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

[lemongrab]

Here is a funny one from the report Walcott posted.
Only too late did they realize underground stations cost $400 million EACH. My word. And they somehow think underground is cheaper?
View attachment 620794
I had speculated that the underground stations were in the $200 million range before, but, wow.

Those numbers seem a little funny, too.

Not building a deep(ish?) station = $300M less for doing nothing

Building a surface station instead of a shallow station = $400M less for still doing something...

 

[accord1999]

From the July 30 press conference, it was reported that deferring the Centre Street station was also going to save $400M.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1818467423642866094

And I think from the way they phrase it as a "deferral", that they were still going to build the station box for it which would be still a significant expense. I wouldn't be surprised if the 7th Av station was going to cost as much as the Event Centre.

The cost for the Sunalta station in early 2010s dollars by comparison:

 

[darwink]

Not building a deep(ish?) station = $300M less for doing nothing

Building a surface station instead of a shallow station = $400M less for still doing something...

The deferral would be still building the volume, and presumably evacuation stair cases, some air handling, but nothing else.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

This would require every level to agree to the scope change. Materially, while it builds different things, it is not actually different from the city's Lynnwood plan strategically.

For the downtown section you get back to contractibility, with a project that is all the downtown segment. Since the risk is so high, to meet the city's demands for fixed cost, the full risk has to be costed into the project, which leads to a huge cost. This was rejected by the province in 2021.

Does the province need to establish some sort of crown corp for tunneling, like the planned TransLink clone?

Between Calgary and Edmonton there could be enough tunneling projects to keep an in province specialist team busy for a good long while.

Turn the risk of some of the projects from huge contract overages into additional time for a salaried crew.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

Here is a funny one from the report Walcott posted.
Only too late did they realize underground stations cost $400 million EACH. My word. And they somehow think underground is cheaper?
View attachment 620794
I had speculated that the underground stations were in the $200 million range before, but, wow.

That sounds wildly inflated... What are the station costs for the Broadway extension in Vancouver?

 

[lemongrab]

The deferral would be still building the volume, and presumably evacuation stair cases, some air handling, but nothing else.

That makes sense. Still seems...kinda nuts? Escalators, elevators, proper HVAC, lighting, mezzanine level, platforms...I'm sure I'm missing dozens of things, but how the hell do you get to $300M? And at that price tag, how does that ever get built in the future ahead of pretty much any other project?

 

[Beltline_B]

This would require every level to agree to the scope change. Materially, while it builds different things, it is not actually different from the city's Lynnwood plan strategically.

For the downtown section you get back to contractibility, with a project that is all the downtown segment. Since the risk is so high, to meet the city's demands for fixed cost, the full risk has to be costed into the project, which leads to a huge cost. This was rejected by the province in 2021.

Agreed. It’s not much different than the city’s Lynnwood plan but it’s something the province would agree to and fund, seeing as they didn’t wanna fund the Lynnwood plan.
I’ve been told but haven’t confirmed that the federal funding runs out in March if we don’t have an approved plan. If the federal funding runs out, wouldn’t the project be more or less dead?

 

[darwink]

Does the province need to establish some sort of crown corp for tunneling, like the planned TransLink clone?

Between Calgary and Edmonton there could be enough tunneling projects to keep an in province specialist team busy for a good long while.

Turn the risk of some of the projects from huge contract overages into additional time for a salaried crew.

No. Misdiagnosing the problem as a lack of technical expertise. The city needs to learn how to govern projects better. Not how to dig in bad geology better. There is no way to improve digging if council isn’t asking and not asking the right questions, and staff doesn’t feel empowered to answer no to council requests.

If council doesn’t change its governance, inserting another layer of delivery organization in between does not solve the problem. This was already tried by adding the green line board, but it was empowered with too little decision making authority to actually right the project. It wasn’t even empowered to give advice to try to fix the project the way that made the most sense, which in the end caused the province to reject the proposal (after accepting it, which was a giant error on the province’s part).

 

[Beltline_B]

Sewing discontent is no reason to do something. You do it because we have never stopped adding on to our LRT lines, we won't start with the Green Line.

Agreed, and it’s not the way we’ve done it in the past, and not the way it should be done but this is a new reality.
This project was given the green light in 2017 and here we are in 2024 still nothing.
The past, we didn’t have to rely on the UCP, but things have changed.

 

[darwink]

That sounds wildly inflated... What are the station costs for the Broadway extension in Vancouver?

In the $200 million range underground, but that was all contracted awhile ago now.

The 4th street de underground station needed to be large enough to handle surge traffic from the event centre. That’s a hard thing to do. Underground expanding in any dimension grows your cost by the cube.

 

[darwink]

Agreed. It’s not much different than the city’s Lynnwood plan but it’s something the province would agree to and fund, seeing as they didn’t wanna fund the Lynnwood plan.
I’ve been told but haven’t confirmed that the federal funding runs out in March if we don’t have an approved plan. If the federal funding runs out, wouldn’t the project be more or less dead?

The province has explicitly said it would not agree to stopping the line at 4th. You are correct, the project needs to begin in March or it is no longer eligible. From the Feds’ perspective this project was supposed to be done at the latest at the end of march 2027.

 

[darwink]

That makes sense. Still seems...kinda nuts? Escalators, elevators, proper HVAC, lighting, mezzanine level, platforms...I'm sure I'm missing dozens of things, but how the hell do you get to $300M? And at that price tag, how does that ever get built in the future ahead of pretty much any other project?

Keeping walls from bucking inwards is hard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ building things to last 50 years in that box is also hard.

 

[lemongrab]

Keeping walls from bucking inwards is hard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ building things to last 50 years in that box is also hard.

But I thought the first part of that (the whole not collapsing thing) wasn't part of the $300M? But it sounds like they wouldn't do all of the other digging for egress/elevators/etc until later?


Can anyone ELI5 how the worst case tunnel scenario would play out? Is it kinda like they'd be in quick sand/groundwater and can't construct a solid enough base (so then of course they can't build strong enough walls/ceiling)? At that point are you having to drill deeper to build supports like you're building a bridge...underground? Is there a relevant example of tunnelling gone wrong that I could read about?

 

[Beltline_B]

The province has explicitly said it would not agree to stopping the line at 4th. You are correct, the project needs to begin in March or it is no longer eligible. From the Feds’ perspective this project was supposed to be done at the latest at the end of march 2027.

I haven’t followed the project as much as others, but I thought the UCP wanted it to run from Seton to the envisioned grand central station.
You’ve followed this a lot closer than I have, based on what you’ve seen or heard, do you feel confident the city and province will work this out before March?

 

[Chinook Arch]

This won't be a popular take, but hear me out. With the feds funding contingent on having an approved plan by March, we go ahead and get this built from Seton(or Shepard) to Victoria Park, and get the phase through downtown built later.

The reasoning
a) That portion has to get built one way or another, we can build it with funding from the Feds and the Province
b) The lack of proper connectivity will cause SE residents to either vent their malcontent to the PCs and push them into helping building the DT portion
c) The lack of proper connectivity will cause SE residents to either vent their malcontent by voting in the NDP because the NDP made campaign promises to finish the DT portion.

I welcome people to disagree and explain why they disagree, as I'm open to better options. I don't love this option, but it seems like the only feasible one given the timelines and the amount of screw ups.

I have this bad feeling we’ll be stuck doing whatever the province wants. The UCP knows the deadline for the feds funding is March and they’re dragging this out so the city will have no choice but to do what the province wants.
At the end of the day the UCP has all the power. At least until election time.