darwink
Senior Member
Without a downtown tunnel or elevated road the BRT didn't save enough travel time. The benefits of the project almost exclusively come from the downtown tunnel segment.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
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whatchyyc
Active Member
Also, a mock-up of the CAF LRV will be delivered to Calgary by the end of the year.
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MichaelS
Senior Member
I kind of wonder what sort of endowment fund could have been set up with the $3 billion from the Feds + Province, on top of the now $2 billion the City is putting in, which could have funded greater frequency across our entire existing network in perpetuity. Would that be a better value for this significant volume of money?
lemongrab
Active Member
Aren't the SE travel time savings more from having a far more direct route instead of Macleod or 17 Ave? A BRT scenario could also offer huge efficiencies in directly reaching the communities in the deep south instead of trying to shuttle them to Shepherd.
BRT should still have dedicated ROW for the entire route (or at least as much as is practicable) with the long-term ability to change to rail. I'm just really skeptical that the ridership will justify the additional CAPEX and OPEX for rail anytime soon. Look at how big they drew the catchment area for the SE that ignores some significant barriers like the canal, to boost numbers with a lot of industrial workplaces that may not have hours conducive to transit and typically don't have parking/traffic issues anyways:
I just want a great transit system for this city and worry that this could actually be crippling.
jhappy77
Active Member
The "catchment areas" in the map you posted seem to represent an approximation of all the area whose bus service will be primarily organized around feeding the green line - not walking distance.
The green line is ridiculously expensive but in my mind there's no question that it's necessary, especially for a long term vision of a Calgary with 3M+ people. And the more we delay it, the more it will cost.
We should be strategic about where we expand it though. IMO the Shepard - Seton portion should be a MAX BRT route until more important portions (like the Centre St corridor) are built up. You could also put another Max BRT route along the communities west of deerfoot.
FCC1982
Active Member
Yeah - it’s too bad we lose the $5B if it’s not spent on this project that doesn’t justify the cost.
Better to spend it on the 8th Ave subway IMO (or about 10 other transportation priorities).
Better to spend it on the 8th Ave subway IMO (or about 10 other transportation priorities).
whatchyyc
Active Member
IMO north leg > 8th ave subway > southeast leg
Sucks that it's going southeast first (even tho I live here lol) because the Centre St routes desperately need the capacity. At the moment, 7th Ave can handle both Red and Blue. 8th idea was partly born out of the assumption Green Line would use 7th Ave.
Sucks that it's going southeast first (even tho I live here lol) because the Centre St routes desperately need the capacity. At the moment, 7th Ave can handle both Red and Blue. 8th idea was partly born out of the assumption Green Line would use 7th Ave.
darwink
Senior Member
So: many things.
The city decided the north didn’t need the capacity. That the system could cope with demand for many years. Having lots of parallel routes saves it there. Bus overloads are not a function of not having a corridor there—it is a service choice.
7th Ave in 2014 was straining under the red and blue.
At that point you can relieve 7th in two ways: move a line to 8th or reduce demand on red or blue (the MAX System are somewhat LRT relievers too).
In modelling it was a happy circumstance that building the green line diverts demand from red and blue, and that by providing alternatives long term let’s people allocate themselves better. Which pushes the red blue fail date out far enough that it becomes the one of the lowest priorities instead of the highest.
It was in the Bronconnier era 2006ish tunnel study that thought about the trade offs between the tunnels. As the 2nd St tunnel was much shorter; and had fewer underground stations; it is assumed the cost would be much less than the 8th Ave behemoth.
Believe it was the 1996 GO Plan which removed the SE LRT as a South LRT sour from Anderson. If have the exact year wrong, still save to say it was decades ago at the very least.
accord1999
Active Member
I guess the planners of the mid-2000s didn't expect the planners of the mid-2010s to go hog wild with tunnels and plan a 4 km tunnel for the first version of the Green Line.
lemongrab
Active Member
Can you elaborate on this? It just doesn't make any sense to me concurrent with a phase 1 SE LRT plan that doesn't even reach the main population...
darwink
Senior Member
Yup. To protect traffic volume flows either the train had to give up speed, or traffic had to give up volume. The problem was 'solved' by spending allocating more money.
darwink
Senior Member
There is no need for the North Central LRT south of Beddington for many many years because there is more than enough capacity to add capacity with buses.
That we choose not to run enough buses does not mean there is a need for LRT. But once we have decided to run LRT, phasing is the concern.
And you miss what the greenline is, and may be skewing your thought process: it is about getting to massive bus interchange points at 64th Ave and Sheppard, and delivering those bus riders to 7th Ave SW. It isn't about the line going past single family homes.
For phasing what we have for segments is something like this (removing OMC and LRVs from the Greenline, and offsetting greenline operating costs with bus service reductions to get a like for like comparison):
Now since both segments need the downtown segment to be successful, lets break up the Green Line Phase 1 and 2 to 7th Ave and North, and 7th Ave and South, to reflect the minimum possible project extents.
Lets work with this split (and remember that for the decision making process the numbers we can quibble with and still be fine; what matters more is we agree the proportion of each:
You can see even without the more advanced modeling of the incremental segments, that going south makes sense to do, even with all the other things being equal (like assuming an OMC costs the same to go north).
Now: what would I rather happen than what we're doing now?
Just build to McKenzie Towne and 64th nearly simultaneously.
There is no needs for these fights.
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YYCguy
Active Member
We seem reluctant to tunnel under downtown and under the Bow, but a little populated group of islands in middle of the North Sea can build an underwater roadway complete with roundabouts! The Europeans surely must have deep pockets and highly skilled engineers at their disposal.
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darwink
Senior Member
Sure we can. Doing it with stations though, major risks involved digging shafts and pits. And those risks cost big money.
potatopizzafan
Active Member
Meanwhile Stockholm, a city of water and islands, has a maze of 100 subway sations, half of those undergroud, with routes tunneling under waterways and through miles of bedrock