[ByeByeBaby]

Over the years, the 3 has had service cuts and the 301 has had service increases -- the right thing to do, IMO. When the 301 started, (Sept. 2004) it had 6 buses an hour in the peak, and only 2 an hour in the offpeak. The 3 meanwhile had 10 buses an hour in the peak, and 6 in the offpeak. Today, the 301 has 10 in the peak and 5 in the offpeak, while the 3 has 8 in the peak, and 4 in the offpeak.

A lot of the service on the corridor in the peaks is express buses serving the communities north of Beddington Trail as well as Sandstone/Hidden Valley. I was today years old when I learned that they technically stop at the same stops as the 301. When the Green Line gets to 64th, those (inefficient) express buses will be killed and folded into standard feeder service, one of the other reasons for the big ridership jump. The same thing will happen at Shepard; there's a bundle of express routes serving Greater Douglasdale that will be converted into feeder buses.

Here's the peak service on Centre Street:

 

[jhappy77]

When the Green Line reaches Beddington, you might as well reroute a lot of the northern feeder routes to terminate at Beddington instead of North Pointe too.

 

[Transit Apologist]

When the Green Line reaches Beddington, you might as well reroute a lot of the northern feeder routes to terminate at Beddington instead of North Pointe too.

Beddington will never have enough bus bays for North Pointe routes plus the routes that will use it anyway, and many more successful North Pointe routes (8, 100, 124) will lose efficiency by being forced to travel an extra ~30 blocks south. It would be better to keep the 301 as a short-term measure, perhaps short-turning at Beddington instead of going all the way to downtown, until the line can be extended. This measure would be similar to the former route 461, which connected South Health Campus to the 23/302 before they could be extended further on 52 Street.

 

[whatchyyc]

They didn't build the shortcut bus bays for nothing

 

[jhappy77]

Here’s a concept for an alternative downtown green line alignment. My aim was to make something that could be dramatically cheaper without compromising on speed and grade separation. Obviously it seems like the current alignment will be moving ahead (especially given the enabling work being done underground) but this is at the very least interesting food for thought.

It woud cut the amount of tunneling necessary by just under 50%, and crucially go from 4 underground stations to 2 underground stations. And it would do all this while avoiding grade conflicts with any major roads, and maintaining good station alignments.

In SE downtown, it would run next to the train tracks and expand the existing rail bridges over the Macleod and 4th St E underpasses. Consequently, the 5th St E station would be a block and a half further from the new event centre. Instead, we could kill 2 birds with 1 stone and integrate the 5th St station directly into a new regional rail station planned for this site. The same pedestrian overpass/underpass used to connect both sides of the Green Line tracks could be expanded northwards to also serve the EB & WB future rail platforms, as well as provide a connection to East Village.

2nd St would become an exclusive Green Line ROW North of 3rd Avenue – this would be fine because every avenue past 3rd essentially deadends anyways. The expensive-looking “landmark” Eau Claire station would be dropped and replaced with a City Hall type surface station that is closer to the major trip generators (nearby office towers, Chinatown).

 

[badc0ffee]

I remember they considered something like that, but we kept hearing that there absolutely had to be a station at 12 Ave. And a transition from there to the tracks impacted either redevelopment potential at the Vic Park garage, or impacted the existing red line tunnel, so we ended up with the plan we have now.

City Considers Two Additional Options for Beltline Green Line Segment | SkyriseCalgary

The City analyzes another two alignment options for the troublesome Beltline segment of the Green Line LRT.

calgary.skyrisecities.com

Setting aside the 12 Ave issue, and looking at your proposal, I think the 5 St SE station is actually in a good spot, not too far from the Stampede grounds or most of the EV. But Centre St near 10 Ave is very close to a number of existing stations on 7 Ave. So maybe you can just drop it entirely.

Also I don't know how you could be underground at 1 st SE, and at grade at Macleod, and not conflict with the underpasses on those streets.

Finally, it still keeps what I consider the worst part of the current proposal (cost aside) - it takes up two lanes of Centre Street just north of the bridge (a 4-lane bridge that is busy enough to have a reversible lane). I think street running only makes sense north of 16 Ave, but now I'm missing the point and adding more tunnel...

 

[accord1999]

Finally, it still keeps what I consider the worst part of the current proposal (cost aside) - it takes up two lanes of Centre Street just north of the bridge (a 4-lane bridge that is busy enough to have a reversible lane). I think street running only makes sense north of 16 Ave, but now I'm missing the point and adding more tunnel...

You're just adding back the tunnel that everybody understood was needed... Until they no longer had enough money for the other sections.

 

[lemongrab]

I'll play with a very quick drawing. Retain plan as current but turn north from Beltline up 1st St SW using existing underpass.

Expropriate the parking lot I'm cutting through (assessed value of just those surface lots is about $14M, so probably slightly cheaper than the current condo expropriation, and we aren't demolishing any homes). City already owns the strip south of the Chine Elderly Association, and I'd probably put a surface station there.

Then run up the Centre Street Bridge, saving many many millions.

 

[badc0ffee]

I think planners would have loved using the Centre St bridge, but IIRC it can't take the weight of trains, or can't support a track bed, or something. (Ironically it used to carry a streetcar over the Bow, which then went up 1 St NE).

 

[badc0ffee]

You're just adding back the tunnel that everybody understood was needed... Until they no longer had enough money for the other sections.

I suspect that once the phase from Eau Claire-Shepard is built, or at least once the costs are "finalized", we will see a proposal put forward with a tunnel on Centre St.

 

[FCC1982]

^Man I hope so.

 

[ssiguy2]

I'm not sure I posed this question earlier but whatever..............When building the downtown tunnel for the Green Line are they also going to build a LRT station underneath it for any future downtown East/West tunnel for the existing CTrains? Toronto did this years ago with the non-used Queen Street station under Yonge. Never used but portions will be for the new Ontario Line. Even if they don't build a whole station, even an empty shell would save huge amounts of time and money for an eventual downtown East/West tunnel.

 

[accord1999]

I think planners would have loved using the Centre St bridge, but IIRC it can't take the weight of trains, or can't support a track bed, or something. (Ironically it used to carry a streetcar over the Bow, which then went up 1 St NE).

In 2016 planners did evaluate an option using Centre Street but they ranked it poorly, well-behind the full tunnel Option D.

And when they reviewed alternatives for 2020, the NC LRT options use the Centre Street bridge but terminate at 6 St and can't connect with the SE LRT, so new information about the ground may no longer allow them to connect if Centre Street is used to enter downtown.

 

[jhappy77]

I remember they considered something like that, but we kept hearing that there absolutely had to be a station at 12 Ave. And a transition from there to the tracks impacted either redevelopment potential at the Vic Park garage, or impacted the existing red line tunnel, so we ended up with the plan we have now.

Also I don't know how you could be underground at 1 st SE, and at grade at Macleod, and not conflict with the underpasses on those streets.

Yeah, as nice as it would be for the green line to give better access to the Beltline, I really doubt the extra 100m of walking saved from having a station on 11 Ave versus 10 Ave is worth all that extra tunneling money. The cost/benefit ratio of extending further to reach underserved neighborhoods is probably much better.

The parking lot between the 2 Macleods has about 150m of space diagonally – this is around the same amount of space the red line takes to descend underneath Crowchild between University and Banff Trail. So it may actually be plausible for the train to descend underground then align itself underneath 10 Ave using that space.

I suspect that once the phase from Eau Claire-Shepard is built, or at least once the costs are "finalized", we will see a proposal put forward with a tunnel on Centre St.

I also feel it’s probably not worth tunneling under Center St. It just screams $$$, and it would only save 1 lane of traffic per direction, and only for like 800m - the Green Line will be running up the rest of Center St anyways. It would also make a 9th Ave Station potentially impossible (IIRC) and/or force the 16th Ave Station to be underground (more $$$). While it's not ideal I think we could cope with loosing that lane just fine, especially since we build transit is to get people out of cars in the first place, and any extra remaining traffic can use alternatives like Edmonton Trail which is 400m away.

That said, we should try to avoid an at-grade crossing with 16th Avenue though. The best strategy would be to dig a trench for 16th Ave to go underneath Centre St, similar to the downtown underpasses. It would be expensive, but not mind numbingly expensive, and it wouldn’t interfere with where you can put the Green Line stations. Then traffic on 16th can keep moving smoothly and the green line never gets stuck at that traffic light.

 

[badc0ffee]

it would only save 1 lane of traffic per direction, and only for like 800m - the Green Line will be running up the rest of Center St anyways

But that's where that traffic to/from the bridge is going - on to 16th Ave. So it's ok to have a narrower Centre St North of there. (It's already 1 lane+parking each way near 40 Ave N).

It would also make a 9th Ave Station potentially impossible (IIRC) and/or force the 16th Ave Station to be underground (more $$$)

I think 9th being impossible due to extreme depth was only true when tunneling under the Bow. But with a bridge that enters the escarpment, for example, the station could be shallow.

The best strategy would be to dig a trench for 16th Ave to go underneath Centre St, similar to the downtown underpasses

I think that doesn't work - it would prevent turns on to 16th from Centre and vice versa. It would also make that intersection even more horrible in a number of ways.

I don't think we can avoid the 16th station being underground (or elevated), unless it's not actually at 16th, but at like 18th or 14th.