FCC1982
Active Member
Is it actually feasible to interline all 3 lines on 7th Ave.?
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
FCC1982
Active Member
^This seems like the best alternate option I’ve read so far.
Actually, I’d prefer if the Green Line shared the 8th Ave. tunnel with the Red Line up to 2nd St. SW and then turned north to terminate at the surface level Eau Claire station per the last GL plan.
The Red line would utilize the full 8th Ave tunnel to the west end of Downtown where it turns north per the current future 8th Ave. subway plan.
If it’s too expensive to construct the 8th Ave. tunnel now could they run all three lines on 7th Ave for the next 10 years ?
And my final question:
Is there a long-range plan for a tunnel under 7th Ave. In addition to the 8th Ave. tunnel ?
FCC1982
Active Member
DP
accord1999
Active Member
There's a study from 2006 that actually claims the limit on 7th Avenue is 36 trains/hour in one direction.
I'm not sure if 36/hour really is possible. But due to loss of DT employment, WFH and other commute shifts, rush hour demand doesn't appear to have grown as expected. Right now the Red Line can't even use 4-car trains because of work at Haysboro and its peak frequency is still only about every five minutes. With 4-car trains, there should be room to reduce frequencies on the Red and Blue Lines to fit in 5-6 trains/hour for the SE which should be sufficient for the short-term and get an understanding for what the ridership from the SE will actually be. Whether it's enough to justify the 8th Avenue Subway, or to start on an independent NCLRT.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I’d be interested in knowing the data, but Red Line ridership includes a lot of pass-through traffic to get to the NW university and SAIT.
7th Avenue is a beast of ground-level efficiency, but it’s also slow. Trains can only go 20km/h for most of the core due to so many stations, a ton of trains, and the sharp turns to enter and exit the core for the Red Line. A subway could simplify this and centralize the number of stations to 3 for the whole core, allowing the trains to go faster.
Removing the red line also opens up consideration for what to do about Blue Line west. It has the lowest ridership, but frequency is high because of high demand on the NE line. You don’t need that many trains on the far west blue line.
Perhaps the play is:
1. Red line subway, remove from 7th.
2. Add greenline to 7th.
3. Extend green/blue to MRU from Westbrook.
O-tac
Active Member
Nope. But they’re pushing it anyways and wasting money on a consultation to justify it.
Red Star
Active Member
Yeah. You could do either one. That's the beauty of maintaining the same rolling stock of LRT cars. You could run the red line under 8th and the SE-LRT on 7th ave. Or vice-a-versa. Mix and match.
The only problem is that the 8th ave subway is going to be ridiculously expensive. That's why I think stage one of the 8th ave subway/SE-LRT would only have stations at City Hall and Centre street. It would be a stub-line. Having a station at Centre street is still central enough for most people to walk to.
darwink
Senior Member
Not at the level of service Calgarians expect for the red line south.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Has the city abandoned 4 car trains? As soon as they added them to 7th, it was completely overwhelmed. Haven't noticed many since the downturn / covid.
darwink
Senior Member
The city in replacing the U2s, retired them faster than replacements arrived I believe, due to the office ridership slump, then the COVID slump. 4 car trains will be back.
4 car trains slightly reduced the trains per hour iirc, but of course raised the people per hour.
Tropical
Active Member
My immediate thought when I saw the Province muck with the alignment? If I lived in the Beltline, I would be absolutely gutted that the Centre Street stop was axed. This cuts so much utility in a the best example of pedestrian realm on the prairies.
darwink
Senior Member
Is it $200 million + of utility though?
You draw 600m walk sheds, and you only add a maybe 5 blocks of area (the green area) within 600m of a stop?
I get that it feels like a big change. Which is why we draw to see if our feelings match what would be on the ground.
It's like how a lot of people have internalized 20 years of low floor LRV talk and believe the outcomes they produce are way better. But when we start digging, it is a pretty meh story at least for mass transit. (streetcars is a different story). For low floor, I posit another theory why they're preferred: they're more expensive, and require more specialized replacement parts still covered by patents instead of manufacturable in a capable machine shop.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
We're one week away from finding out how much sunk cost is in this thing. I wonder how much will be reconsidered... From what I see about the second meeting with the city and the province at the end of last week is there's nothing the city can do to satisfy the province. The province wants to take over this project. Maybe they see an easy win because they can do the cheaper thing downtown, elevate it, and that savings alone will make it go further south. The province says to SETON and I guess if they're willing to pay for it, fill your boots Danielle. It will be the whole, "what they couldn't do in 10 years, we did in four months." I really do think it is that simple. I don't see them moving away from low floor, going to BRT, or even going north.
lemongrab
Active Member
Is it though? It can be about 2km of shallow cut and cover, and the disruption cost is also minimal (compared to say 11 Ave).
I don't think you'd do a station at Centre St...but I think there is an interesting question here: if you were designing the 8th Ave subway with absolutely zero consideration to the Green Line ever existing (or say the assumption was GL would be on 7th Ave instead of 2nd St), where would you put the stations? I'm thinking the answer probably isn't 4-5 stations within 1.6km, as is currently the case for each direction on 7th, but rather:
1. City Hall, 5th Street, 5th Ave* (~1km apart)
or
2. City Hall, 2nd Street, 7th Street, 5th Ave* (~700m apart) *or maybe no station running N-S, though it would be nice to touch the NW corner of DT
Probably #2 for a bunch of reasons; #1 is mostly about overall speed.
But I think there is another interesting question to ask: should all of the 8th Ave stations be underground? I'm not convinced that underground is the better option operationally, without even considering costs. It can be a bit worse from a mobility standpoint. Protection from elements is nice, but can also attract an undesirable element...
I think you could limit it to a single cross-street interaction with a minor road (7th St, 2nd or 1st St). And you keep the tracks 35" below street level, so you're not actually building new platforms. Downside is you'd never really be able to expand to 5 car trains, but I think the better answer will always be frequency.
It probably only makes sense around ~7th street, but I'd imagine there are some benefits like managing HVAC for slightly shorter tunnel sections than one massive system
Olympic Plaza should certainly be underground...it is kind of a shame they're tearing up Olympic Plaza soon seemingly without any consideration of the future station.
darwink
Senior Member
The below by my estimation includes the potential break fee for the LRV order, as committed cost did not jump a huge amount with the CAF order was signed.
From June:
Owner’s Costs: Include City of Calgary Staff Time, Communications, Software, and General Corporate Overheads and Inter- Business Unit costs.
Design & Engineering: Includes all OE costs as well as general Project Consultants costs.
Construction, Land & Other Assets: Includes Land, Enabling Works, and Quick Win build costs.
Bus Rapid Transit: Includes all costs related to the Bus Rapid Transit work for Green Line.
Committed Costs represent issued PO values only for Design & Engineering and Construction, Land & Other Assets. For Owner’s Costs and Bus Rapid Transit these are primarily costs incurred to date.