Best direction for the Green line at this point?

  • Go ahead with the current option of Eau Claire to Lynbrook and phase in extensions.

    Votes: 42 60.0%

  • Re-design the whole system

    Votes: 22 31.4%

  • Cancel it altogether

    Votes: 6 8.6%
  • Total voters
    70
darwink said:
Important to remember that at least a good amount of that difference is a massive scope change from a cheapest line which goes from x to y to z, to a line which doesn’t block cars very much, at least south of the bow river.
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I've seen it used as a reason for why the costs increased so much, but I don't think it holds up when looking at the earlier documents. From the beginning, a long tunnel from north of 16th Ave through the core was always in consideration.

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The long tunnel option was overwhelmingly recommended by City Admin and the Council dutifully voted for it, but every option through downtown was expensive. The Green Line becoming so expensive has been from every segment of it rising in cost.

At an estimated $1.95 billion, the tunnel was more expensive than four other options being considered for the north-central stretch of the Green Line, which ranged from $1.5 to $1.8 billion.
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Dārayavauš said:
Yes and good thing too. Calgary finally seems to be learning from the mistakes of always being cheap. We’ll see when the Green Line goes ahead though. Shovels should already be in the ground by now. It’s been five years.
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In many ways, Calgary being cheap with its original lines is why it was successful. And the problem with the Green Line is that it's gotten so expensive, that they had to cheapen it anyways. By shortening the line so much that it doesn't reach the deep SE and barely crosses the river so that it's completely useless in relieving the heavily used bus routes of Centre Street North, though I fully expect that in a few years, more budget problems will lead them to cut the river crossing. And because it's so short, ridership is mediocre and will cost Transit (and Calgary taxpayers) $40M/year in increased costs to operate. The Green Line looks less like the successful Red and Blue lines and more like the white elephant LRT lines of the US. The fancy new lines that run mostly empty trains and cost so much to operate that their transit agencies had to cut back on bus service and ended up losing ridership.
 
Well maybe also the UCP are going to wait to give full approval until elections so they can use it as a campaign annoncement. I would be so benevolent of them to announce how they support LRT condtruction by finally realeasing the money when they can visually gain the most politically.
 
accord1999 said:
I've seen it used as a reason for why the costs increased so much, but I don't think it holds up when looking at the earlier documents. From the beginning, a long tunnel from north of 16th Ave through the core was always in consideration.

0b1jeKR.png


The long tunnel option was overwhelmingly recommended by City Admin and the Council dutifully voted for it, but every option through downtown was expensive. The Green Line becoming so expensive has been from every segment of it rising in cost.






In many ways, Calgary being cheap with its original lines is why it was successful. And the problem with the Green Line is that it's gotten so expensive, that they had to cheapen it anyways. By shortening the line so much that it doesn't reach the deep SE and barely crosses the river so that it's completely useless in relieving the heavily used bus routes of Centre Street North, though I fully expect that in a few years, more budget problems will lead them to cut the river crossing. And because it's so short, ridership is mediocre and will cost Transit (and Calgary taxpayers) $40M/year in increased costs to operate. The Green Line looks less like the successful Red and Blue lines and more like the white elephant LRT lines of the US. The fancy new lines that run mostly empty trains and cost so much to operate that their transit agencies had to cut back on bus service and ended up losing ridership.
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We shall see. But I think it will be successful as ridership is always higher in Canada vs the USA.
 
I'm not sure why people talk about Stage 1 of Green Line like it's all that will ever be built. When the red line opened it ran from downtown to Anderson Station. Thankfully the city never stopped building and we now have the expansive LRT system we all enjoy today.

Perhaps the success of the Green Line would be in question if there was no plan for expansion beyond 16th Ave to Shepard but that is not the case. Just like the red and blue lines, the plan is to keep building. Does anyone really doubt that Green Line won't be a success once it runs from Keystone to Shepard? Stage 1 is a beginning, not an end. By the time the Stage 1 opening is happening around 2027 I have no doubt there will be funding already lined up for Stage 2.
 
outoftheice said:
I'm not sure why people talk about Stage 1 of Green Line like it's all that will ever be built. When the red line opened it ran from downtown to Anderson Station. Thankfully the city never stopped building and we now have the expansive LRT system we all enjoy today.

Perhaps the success of the Green Line would be in question if there was no plan for expansion beyond 16th Ave to Shepard but that is not the case. Just like the red and blue lines, the plan is to keep building. Does anyone really doubt that Green Line won't be a success once it runs from Keystone to Shepard? Stage 1 is a beginning, not an end. By the time the Stage 1 opening is happening around 2027 I have no doubt there will be funding already lined up for Stage 2.
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That happened because Calgary was booming. For example, Edmonton's LRT was supposed to extend to Southgate in the mid 90s, but due to Klein's drastic infrastructure funding cuts, it terminated at University in 1992; it then stayed that way for over 10 years, and it only restarted because Edmonton became red hot again. Also, we shall see if any type of recovery will happen by 2027. Until then, I can see stage 2b shelved by a future plebiscite, and stage 2a only stayed afloat to completion as the sensible reason to connect the core part of the transit network. Prepare for a long drag of zero activity for the entire city after the completion of Eau Claire station except for minor improvements to the existing BRT lines.
 
outoftheice said:
I'm not sure why people talk about Stage 1 of Green Line like it's all that will ever be built. When the red line opened it ran from downtown to Anderson Station. Thankfully the city never stopped building and we now have the expansive LRT system we all enjoy today.
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The Red and Blue lines were built cheaply, the City in the past proudly pointed out how economical they were. And they were successful from the start because they ran through existing transit corridors of good ridership. And even then there was significant pauses in the expansion of the Red Line and the West LRT opened 27 years after the NE.

U9Ec4Yt.png


Perhaps the success of the Green Line would be in question if there was no plan for expansion beyond 16th Ave to Shepard but that is not the case.
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The problem I see is that the Green Line got so much money because it was supposed to pay for the primary network, from Panorama Hills to Seton. With one project, the two main transit priorities in Calgary (replacing the overcrowded buses in NC Calgary, improving service to the growing deep SE) could be addressed. Effectively, an entire generation of of transit capital funding was assembled for this purpose. Calgary will have to wait its turn for more from higher levels of government as well as figure out where to get more money from its own resources. The City of Calgary's capital and financing spending for Stage 1 ties up $75M/year of property taxes for the next 30 years, and will have to find new funding to pay for the operating costs of Stage 1 And the cost of expansion is steep, going to Panorama Hills or even 96th by itself will be the second most expensive infrastructure project in Calgary history.

hbhf0JD.png
 
RicoLance21 said:
That happened because Calgary was booming. For example, Edmonton's LRT was supposed to extend to Southgate in the mid 90s, but due to Klein's drastic infrastructure funding cuts, it terminated at University in 1992; it then stayed that way for over 10 years, and it only restarted because Edmonton became red hot again. Also, we shall see if any type of recovery will happen by 2027. Until then, I can see stage 2b shelved by a future plebiscite, and stage 2a only stayed afloat to completion as the sensible reason to connect the core part of the transit network. Prepare for a long drag of zero activity for the entire city after the completion of Eau Claire station except for minor improvements to the existing BRT lines.
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You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that it fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
 
accord1999 said:
The Red and Blue lines were built cheaply, the City in the past proudly pointed out how economical they were. And they were successful from the start because they ran through existing transit corridors of good ridership. And even then there was significant pauses in the expansion of the Red Line and the West LRT opened 27 years after the NE.

U9Ec4Yt.png



The problem I see is that the Green Line got so much money because it was supposed to pay for the primary network, from Panorama Hills to Seton. With one project, the two main transit priorities in Calgary (replacing the overcrowded buses in NC Calgary, improving service to the growing deep SE) could be addressed. Effectively, an entire generation of of transit capital funding was assembled for this purpose. Calgary will have to wait its turn for more from higher levels of government as well as figure out where to get more money from its own resources. The City of Calgary's capital and financing spending for Stage 1 ties up $75M/year of property taxes for the next 30 years, and will have to find new funding to pay for the operating costs of Stage 1 And the cost of expansion is steep, going to Panorama Hills or even 96th by itself will be the second most expensive infrastructure project in Calgary history.

hbhf0JD.png
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I just feel the North section won’t have immediate benefits compare to what’s already in place. There will be no improvement to commuting time, unlike the SE leg—thus no extra revenue generated at all to make up for the cost. This section will be massively expensive and disruptive (unless we go for something even more expensive like how Canada Line has been built under Cambie). Finally, Calgary won’t experience rapid growth for a while. I have lots of optimism for the SE leg. Commuting by car from the SE is basically hell—no easy route to downtown, so the SE leg will be an effective shortcut for the commuters, and it can complete a lot better with cars. At least there’d be new revenue from this.
 
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Dārayavauš said:
You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that is fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
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Oil & gas provided the tax revenue for both the province (in the form of royalties) and the city (business & property taxes) to fund these mega projects. Without a recovery in O&G (I would settle for average years rather than another boom), government will need to find other sources of tax revenue to fund infrastructure projects. As it is in other provinces who are providing infrastructure spending, that can only come from a PST and/or higher income/corporate taxes. We don't have a PST in Alberta and if I recall, we have a low (if not the lowest) provincial tax rate in the country.
 
Dārayavauš said:
You know the word thing about other cities? They actually invest in their society without a boom.

Calgary will be fine as long as start thinking long term. Oil is never booming up here again, but that it fine. Boom and bust cycle is extremely precarious and now well either Get off it, or become Detroit.
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I know this was thrown in there more for effect but the 'Calgary will become the next Detroit' is a very poor analogy. There were a lot of factors that led to a decline of Detroit proper well outside of the decline of the traditional auto sector in the U.S. These factors don't really exist in Calgary. I also wouldn't be so categorical about oil never booming again. People have been spectacularly wrong when predicting the future of oil prices far too often in the last 60 years. The lesson, I think, is to expect the unexpected when it comes to O&G prices

In saying that, I do think that a change in attitude about the role of the industry in this province needs to occur.
 
Disraeli said:
Is this par for the course for a major project of this scale or is this politics? Or both?
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That we hear about it is politics. That this happens is par the course. In other provinces provincial agencies now exclusively lead procurement at this scale.
 
Disraeli said:
Is this par for the course for a major project of this scale or is this politics? Or both?
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There was a report from the Green Line Technical and Risk Committee early in the year (Green Line committee meeting from February 21) that highlighted a number of similar issues, that are pretty troubling given that the project had been underway for 5+ years and construction was supposed to begin a few months later. But perhaps it's not surprising given the troubles the Green Line has had since 2015.


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