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Calgary Transit

Absolutely, that’s the only reason this station will exist, is to transfer to the airport. If you look in a map, it’s so close to the Saddletowne station that there’s no other reason for it
Yeah, one of the reasons the Blue Line station ends up elevated is the airport line having a vertical transfer.
Kind of an awkward arrangement - like many stations, 88 Avenue's local land use sucks - storm ponds, a future interchange and low density take up the majority of "potential" on this one, which will probably evolve into a pretty important transfer point one day.

Also awkward is the bus network consolidates around the higher capacity Saddletowne loop, so any transit non-Blue Line doesn't go here (although it could through a network redesign). But even a redesign creates awkward dilemmas for route and stop design - we now will have two semi-important transfer points a few hundred metres apart instead of one more seamless one. The cost is a bunch of busses messing around with stops too close together, yet both important to have a time-point to try to accommodate both.

Lots of my concerns (apart from bad land use) may be mitigated once we see the design and route rearrangements, but so far I am unconvinced this 88 Avenue one is going to work out as good as it could be.
 
I'm confused, why is 88th elevated? Is this where it is supposed to be? Guess it is right beside a strip mall. Too bad there wasn't more space at Saddletown to run the airport line down there.
1738173943022.png
 
I'm confused, why is 88th elevated? Is this where it is supposed to be? Guess it is right beside a strip mall. Too bad there wasn't more space at Saddletown to run the airport line down there.
A couple reasons.
1: The land is wet.
1738174933209.png

1738174999124.png

2: The land owned by the city isn't wide/flexible
1738175103294.png

3: Airport Trail and 60th will have an interchange, and the LRT needs to go over.
1738175683510.png

and finally:
The selection of an automated people mover to reduce the transfer penalties from the blue and green lines, protect the frequencies of the northern blue and green lines, and greatly increase frequency on the airport line, necessitates that users not use level crossings to access the platforms of the people mover. Nor is it desirable to set the geometry to solve this problem with a long walk (see transfer penalty).
So we rejected this (from 2012):
1738176937580.png

we end up with:
1738177721874.png


The two level iteration may have been from consultation documents for the current ongoing study--it isn't on any website I can find.
 

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A couple reasons.
1: The land is wet.
View attachment 628510
View attachment 628511
2: The land owned by the city isn't wide/flexible
View attachment 628512
3: Airport Trail and 60th will have an interchange, and the LRT needs to go over.
View attachment 628513
and finally:
The selection of an automated people mover to reduce the transfer penalties from the blue and green lines, protect the frequencies of the northern blue and green lines, and greatly increase frequency on the airport line, necessitates that users not use level crossings to access the platforms of the people mover. Nor is it desirable to set the geometry to solve this problem with a long walk (see transfer penalty).
So we rejected this (from 2012):
View attachment 628515
we end up with:
View attachment 628518

The two level iteration may have been from consultation documents for the current ongoing study--it isn't on any website I can find.
Appreciate the thorough breakdown.
 
I don't know enough about the area (we could really use a google maps satellite update!), but would a single station at 194th make more sense?

The active only link across the slough/Macleod suggested here would be much nicer, but this seems a classic case of letting low priority 'city building' projects explode the budget for the transit project. I'm guessing they want to build a big park and ride at that spot further north...
 
Those sloughs are probably a good idea environmentally, but man do they make for bad land use for everyone but drivers.
 
Those sloughs are probably a good idea environmentally, but man do they make for bad land use for everyone but drivers.
Transit-adjacent stormwater infrastructure is a major made-in-Calgary land use outcome. A slough and overly-wide highway utility corridor with zero population growth potential eating half your catchment for 3 kms is fairly par for the course.

Belmont might be different - I thought has a fairly large density town centre scheme I thought? I haven't heard much about it in years, but if designed right might be a good add. Will be interesting with the train facility competing for space there.

This extension's project is similar to the Greenline's sprawl problem again, but on a smaller scale - to get to the "good stuff", you need to spend a ton of money just to skip the less-than-ideal land uses, rivers, sough, and low margin scrap lands.
 
Maybe I'm on my own but a red line extension to 210 Ave feels very low on my priority list. A MAX Purple Extension and 52nd Street BRT should happen long before a red line extension.

Maybe they need the Maintenance and Storage facility? Like the same facility for the Green Line, how does this not include a bus barn to replace Victoria Park?
 
Maybe I'm on my own but a red line extension to 210 Ave feels very low on my priority list. A MAX Purple Extension and 52nd Street BRT should happen long before a red line extension.

Maybe they need the Maintenance and Storage facility? Like the same facility for the Green Line, how does this not include a bus barn to replace Victoria Park?
It should be a fairly cheap LRT extension.

1. There are zero elevated, trenched or underground portions of the line.
2. There are zero at grade crossings or overpasses needed. (194th is already built and the 210th Ave overpass will be built regardless)

The maintenance facility will be expensive, but a new one is needed anyways, and it makes more sense to place a maintenance facility near the terminus.
 
I don't know enough about the area (we could really use a google maps satellite update!), but would a single station at 194th make more sense?
If you have Google Earth on the desktop, often its historical imagery will allow you to select a newer image set than the default used by it or Google Maps. For that area, there is imagery from last October:

1739435294509.png
 

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