schedule for the Phase 1 DBF main construction contract, charts a strong path forward toward delivering the Green Line.
 
Alex_YYC said:
Low floor LRV technology has been the standard in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand for decades. It is now becoming the choice for many new LRT systems across Canada and the United States including Ottawa, Waterloo, Toronto, Portland and Minneapolis.
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Super exciting, I'm a fan of low floor.

Although correct, Ottawa isn't the best case study to use as an example in your press release, especially if you're going to leave out Edmonton's Valley Line.
 
If they ordered 28 LRVs that means that on opening day of Stage 1 they will be running 2 car trains at 8 minute headways according the the info that was presented to Council last year. Not bad, not great but I'm guessing on par with what Calgary Transit is anticipating for ridership on opening day.
 
Here's a pic I took of an Urbos 3 in Sevilla a few years ago: (one bonus internet point for the first person to notice what isn't in this photo that you'd normally see):
SEV_9853.jpg


It's an exciting bit of news; unfortunately these CAF trams have recently (like last week!) been in the news for cracking appearing in these trams in Sydney and the West Midlands amongst other places. Hopefully these design flaws get fixed before they manufacture ours.
 
Looks great, and also massive for just one LRV. That’ll be fine for sure. Keep in mind, going up Centre, the blocks are only like 100 meters long north south (maybe less?). So two LRVs might be the maximum capacity without blocking off streets that intersect stations.

I suppose that’s a good argument for why 16 Avenue, McKnight, and Beddington stations should all be underground or elevated.
 
outoftheice said:
Overhead wires?
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Ding ding ding! The model in Sevilla (and a few other cities) draws catenary power but also has a battery so that it can run without any external power source in the central historic part of the city - so no overhead wires are needed there. It runs past two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Archivo de Indias (the principal recordhouse of Spain's dealings with the New World) and the Cathedral (the fourth-largest church and largest Gothic building in the world -- the legend is that the architectural brief was "Let us build a church so beautiful and so grand that those who see it finished will take us for mad", i.e. think we've gone crazy).

Looking at the rendering of the Calgary model, it's interesting to see that it's comprised of seven modules; this is the same as the Luxembourg version of this tram, which is 45 metres long. Our existing high-floor LRV fleet is 25 m long, so a pair of these could be 90% as long as what we currently think of as a four car train. Perhaps a little less; most of the short blocks on Centre St N are around 85 metres. However, each train car - old and new alike - has a driver's cabin at each end, which are not usable passenger space; further, there is a gap where the train coupling is. A four car train has three sets of these in the middle, not providing any passenger space. A two car train only has one of these sets. I put this together to approximate the lengths: It looks to me like there's potentially roughly 93% as much capacity (passenger space) in these new trains as in a four-car existing train.

1637207865095.png


I crap on Calgary Transit often enough that I feel it's important to note when they do something right, and for my money, longer paired cars like this design are the best balance of flexibility and capacity rather than the existing 25m stock we've been using.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
Looks great, and also massive for just one LRV. That’ll be fine for sure. Keep in mind, going up Centre, the blocks are only like 100 meters long north south (maybe less?). So two LRVs might be the maximum capacity without blocking off streets that intersect stations.
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If you look at the example overhead view of the future Centre Street/16th Ave intersection at post #999 and Attachment 4 from GC2020-0583 (https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=131771), they are planning to block off intersections from the start.

x4lQ6HR.png


Only 7th, 9th, 10th and 12th Avenues will allow through and left turns.

UrbanWarrior said:
I suppose that’s a good argument for why 16 Avenue, McKnight, and Beddington stations should all be underground or elevated.
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The decision to go to an above ground station at 16th Avenue highlights just how little financial room they have left. All of the previous options had always had it underground.
 
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