darwink
Senior Member
^ when you’re in a rainy place, and you access control stations (and need the floor space necessary for fare gates), and you need to protect your ROW, you end up with a much higher baseline configuration.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
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CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
If you're looking for grand new stations Rome just spent a lot of time and money on this:
Red Star
Active Member
They're spending $6 billion for a 16km extension to Langley. I would hope the stations would be beautiful.
$375million per km without a MSF. Not crazy expensive for a completely grade separated line, but not cheap either.
InfrastructureEnthusiast
Active Member
While most of the stations in Asia tend to be plain and utilitarian, the effort put into the renovated main station in Kaohsiung borders on grandiose.
I particularly like the green roof they did and how it bridges the road and rail divides.
I'd love to see the same firm take on the AB HSR stations as I think both cities could benefit from a similar solution.
Kaohsiung Station
The new Kaohsiung Station is the crowning achievement of the massive Kaohsiung Metropolitan Area Underground Railway Project, which includes seven subterranean stations along a 9.75 km railway tunnel. It will be a true transportation hub integrating train, metro, local and intercity bus...
www.mecanoo.nl
I particularly like the green roof they did and how it bridges the road and rail divides.
I'd love to see the same firm take on the AB HSR stations as I think both cities could benefit from a similar solution.
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InfrastructureEnthusiast
Active Member
So for about the same price as phase 1 of SE GL they are getting a fully automated and completely elevated solution. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!
Nearby they're building the South of Fraser Maintenance and Storage Facility: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-omc5-operations-maintenance-location-surrey
Its cost is projected to be about $1 billion, but part of that comes from the Surrey-Langley Skytrain project.
Still, an amazing deal compared to what we, and Edmonton, are getting for that same ballpark of money.
Red Star
Active Member
Overall, it's not a bad price. but we'll see what the final bill is when it opens in 2029.
In all fairness, Translink is building an extension to an existing system over a government owned ROW. Calgary has to build the Greenline from scratch (land acquisition, purchase LRVs and build a MSF).
darwink
Senior Member
Yeah. Fully elevated, automated. A travesty we didn't seriously cost it as an option.
lemongrab
Active Member
Isn't the vast majority of the ROW north of 64th and south of Elbow River crossing already owned? Building this "from scratch" with different LRVs and big MSF was a self imposed choice that wasn't necessarily necessary for the SE leg. it would be a more fair excuse if we were talking about the north line.
And are you sure that the additional LRVs for that extension aren't included in the Translink budget?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Do we really think people would've been fine with a fully elevated line?
It could've worked fine on what they're building now, including the downtown section but beyond that I cannot see people getting behind elevated along 52nd Street in the southeast and along Centre Street in the north. Could they have ran those sections, 52nd Street and Centre Street, in a trench and underground/in a trench respectively? I think they could've. I assume they didn't even consider it.
It could've worked fine on what they're building now, including the downtown section but beyond that I cannot see people getting behind elevated along 52nd Street in the southeast and along Centre Street in the north. Could they have ran those sections, 52nd Street and Centre Street, in a trench and underground/in a trench respectively? I think they could've. I assume they didn't even consider it.
InfrastructureEnthusiast
Active Member
I think the project can still be salvaged, there aren't that many changes needed to remove the few grade crossings phase 1 has.
I think elevated on center could be an easy enough sell given a cost comparison to underground, and a service level comparison against recent low floor fails in other 'cities'
Coincidentally, the current skytrain extension is roughly the same length of center from 16av to end of line.
It may seem like a small thing to some, but I think skytrain vs ctrain as is will mean Vancouver will always have an edge when attracting tech companies and talent.
You could argue that may be the case regardless, but ALRT does leave a good first impression on visitors, it's a subtle way of saying 'yes, this is a smart city'
kora
Active Member
Centre Street is more like Broadway in Vancouver. They went underground with Skytrain technology there because there isn't enough room for elevated. Same parallel with Centre Street. Elevated on a street with a limited right-of-way results in New-York-Queens-style elevated hellscapes.
There is a little bit of that in New Westminster. It might be bad/not too bad - I've never been to this street in person:
InfrastructureEnthusiast
Active Member
Center St has nowhere near the density of the Broadway corridor, and per the pic above we aren't talking about iron age el-trains
The concrete guideway won't be invisible, but think of that as part of the sales pitch.
Having a highly visible transit solution that always moves faster than competing travel modes will induce more new users than a mixed traffic solution that offers little or no speed advantage, and is subject to many disruptions and delays.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
There are also not the same underground issues in the north as downtown. Could do a cut and cover on Centre Street until north of 16th and then go under 41st Ave, McKnight, and 64th Ave. That would alleviate a lot of the conflict so many other lines have with cars because otherwise the Green Line would be a priority over vehicle traffic.