ahuch
Active Member
Agreed, but the government above seems to have different ideas for the future of our cities.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Tothewest
Active Member
I guess I'll ask then, if the cost matters that little to some, then why does it matter whether the province does their share? The city should just do it on their own....
The answer is we cant. So when you need other peoples money, cost/benefit matters.
InfrastructureEnthusiast
New Member
Oh I didn't think you were slamming TOD and I don't think anyone here is really. And I agree that tunnel up center to beddington would be the ideal solution, just throwing out an idea on how to get faster transit to the communities north of there sooner.
In the older neighborhoods the TOD will come in time, few if any of those homes or small apartments will outlive a well designed transit ROW.
accord1999
Active Member
It's not just about austerity. Even for a very wealthy region and where every taxpayer understand and agree that transit doesn't need to pay for itself (or even come close) we still should worry about ROI and opportunity costs. Spending so much on the Green Line also affects all of the other projects that in RouteAhead. And specifically, Stage 1 going over-budget means that it needs future money to fix its gaps (and it already took without asking anybody), money that long ago was promised to disappointed NC transit users to be used to go north and the Green Line being stuck at
You need the priority and main-line projects to come in on budget to have money leftover for the fantasy and want projects.
InfrastructureEnthusiast
New Member
Nice work, more or less what I had in mind, but I'm phone posting so diagramming ideas is a bit out of reach for me!
whatchyyc
Active Member
I thought it could be a big boy version of the Discotrain pilot they ran from Anderson to Somerset back in the day
MichaelS
Senior Member
From the article, is there any further information on the source of this table, and details about each of the criteria and how it is scored?Interesting read why the Nose Creek option was dropped.
Rewind: Why the Nose Creek transit alignment was kicked to the curb more than a decade ago - LiveWire Calgary
Premier Danielle Smith mused about resurrecting a north Green Line plan that would take it through the Nose Creek Valley – a plan thrown out after analysis by the City of Calgary more than a decade ago. The Premier made the comments Wednesday when asked about Calgary’s failed Green Line...livewirecalgary.com
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any breakdown, and the 4 page Council report linked in the article didn't seem to expand on it either. Perhaps if I went to City archives and looked for the attachments. But, if I am reading it right, I see that actual deliverablity of the project (I assume that means ability to actually construct it) seems to be given the same weight as "Prosperous Economy" and "Community Well being", whatever that means. So based on this chart, even though the Centre Street options all scored a 3 for deliverability (which again, I am not sure exactly what it means, and am surprised to see at-grade score the same as underground), compared to the better scored 4 for Nose Creek, Centre Street is given scores of between 4 and 5 for Community Well Being, against the 1 of Nose Creek.
Are we sure this decision to say that Nose Creek is inferior is based on the most sound, objective analysis?
Tarsus
Active Member
Centre doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. We’re a big city now, so time to put the big boy pants on, and just do it.
Building it through Nose Creek is 1980’s type thinking where the cheapest way was the best way.
lemongrab
Active Member
I guess we can agree to disagree that Lynnwood to Eau Claire for $6.3B constitutes a good plan. If you want to call it the least awful of only awful choices right now, that would be a lot more reasonable IMO (even though I disagree)
I generally hate any both sides argument, but both sides are absolutely guilty of politicizing this (albeit the right doing so actively from the Leg. while the left is mostly rhetoric online and in council meetings)
What if Centre St simply doesn't need any substantial TOD? We know the ridership is there...just deliver the transit! How many customers are on the sidelines right now after encountering too many overloaded buses? How much more operational efficiency could we achieve here, freeing up resources to deploy elsewhere?
Completely agree on your last statement though. Lots of people try to paint this as many alternatives being studied over and over again (and we've gotta respect that work!), but most of the biggest decisions were only looked at once in the 2015-17 range. Since then it's been reiteration after reiteration within a few unwavering assumptions: it's gotta be SE, gotta be trains, gotta be low floor trains at that, gotta be tunnels. The bold move is to realize that it's not actually analysis paralysis...it's just paralysis because it doesn't pass the common sense sniff test!
Tarsus
Active Member
I don’t know the definitions myself, but I would say deliverability scores higher due to it being cheaper and easier. I don’t argue it would be cheaper and easier, but often the better option is harder and costlier.
Community well being? Not sure what that is, but if I had to guess it’s related to being better integrated to the community. IDK.
lemongrab
Active Member
It's curious how at-grade (and elevated for that matter) is better for 'community well-being' while underground is better for urban development.
But apparently at-grade will cost the same for any of the options.
Somehow at-grade scores equal or higher for 'transportation'. Accessibility must be doing a lot of work within that.
Tarsus
Active Member
The fact that Centre street already has those apartment buildings and dense areas is the reason we need to build there. It’s where the people are.
The common TOD of high rises built on empty lots won’t happen on Centre, but we’ll get a higher number of smaller multi-family developments within walking distance of the stations.
There’s potential for just as many new units built within walking distance of the stations as there would be for the Nose Creek run. These new units would be in addition to existing units and would be much better integrated into the urban fabric.
accord1999
Active Member
The source for that table comes from this 100 page report on the North Central LRT corridor from December 2014:
As part of the Transportation and Transit committee meeting which focused heavily on the North Central LRT and Green Line in general:
SPC on Transportation and Transit - December 17, 2014
Unfortunately that report is missing very useful appendices. I managed to download them from the Calgary Transit website long ago but after a reorganization of their site, I haven't been able to find them anywhere on the Internet. If you're interested, I can zip them and put them a site for you to download.
In Appendix D, it provides a table with the actual dollar figures for the different alignment options. The estimated cost for the at-grade options are so low that the differences are almost irrelevant.
Tothewest
Active Member
"just do it", lol. Wild the hills people will die on...$700M for the event center BAAAAD (which actually has set annual payments to cover it all)...$4B+, probably, for a 4km subway up center street BIG CITY DECISONS LETS GOOOO.
literally, where is this money coming from
ByeByeBaby
Active Member
A good transit project is not good at any cost, and at some point, the costs are too high to justify.
Part of the problem is a bad procurement strategy, lack of civil service capacity, as well as high risk and inflation from (almost entirely conservative) political actors. Some of these could in theory be fixed sooner than others, but that's a discussion for another time.
The other part of the problem is the assumption that road space is sacrosanct in the centre city. That's the fundamental assumption that leads to lengthy tunnelling in uncertain conditions, which then leads (via the procurement strategy) to preposterous cost blowouts because the private sector is being used to price in risk. And that's why there are these arguments over a wildly expensive tunnel, or an expensive and low-quality elevated stub.
But we have plenty of road space in the downtown! Traffic volumes are down from 15 years ago; there's more road space than ever! There is no need to spend a billion dollars tunnelling in the east Beltline to avoid an at-grade crossing of Macleod to maintain road capacity. Macleod has been down one lane (and frequently two lanes) for the past few years due to the Vic Park LRT reconstruction, and the world hasn't ended.
The approach I would take if I didn't think the tunnel could be constructed for a reasonable cost is straight forward - the north line comes down the Centre Street Bridge, turns on 3rd Ave with a stop in Chinatown, then goes down 1st St W to 7th Ave. The southeast leg comes down 11th Ave (or one direction on 11th, one on 12th), then goes under the CPR using the existing structure at 1st St W. All of these roads lose two lanes of car space and gain a two-way LRT track, which results in a rough 5x increase in person moving capacity.
If we don't want to cross the LRT at grade right now because of operational reasons, then the two legs can just end either side of 7th Ave, and the few people making the southeast-to-north central trip have a short walk to transfer, but everybody who is going to the downtown has a train to the centre, and everybody connecting to the blue or red lines has the same short walk to transfer they would normally -- in fact, shorter in many cases since they don't have to go up three floors or down two. When the 8th Ave subway is built and the red line moves off of 7th Ave, we can reconsider connecting the Green Line, since 7th will have a lot fewer constraints.
This is the actual, obvious, cost-controlled way to build the centre segment. It removes the risk of tunnels and the risk of elevated construction (ask Edmonton about that). The simplicity also means it can be built faster, which is also cheaper.
I get why the build-it-best crowd is behind a tunnel. But the build-it-cheap crowd should be 100% behind at-grade construction. If they are not, that to me suggests that they are not actually the build-it-cheap crowd.
Part of the problem is a bad procurement strategy, lack of civil service capacity, as well as high risk and inflation from (almost entirely conservative) political actors. Some of these could in theory be fixed sooner than others, but that's a discussion for another time.
The other part of the problem is the assumption that road space is sacrosanct in the centre city. That's the fundamental assumption that leads to lengthy tunnelling in uncertain conditions, which then leads (via the procurement strategy) to preposterous cost blowouts because the private sector is being used to price in risk. And that's why there are these arguments over a wildly expensive tunnel, or an expensive and low-quality elevated stub.
But we have plenty of road space in the downtown! Traffic volumes are down from 15 years ago; there's more road space than ever! There is no need to spend a billion dollars tunnelling in the east Beltline to avoid an at-grade crossing of Macleod to maintain road capacity. Macleod has been down one lane (and frequently two lanes) for the past few years due to the Vic Park LRT reconstruction, and the world hasn't ended.
The approach I would take if I didn't think the tunnel could be constructed for a reasonable cost is straight forward - the north line comes down the Centre Street Bridge, turns on 3rd Ave with a stop in Chinatown, then goes down 1st St W to 7th Ave. The southeast leg comes down 11th Ave (or one direction on 11th, one on 12th), then goes under the CPR using the existing structure at 1st St W. All of these roads lose two lanes of car space and gain a two-way LRT track, which results in a rough 5x increase in person moving capacity.
If we don't want to cross the LRT at grade right now because of operational reasons, then the two legs can just end either side of 7th Ave, and the few people making the southeast-to-north central trip have a short walk to transfer, but everybody who is going to the downtown has a train to the centre, and everybody connecting to the blue or red lines has the same short walk to transfer they would normally -- in fact, shorter in many cases since they don't have to go up three floors or down two. When the 8th Ave subway is built and the red line moves off of 7th Ave, we can reconsider connecting the Green Line, since 7th will have a lot fewer constraints.
This is the actual, obvious, cost-controlled way to build the centre segment. It removes the risk of tunnels and the risk of elevated construction (ask Edmonton about that). The simplicity also means it can be built faster, which is also cheaper.
I get why the build-it-best crowd is behind a tunnel. But the build-it-cheap crowd should be 100% behind at-grade construction. If they are not, that to me suggests that they are not actually the build-it-cheap crowd.