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

[MichaelS]

Was it even being contemplated at 30%? If so, was the public informed or has it been known the "plan" wasn't feasible for much longer than this latest media storm?

 

[ahuch]

Was it even being contemplated at 30%? If so, was the public informed or has it been known the "plan" wasn't feasible for much longer than this latest media storm?

I think they mean 30% design for the Highfield Depot specifically. You could have had the rest of the project at 60% or whenever the change to require Highfield came about, and they had to rush to design that facility. Though it's also possible it's been known for a long time as well, which would make the provinces reaction seem worse since they'd have known then too.

 

[accord1999]

A possible clue about when the decision to switch maintenance facility comes from the submitted development plans for the Shepard facility.

The most recent submission was on May 23, with plans (that significantly shrunk the facility) dated to May 2. So that would suggest the decision was probably made in June or July because they were still trying to cut costs and reach Shepard before then.

DMap

DMap

dmap.calgary.ca

 

[outoftheice]

I genuinely don't understand people's obsession with the need for high floor cars... 2 Urbos LRVs hold more people than 3.5 traditional Siemen's cars. Do people just think that because the interior of something looks like a subway car it must have the capacity of a subway car? The whole fleet commonality thing is a head scratcher too because Calgary Transit doesn't operate a common fleet now. There is literally nothing in common between a S-200, a S-160 and a U-2. It is three very different types of trains so adding 1 low floor LRV to the fleet has zero impact on any sort of imagined operation savings. The fact the premier has seized on this vehicle argument shows she has spent less than 1 minute actually learning about the issue which should concern all of us.

 

[MichaelS]

Well, given that the Greenline is on indefinite hold, we could have used the cars we already ordered on our other 2 lines if they were high floor, maybe allowing us to get back to 4-car trains. But, because they aren't compatible with the other lines, we may have to pay a cancellation penalty (as part of the sunk costs in this project).

 

[ByeByeBaby]

I genuinely don't understand people's obsession with the need for high floor cars... 2 Urbos LRVs hold more people than 3.5 traditional Siemen's cars. Do people just think that because the interior of something looks like a subway car it must have the capacity of a subway car? The whole fleet commonality thing is a head scratcher too because Calgary Transit doesn't operate a common fleet now. There is literally nothing in common between a S-200, a S-160 and a U-2. It is three very different types of trains so adding 1 low floor LRV to the fleet has zero impact on any sort of imagined operation savings. The fact the premier has seized on this vehicle argument shows she has spent less than 1 minute actually learning about the issue which should concern all of us.

It's a really good metric for identifying people who haven't thought seriously about rail transit, or who haven't done so for decades. It's perfectly fine for people who are thinking about something for the first time to make silly beginner mistakes and focus on the wrong thing; people can and should learn! It's less great if they are the person who is making decisions on the project.

Well, given that the Greenline is on indefinite hold, we could have used the cars we already ordered on our other 2 lines if they were high floor, maybe allowing us to get back to 4-car trains. But, because they aren't compatible with the other lines, we may have to pay a cancellation penalty (as part of the sunk costs in this project).

If we were planning on cancelling the green line, we shouldn't have ordered trains at all, or more to the point, we shouldn't have ordered trains before construction began, which was a very unusual contracting move.

It makes as much sense as specifying all new roads should be built out of crushed shale and sand instead of asphalt, so that if we decide to cancel the road after ordering the material, we could re-use it in ball diamonds and sandpits.

 

[badc0ffee]

There is literally nothing in common between a S-200, a S-160 and a U-2. It is three very different types of trains so

The important thing is that you can mix and match trains of these vehicles on a given line. They can share platforms, pantograph wires, and storage garages. They accept the same curves and grades. They have most the same car length, about 25 m. Calgary Transit even ran mixed trains of the AC version of the U2 (cars 2101 and 2102) with the SD160 for a little while!

You can't do any of that with these new low floor cars. That doesn't mean buying them is a bad idea (although others have raised concerns about the passenger capacity per metre of length of the low floor cars, which is a valid point). But please don't pretend that they are as different from a S-200 as a S-200 is from a SD160.

 

[kempes_78]

I genuinely don't understand people's obsession with the need for high floor cars... 2 Urbos LRVs hold more people than 3.5 traditional Siemen's cars. Do people just think that because the interior of something looks like a subway car it must have the capacity of a subway car? The whole fleet commonality thing is a head scratcher too because Calgary Transit doesn't operate a common fleet now. There is literally nothing in common between a S-200, a S-160 and a U-2. It is three very different types of trains so adding 1 low floor LRV to the fleet has zero impact on any sort of imagined operation savings. The fact the premier has seized on this vehicle argument shows she has spent less than 1 minute actually learning about the issue which should concern all of us.

The principal technical argument centers on the City's future predicted transit passenger capacity by 2075.
This argument (summer 2023) resulted in the proposal to change the train sets from 3-car to 2-car with the corresponding station size reduction.
Ultimately, it means that more trains can run to meet demand etc.
Quite how that works I do not know, but that is the planning and logistical input which drives the present procurement process.
By not operating a common fleet presumes that the City has calculated operational activities to accommodate different trains.
This economic calculation takes in several operational factors including train speed and capacity to arrive at a comparative optimal operational assessment accounting for:
a) optimal service headway, b) optimal stop spacing, c) fleet size, d) vehicle capacity, e) operator and user costs.
In effect, the city operates a viable rolling stock which allows for selective phasing out.

 

[lemongrab]

I genuinely don't understand people's obsession with the need for high floor cars... 2 Urbos LRVs hold more people than 3.5 traditional Siemen's cars. Do people just think that because the interior of something looks like a subway car it must have the capacity of a subway car? The whole fleet commonality thing is a head scratcher too because Calgary Transit doesn't operate a common fleet now. There is literally nothing in common between a S-200, a S-160 and a U-2. It is three very different types of trains so adding 1 low floor LRV to the fleet has zero impact on any sort of imagined operation savings. The fact the premier has seized on this vehicle argument shows she has spent less than 1 minute actually learning about the issue which should concern all of us.

LFs are often hyped as having some magical properties like being silent and invisible and making a streetscape amazing by their very existence. And it feels like it was in large part a 'vibes' decision, even though the benefits of LF won't be particularly well realized for a huge portion of the total line, including pretty much everything contemplated to date in the initial phasing.

LF makes sense (if not damn near a necessity) for an at-grade Centre St alignment from the Bow River to Beddington. But that would have really been just 16th to Beddington (6 stations, 7.6km) in the original plan. For the 4-6 underground stations originally conceived, HF would be pretty obviously better from an excavation standpoint. North of Beddington and south of the core it seems like a pretty marginal difference...a few stations might benefit a bit from being LF, though HF would be faster for stations that are spaced out...either would be fine.

So one could argue that 7.6kms are dictating all 46km. Which was probably fine...until we run into our present circumstance of needing some drastic changes, but we've painted ourselves into a corner. Which isn't to say that HF would magically solve anything, but it could have meant some more options for creative solutions (if the city showed an inclination to do so).


A big question I've never seen pondered is what happens after build out if N vs SE have significantly unbalanced ridership. Personally, I'm very bullish on the north and bearish on the SE. What if we get to a point where Centre St is overloading 2 car trains and either needs higher frequency and/or more cars? But the SE doesn't need either? North would be 10-12 stations, 15-18kms. But then would we have to extend another 16 stations to the SE? Or run higher than necessary frequencies for that 28 kms?

 

[lemongrab]

All that said, what about:

1. Streetcar from 7th to Beddington
2. True BRT or a people mover or whatever you wanna call it from Saddletowne to airport to 96th and up the rest of the GL alignment
3. Commuter rail on the Nose Creek alignment

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

I genuinely don't understand people's obsession with the need for high floor cars... 2 Urbos LRVs hold more people than 3.5 traditional Siemen's cars. Do people just think that because the interior of something looks like a subway car it must have the capacity of a subway car?

That's a fairly disingenuous argument, it's not like the low floor cars have some sort of magical super-density, they're significantly longer!

One thing I've noticed with the low floor train in Edmonton is how the overhead wiring really ruins the the streetscape gains made by using smaller curbside stations.

While Kaohsiung's LRT uses the same Urbos 3 cars that Calgary ordered for GL, theirs are powered by super capacitors that charge at the station. I'm guessing that technology doesn't perform well in winter conditions, which is really unfortunate as the difference in visual impact is significant.

Compare:

With how GL would look running at surface down Centre St.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

LFs are often hyped as having some magical properties like being silent and invisible and making a streetscape amazing by their very existence. And it feels like it was in large part a 'vibes' decision, even though the benefits of LF won't be particularly well realized for a huge portion of the total line, including pretty much everything contemplated to date in the initial phasing.

LF makes sense (if not damn near a necessity) for an at-grade Centre St alignment from the Bow River to Beddington. But that would have really been just 16th to Beddington (6 stations, 7.6km) in the original plan. For the 4-6 underground stations originally conceived, HF would be pretty obviously better from an excavation standpoint. North of Beddington and south of the core it seems like a pretty marginal difference...a few stations might benefit a bit from being LF, though HF would be faster for stations that are spaced out...either would be fine.

So one could argue that 7.6kms are dictating all 46km. Which was probably fine...until we run into our present circumstance of needing some drastic changes, but we've painted ourselves into a corner. Which isn't to say that HF would magically solve anything, but it could have meant some more options for creative solutions (if the city showed an inclination to do so).

Low floor LRVs are not magical. But neither are high floor trains. There are two key aspects to choosing low floor trains. The first is that they are the industry standard, and have been for almost a quarter century. Every single LRT system in Canada - Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Waterloo, Toronto, Mississauga and Quebec City all picked low floor over high floor. As have Seattle, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Dallas, and so on. As have Bergen, Tampere, Porto, Utrecht, Granada, Madrid, Malaga and more. As have Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Gold Coast, etc. As have Kaohsiung, Shenyang, Addis Ababa, Casablanca, Tunis, Rio de Janeiro, Medellin and others. There are basically only two types of light rail lines: those run by agencies that have picked low floor over high floor, and those that were built when only high floor trains were available.

Light rail trains are always built to order, and it's easier to adapt a low floor design to high floor than vice versa, but there is no benefit to the city in locking in new lines to legacy infrastructure technology, in the same way that it wouldn't make sense to buy buses with manual transmissions, or coin-only ticket vending machines. It's the industry standard technology, and there are more bidders and less design/customization work to order low floor vehicles. High floor doesn't give you a single thing that low floor trains don't.

And the second is that you want:
1). the floor of the train to be at the same level as the platform edge, which provides for safer and faster boarding, and supports people using wheelchairs, scooters, bikes, walkers, people with limited mobility, people with daschunds, basically everybody.
2). the sidewalk to be at the same level as the building door, which again provides for safe and universal access to buildings.
Given 1 and 2, if there is a substantial difference in the height of the sidewalk/buildings and the height of the platform/train floor, that adds spatial conflict. If they are both at roughly the same height, then there is no space needed for transition, and the space is maximally useful (it can function as a wide sidewalk at noon when people are going to lunch, and a wide platform at rush hour; people who need more space (e.g. wheelchair users, people hoiding hands) have more room to maneuver. If not, then you need not only a sidewalk and platform big enough to hold demand individually, but also space for transition between the two, which means at least some ramps, which take a lot of space.

For a suburban station built on a lot of land (like most of the SE stations), it doesn't much matter the difference between low and high floor -- a little more concrete and a little more space, but nothing major. For a station in an urban context near buildings -- the actual places people taking the train want to get to -- then low floor has a huge advantage in that platforms can more-or-less serve as sidewalks.

A big question I've never seen pondered is what happens after build out if N vs SE have significantly unbalanced ridership. Personally, I'm very bullish on the north and bearish on the SE. What if we get to a point where Centre St is overloading 2 car trains and either needs higher frequency and/or more cars? But the SE doesn't need either? North would be 10-12 stations, 15-18kms. But then would we have to extend another 16 stations to the SE? Or run higher than necessary frequencies for that 28 kms?

We already have unbalanced demand in the existing LRT lines, especially the northeast vs the west parts of the Blue Line, which some years ago were 2:1 in terms of ridership (the red line was 1.6:1 for the south vs the northwest). The answer is to run better service for some segments than they theoretically deserve. This is particularly less of an issue with the Green Line being a separate right of way, so it's not having to take away space from other lines. Even a low ridership LRT trip is still a ton of people to be transported by one driver. Part of the point of LRT is that the capital costs are high, but you get really cheap per-rider operating costs. Even the equivalent of 10 people rattling around on an existing LRT car is still 30 people per train, which is full seated capacity for a bus.

It is operationally possible (depending on very specific details of the line) to short turn some trains, every second southbound train could in theory turn back at say Ramsay (if the trains are at say 5+ minutes headway). But it's really not that useful; you don't save that much by not running a train for an extra 15 minutes to the end of the line, and it makes everything more complex.

 

[outoftheice]

That's a fairly disingenuous argument, it's not like the low floor cars have some sort of magical super-density, they're significantly longer!

View attachment 596628

One thing I've noticed with the low floor train in Edmonton is how the overhead wiring really ruins the the streetscape gains made by using smaller curbside stations.

While Kaohsiung's LRT uses the same Urbos 3 cars that Calgary ordered for GL, theirs are powered by super capacitors that charge at the station. I'm guessing that technology doesn't perform well in winter conditions, which is really unfortunate as the difference in visual impact is significant.

Compare:

View attachment 596629

With how GL would look running at surface down Centre St.

View attachment 596630

I don't see it as a disingenuous argument. The low floor LRVs are longer because low floor LRVs are designed to be modular where length can be adjusted easily depending on what the customer wants. To my knowledge, there are no high floor LRV designs that are comparable and so making a longer high floor LRV for Calgary would require a very specialized (read expensive) order. Just another reason why going Low floor made sense for Green Line

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

I don't see it as a disingenuous argument. The low floor LRVs are longer because low floor LRVs are designed to be modular where length can be adjusted easily depending on what the customer wants. To my knowledge, there are no high floor LRV designs that are comparable and so making a longer high floor LRV for Calgary would require a very specialized (read expensive) order. Just another reason why going Low floor made sense for Green Line.

OK, well if modularity is the argument, are the shorter LRVs not inherently more modular?

For instance, a low floor train with two of the loooong LRVs has a collision at an at-grade crossing with a dump truck. Bam, half of that train is now out of commission, whereas if a similar collision happened with a train made of four of the shorter LRVs, only a quarter of that trains capacity is lost.

For normal operations, the shorter cars could also offer more flexibility for train size at low use times of day, saving wear and tear on the LRVs.

Now to be clear, I'm not really arguing for high floor cars, I'd rather see green line built to skytrain/ALRT spec where that grade crossing collision simply wouldn't be possible!

I just don't think streetcars work for a crosstown route, and per the pics I posted above, I don't think low floor as spec'd will have the neighborhood enhancing aesthetic some people think it will..

 

[Red Star]

Just wanted to repost this paragraph by @Ramsayite because it is the absolute truth. We are chucking out decade of city planning work and replacing it with a half-assed plan drawn up in the span of 3 months that reflect the musings of a provincial government that is just thinking about the project for the first time. How anyone can think this is how business should be done is insane to me.

I think the average person has no idea how much work has gone into this right-of-way; how many ARPs, TOD sites, road alignments, streetscape upgrades, bike paths, public amenities, utility upgrades etc are hinged upon it and have been designed alongside. The risk of invalidating all of this associated work needs to be considered as part of the package of opportunity costs here. We are at serious risk of butchering a ton of associated planning work.

That's very ture.

But whether the SE LRT uses high-floor or low-floor vehicles, the ARPs, TOD sites, road alignments, streetscape upgrades, bike paths, public amenities, utility upgrades doesn't really change much. Design fees are a tiny portion of the overall construction budget.