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

[lemongrab]

Yeah. Council should have (or the Mayor exhorted in private once the difficulties became more clear), that the board should consider drastic changes to deliver on the mobility objectives of the green line program.

I suppose we have to remember that with most of these council meetings - and particularly the one last month - is that they spend 4-6 hours going everything in private and then the public session is largely a performative rehash of the key points.

I would hope the idea of more drastic changes was at least discussed in-camera, though I suspect that answer was 'we could but it would take a long time'. I think sunk-time fallacy has been the bigger issue throughout this than sunk costs...most of the work done to date will be useful eventually, even if it has to sit on a shelf for a decade or two. It seems everyone was more afraid of delays than of a boondoggle. This is one of the biggest reasons I've always favoured the SEBRT - make some tangible progress that gives you cover to figure everything else out

 

[accord1999]

Here in Calgary, our last new LRT station was built in 2014. We are about to pass the record for the longest stretch between expansions (previously set between 1990 and 2001). We are almost certainly looking at 20 years at least with no transit expansion. What are the Crowchild, Glenmore, and Deerfoot going to look like by 2035 when there's more than 2 million people living in the CMA? What's it going to feel like stepping onto the Ctrain in rush hour?

I guess that's the unfortunate consequence of the Green Line taking up all the attention and money for the last decade and an unwillingness for Council to put a limit on just how expensive it could get. And even if Stage 1 is built, you still need billions of dollars to get it useful and where it would be fighting for money with other extensions and projects in the 2030s.

 

[trtcttc]

With how expensive transit costs now, they have to be provincially led going forward. There's just not enough fiscal room in municipal budgets to fund these things. Toronto tried building transit extensions and new lines. John Tory ran for mayor on a Smart Track platform. Nothing went anywhere until the PC came in and threw their weight behind the Ontario Line and other extensions. Many of the same things said about the UCP was said when Doug Ford became Premier, that it's all a farce to line the pockets of consultants, but Ontario Line is under construction. Our only hope is that the UCP is serious about their Grand Central vision.

 

[badc0ffee]

Doug Ford was not without his pet projects.

Calgary-ish Scarborough needed to replace line 3 (which used SkyTrain technology). The plan was to replace it with not just a single line, but a full light rail network. This was scrapped by Ford in favour of a subway extension because light rail was a "war on cars". The problem is the subway extension set everything back and is taking so long that line 3 was shut down before the replacement was ready. And Toronto is probably going to build most of the light rail network anyway, but as a disconnected mess, rather than smooth transfers to the subway, and through-running to the Eglinton Line, at Kennedy Station.

But I agree with you that the previous two provincial governments, and a long line of mayors, were mostly unable to stick to a plan long enough to build anything at a large scale. I think the only exception is some streetcar extensions, and the line 1 extension into Vaughan.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

they have to be provincially led going forward.

I'd agree that this is the end of Alberta municipalities building LRT. Hopefully the likely to be created more centralized 'Rail Alberta' properly integrates whatever they build into the existing lines. I wonder if CT will continue to operate the LRTs or if they'll be absorbed into Rail Alberta. the problem is we'll have to wait until Spring for even a glance at a very high-level plan. We'll see a hint at what the airport rail options are this fall but that will just be a list of options that the report in the Spring should narrow down.

The money spent on what has been done physically (moving utilities, land prep, etc) will be utilized at some point. What's completely lost is the time and money spent on what is essentially nothing we couldn't do on this forum: Debate and look into what can be done and where for SE and NC LRT line.

I hope Rail Alberta is independent and well funded. Danielle loves independence because it can be blamed when things go bad and she will wear none of the responsibility. The opportunity to create another boogey man will be too tempting to avoid.

 

[thecivilengineer]

I think and hopefully they will accelerate project which connects to airport.

 

[Dārayavauš]

What a clusterfuck this whole thing has been, with plenty of blame to go around.

The question now is do we do a redesign from the stampede grounds through downtown which would most likely be an elevated option?
Or, do we hang in there and wait a couple of years until the UCP is booted out of office and try this again?

I was originally against the elevated option, but now I’m thinking this is the most logical way to get this done the green line from Victoria Park South can stay the same. All we would do is change the downtown section to elevated and take another run at it.

I don’t know why the elevated option was not preferred. It will clearly be much cheaper than underground, and Albertans are notoriously cheap.

Plus it’ll be nice to get our own skytrain.

 

[kempes_78]

If politicians can admit (which means take blame for the lost decade and $Billion spent) that they actually don't know more than the professional transit planners, maybe we will get back to that initial vision, but I think it will take an election that completely removes anyone who has been involved in this so far.

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/c...former-city-transit-planning-boss-speaks-out[

[QUOTE="MichaelS, post: 2123220, ...ign, planning and financial advice? [/QUOTE]

 

[Dārayavauš]

The error was the assumption that the province under the UCP could ever be a good faith partner. Whoops.

Well Calgary’s plan honestly turned into a joke. I’m entirely unsurprised that the province pulled funding.

It truly was the definition of a train to nowhere. It serviced nobody, and I doubt it would get anywhere near the 30k ridership that the city was projecting.

It makes more sense from a financial and service stand point, to extend the Red Line to 210 Ave and the Blue Line further North. Both extensions would get better ridership than those joke of a Green Line the city decided to go with.

 

[kempes_78]

Megaprojects: several stakeholders with limited knowledge of how to develop the design and construction process. Was a risk and reward contract the correct medium? Will the current design be bought out by the City or the Province or will a new design be commissioned? Are the consultants on the project pre-screened before being taken on board as they provide advice - design, planning, financial?

 

[YYCguy]

If they end up elevating the line through Downtown and share 7th avenue with the other two lines, I wonder if the plans for Eau Claire will end up being shelved or pared down? And the townhouse owners at Eau Claire are probably doing an inside cheer!

 

[Dārayavauš]

If they end up elevating the line through Downtown and share 7th avenue with the other two lines, I wonder if the plans for Eau Claire will end up being shelved or pared down? And the townhouse owners at Eau Claire are probably doing an inside cheer!

Eau Claire is getting redeveloped at some point. Those townhouses will definitely be demolished, it’s just a matter of when.

I don’t think the alignment would change though? It’s just be elevated. It’ll only intersect with 7th Ave or maybe share for a block or two.

 

[Silence&Motion]

If you want to know why Doug Ford cares about building transit out to Toronto's suburbs, this is what they look like:

 

[trtcttc]

This was scrapped by Ford in favour of a subway extension because light rail was a "war on cars".

Ford has his faults but to say this was purely a provincial decision is wrong. City council voted for this in 2016, two years before he came to power.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3676433

If you want to know why Doug Ford cares about building transit out to Toronto's suburbs, this is what they look like:

View attachment 594220

You’d be glad to hear the Ontario line runs from Don Valley East (61- Liberal) to Exhibition (65-NDP) and the entire line serves non-PC represented areas.

There’s plenty to criticize Ontario PC and the UCP as well that there’s no need to make up criticism because they fit a conservative caricature

 

[lemongrab]

Tunnel depth seems like a really big driver of costs...I know they've mentioned cut and cover a lot, but it looks like that was only going to be from Eau Claire to ~7th (and deep cut and cover by that point), with the rest being bored (https://www.calgary.ca/green-line/construction/tunnel-and-underground-stations.html)

The boring seems to be based on three assumptions: gotta go deeper than the red line tunnel at 11th ave, gotta go deep under the future 8th avenue tunnel, and gotta be deep under the parking sprial/CP tracks. But what if we didn't have to go deep at all?

- run at grade along 11th Ave, but extend the underpasses on each Macleod Tr south by about 150 meters each (like how the 4th Street underpass also goes under 9th Ave). 1 lane would stay at grade to turn onto 11th Ave, but 2-3 lanes would become trenched, and can be sold as road improvements.

- shallow cut & cover* along 1 St SW (modifying existing underpass) - running at the same grade as the 8th Ave tunnel. Perhaps not ideal to have lines intersecting and it creates a critical failure point, but it's not impossible to do

* getting a little crazy here, but I've always thought 1st St SW would be an excellent pedestrian only street (ideally from 8th Ave to 17th)...what if you didn't even have to fully cover it (at least not to be load bearing for a roadway)? Probably makes things like HVAC and station access points cheaper/easier

- There are a handful of small storefronts on 1st that would be hugely impacted/compensated by this disruption (one of the benefits of 2nd St is there are essentially zero store fronts or critical building entrances...though I'd argue that also just means its an office wasteland). Based on cursory research this is still a way cheaper approach than boring (and dealing with those storefronts could probably have been more economical than expropriating a bunch of condos in the midst of a housing crisis...


I'm sure there are a bunch of drawbacks to this, but it gets you down to 1 underground station (7th Ave) and facilitates surface stations in beltline and north downtown, and opens the option to more easily run at grade over Centre St bridge.The vehicle lanes lost in this on 1st and 11th are pretty well used, but ultimately they are both redundant