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Calgary Regional Rail Transit

This project(projects?) recently has seemed fairly amateur-ish. I also am having a hard time figuring out who the stakeholders are and what their roles are supposed to be:
  • Liricon Capital/Norquay owners
  • Canada Infrastructure Bank
  • CP Rail
  • Municipalities (Calgary, Cochrane, Stoney Nation, Canmore, Banff, Rockyview County etc.)
  • Banff National Park
  • Calgary Airport Authority
  • Province of Alberta
Did the Bow Valley Mass Transit Study play into this or is separate? Does the airport Trail study work/people mover factor into any of this or just ignored?

It seems like most of these stakeholders have publicly said they agree it's a pretty good idea for transit connection but apart from the one study, we haven't heard much on stations, technology, speed, capacity, owner/operator possibilities, who's leading this etc.

I get the sense because there's some strange reluctance for the public (probably best the Province's role if other canadian cities inter-city transit are to be modelled after) to take a more firm control over this project's planning stages, route creation and performance goals, it's being left to a hodge-podge of others that don't/can't really make this project make sense or be delivered coherently.
 
Another new rendering dropped of the train and mixed use development at the airport:
1646875005726.png
 
CBBarnett said:
This project(projects?) recently has seemed fairly amateur-ish. I also am having a hard time figuring out who the stakeholders are and what their roles are supposed to be:
  • Liricon Capital/Norquay owners
  • Canada Infrastructure Bank
  • CP Rail
  • Municipalities (Calgary, Cochrane, Stoney Nation, Canmore, Banff, Rockyview County etc.)
  • Banff National Park
  • Calgary Airport Authority
  • Province of Alberta
Did the Bow Valley Mass Transit Study play into this or is separate? Does the airport Trail study work/people mover factor into any of this or just ignored?

It seems like most of these stakeholders have publicly said they agree it's a pretty good idea for transit connection but apart from the one study, we haven't heard much on stations, technology, speed, capacity, owner/operator possibilities, who's leading this etc.

I get the sense because there's some strange reluctance for the public (probably best the Province's role if other canadian cities inter-city transit are to be modelled after) to take a more firm control over this project's planning stages, route creation and performance goals, it's being left to a hodge-podge of others that don't/can't really make this project make sense or be delivered coherently.
Click to expand...
I guess being a private entity they've been able to get away with a minimal amount of details on this. They have MOUs with all those other stakeholders but that's about it. Now that its on to the design stage I hope there's people looking at previous studies (train to airport connector study, Mass Transit Study, Airport Trail study, etc.) There needs to be public oversight over this, if it's done wrong there's no going back. Granted I've seen some public train projects go off the rails... ha (line to NAIT in Edmonton, Greenline (so far)).
 
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CalgaryTiger said:
I guess being a private entity they've been able to get away with a minimal amount of details on this. They have MOUs with all those other stakeholders but that's about it. Now that its on to the design stage I hope there's people looking at previous studies (train to airport connector study, Mass Transit Study, Airport Trail study, etc.) There needs to be public oversight over this, if it's done wrong there's no going back. Granted I've seen some public train projects go off the rails... ha (line to NAIT in Edmonton, Greenline (so far)).
Click to expand...
Yeah public involvement isn't a guarantee for success of course, but I don't think you can get a good quality link without the province taking a far greater role coordinating things. The other stakeholders are naturally myopic and/or have limitations on what they can achieve on their own.

Of course, this assumes the province acts with some degree of understanding about what makes an intercity train "good", works well with other stakeholders, and acts in the long-term public interest towards a resilient transportation system. Not a lot of evidence that those assumptions are valid.
 
CBBarnett said:
This project(projects?) recently has seemed fairly amateur-ish. I also am having a hard time figuring out who the stakeholders are and what their roles are supposed to be:
  • Liricon Capital/Norquay owners
  • Canada Infrastructure Bank
  • CP Rail
  • Municipalities (Calgary, Cochrane, Stoney Nation, Canmore, Banff, Rockyview County etc.)
  • Banff National Park
  • Calgary Airport Authority
  • Province of Alberta
Did the Bow Valley Mass Transit Study play into this or is separate? Does the airport Trail study work/people mover factor into any of this or just ignored?

It seems like most of these stakeholders have publicly said they agree it's a pretty good idea for transit connection but apart from the one study, we haven't heard much on stations, technology, speed, capacity, owner/operator possibilities, who's leading this etc.

I get the sense because there's some strange reluctance for the public (probably best the Province's role if other canadian cities inter-city transit are to be modelled after) to take a more firm control over this project's planning stages, route creation and performance goals, it's being left to a hodge-podge of others that don't/can't really make this project make sense or be delivered coherently.
Click to expand...
Their failure to get traction on a comparatively simple gondola project (train station to Norquay base), involving only Parks Canada and Town of Banff, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

Their best asset at this point is crony-connections with the UCP...hopefully that advantage disappears in ~14 months or less.


Not to de-rail, but at this point the best use of earmarked capital funds IMO would be Green Line SE BRT, and sink those other billions into regional airport-DT rail, with a stop or two along the Nose Creek alignment. Green Line north should still be a huge priority, but this would deliver far more impact in the short-medium, and frankly long-term than the current green-line moneypit.
 
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lemongrab said:
Their failure to get traction on a comparatively simple gondola project (train station to Norquay base), involving only Parks Canada and Town of Banff, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

Their best asset at this point is crony-connections with the UCP...hopefully that advantage disappears in ~14 months or less.


Not to de-rail, but at this point the best use of earmarked capital funds IMO would be Green Line SE BRT, and sink those other billions into regional airport-DT rail, with a stop or two along the Nose Creek alignment. Green Line north should still be a huge priority, but this would deliver far more impact in the short-medium, and frankly long-term than the current green-line moneypit.
Click to expand...
Parks Canada is notoriously unreasonable and difficult to work with so I wouldn't read anything into that. Also, the initial proposal was for a gondola to the top of Mt. Norquay (not the base) which Parks viewed as a tourist attraction as opposed to transportation infrastructure.

Plenary seems to have a ton of experience on major transportation projects, so I don't think the criticism of the proposal as being amateurish is valid. Strategically speaking, if you think it's a good idea to build airport-DT rail (which has rarely shown any material economic benefit in other cities) why wouldn't we integrate it with a rail project that supports the development of our tourism sector (an important, counter-cyclical part of the economy with a ton of room for growth)? Especially if you can use that angle to secure additional third party funding that wouldn't typically go to a mass transit project.
lemongrab said:
Their best asset at this point is crony-connections with the UCP...hopefully that advantage disappears in ~14 months or less.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. 😄
 
artvandelay said:
Parks Canada is notoriously unreasonable and difficult to work with so I wouldn't read anything into that. Also, the initial proposal was for a gondola to the top of Mt. Norquay (not the base) which Parks viewed as a tourist attraction as opposed to transportation infrastructure.

Plenary seems to have a ton of experience on major transportation projects, so I don't think the criticism of the proposal as being amateurish is valid. Strategically speaking, if you think it's a good idea to build airport-DT rail (which has rarely shown any material economic benefit in other cities) why wouldn't we integrate it with a rail project that supports the development of our tourism sector (an important, counter-cyclical part of the economy with a ton of room for growth)? Especially if you can use that angle to secure additional third party funding that wouldn't typically go to a mass transit project.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. 😄
Click to expand...

Weird, not sure how I missed the summit detail (I wasn't really versed in the proposal when it was originally presented). It actually looks like it would be a 3 stage gondola - townsite to base, base to cliffhouse (NA Chair terminal); then on to summit - with a 'pavilion' of some sort and boardwalks, this last bit being outside their leasehold.

People love to paint Parks Canada as an impassable barrier to development, but Lake Louise and Brewsters (Skywalk) show that it is really not the case. Even the previous owners of Norquay achieved substantial gains around 2011-2013 with via-ferrata summer ops and the cliffhouse refurb.

I think people can be too quick to assess competency based on rendering quality alone, but I think it's fair to have a general impression that there are way too many unanswered questions in both of their proposals. Reminiscent of CalgaryNext. If your proposal is light on details, you should probably make sure it jumps off the page visually.
 
Important to remember that this isn't a normal public project. We aren't seeing what we've become used to in public projects, because it isn't a public project.

What they have now:
An MOU from the Airport
An endorsement from Banff, Calgary, Cochrane, and Canmore (Canmore was not a given - there was an anti-project streak on their past town council), with a crucial line "We recognize that a project of this magnitude requires significant planning and resources locally and regionally" -- a signal that those 4 municipalities won't be mad if the province contributes to this project
An MOU from the CPR

So another person asked, what are the rolls:
  • Liricon Capital/Norquay owners
    • Convenors, start up capital funders, project proponent
  • Canada Infrastructure Bank
    • Investor, outside economic modeller
  • CP Rail
    • land and rail capacity partner
  • Municipalities (Calgary, Cochrane, Stoney Nation, Canmore, Banff, Rockyview County etc.)
    • Host communities
  • Banff National Park
    • Regulator
  • Calgary Airport Authority
    • Partner (and I hear funding partner too)
  • Province of Alberta
    • procurer of the availability of passenger rail transportation service between Banff, Calgary downtown, and YYC
    • regulator
And what was the roll of the study from 3 years back? It helped show a project like this is feasible. The near simultaneous Calgary Economic Development study showed that the subsidy in the corridor study needed to do rail was very likely to be worth it from a government investment perspective.
 
lemongrab said:
Weird, not sure how I missed the summit detail (I wasn't really versed in the proposal when it was originally presented). It actually looks like it would be a 3 stage gondola - townsite to base, base to cliffhouse (NA Chair terminal); then on to summit - with a 'pavilion' of some sort and boardwalks, this last bit being outside their leasehold.

People love to paint Parks Canada as an impassable barrier to development, but Lake Louise and Brewsters (Skywalk) show that it is really not the case. Even the previous owners of Norquay achieved substantial gains around 2011-2013 with via-ferrata summer ops and the cliffhouse refurb.

I think people can be too quick to assess competency based on rendering quality alone, but I think it's fair to have a general impression that there are way too many unanswered questions in both of their proposals. Reminiscent of CalgaryNext. If your proposal is light on details, you should probably make sure it jumps off the page visually.
Click to expand...
Liricon plans to resubmit a Banff townsite to Norquay base gondola to parks canada following the approval of a town of banff arp for the rail station lands.
 
darwink said:
Liricon plans to resubmit a Banff townsite to Norquay base gondola to parks canada following the approval of a town of banff arp for the rail station lands.
Click to expand...

That must be where I've gotten the sense of scope for most recent discussions. I can understand the desire for a gondola to the top, but I'd be sad to see the Big Chair die. I haven't come across any details that really differentiate the summit aspect from the existing set-up at Sulphur Mountain. Both summits are actually on the same mountain chain (the connection eroded away by the Bow River). Perhaps it was actually just an ambitious bargaining anchor.
 
From a strategic perspective for Calgary, I think it makes a lot of sense to have the rail station at the Nose Creek Alignment and have it served by the Airport Trail people mover. We need a longterm strategy for regional rail, and that needs to include a line to Edmonton (possibly high speed) and also probably a line south to Okotoks/High River/beyond. Given all that, it makes sense to build infrastructure that can be shared by all 3 lines in the form of the Nose Creek station.

The way they plan it in the video seems to actively work against RouteAhead, which would be bad for our public transit longterm.
 
jhappy77 said:
From a strategic perspective for Calgary, I think it makes a lot of sense to have the rail station at the Nose Creek Alignment and have it served by the Airport Trail people mover. We need a longterm strategy for regional rail, and that needs to include a line to Edmonton (possibly high speed) and also probably a line south to Okotoks/High River/beyond. Given all that, it makes sense to build infrastructure that can be shared by all 3 lines in the form of the Nose Creek station.

The way they plan it in the video seems to actively work against RouteAhead, which would be bad for our public transit longterm.
Click to expand...
They could always do both, the line runs along nose creek and the CP tracks before going over Deerfoot. that way you'd have the connectivity as well as the one-seat ride to DT and Banff from the airport
 
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jhappy77 said:
From a strategic perspective for Calgary, I think it makes a lot of sense to have the rail station at the Nose Creek Alignment and have it served by the Airport Trail people mover. We need a longterm strategy for regional rail, and that needs to include a line to Edmonton (possibly high speed) and also probably a line south to Okotoks/High River/beyond. Given all that, it makes sense to build infrastructure that can be shared by all 3 lines in the form of the Nose Creek station.

The way they plan it in the video seems to actively work against RouteAhead, which would be bad for our public transit longterm.
Click to expand...
If you find an extra billion bucks for the people mover that will make the trip worse - sure I guess could do that. The heavy rail should be seen as complimentary and not in competition. Not like the Green Line will be up to 96th until the late 2030s/early 2040s anyways.
 
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