[darwink]

The crossing the one centre street lane is a price. And crossing 16th at grade isn’t wise imo.

 

[lemongrab]

It's going to be above grade beyond 16th - otherwise the line will never get built with how costly it would be to fully tunnel. So is it that big of a trade off if it's at grade before it?

South of 16th sees about 23k cars a day; north sees 18k dropping to 16k by ~24 Ave. Also far more alternatives north of 16th, whereas everything bottlenecks to the bridges southward.

Centre St also serves 10 bus routes, which is way more than any other road entering downtown. I'm not clear if busses would be able to drive on the street car lanes?

The crossing the one centre street lane is a price. And crossing 16th at grade isn’t wise imo.

Isn't it effectively going from a versatile 4 lane road with reversals and off-peak parking to a 2 lane road?

 

[accord1999]

Centre St also serves 10 bus routes, which is way more than any other road entering downtown. I'm not clear if busses would be able to drive on the street car lanes?

In the "Updated Segment 2 Alignment Concept Plan GC2020-0583", it does state that buses would be able to go on the LRT guideway. In ideal conditions, it would be beneficial to the limited stop buses that don't need to stop between 16th Ave and the Centre Street Bridge, but accidents and winter conditions may increase the risk of train stoppages due to a bus blocking the way.

Isn't it effectively going from a versatile 4 lane road with reversals and off-peak parking to a 2 lane road?

I think it's going to be very tight and fragile:

 

[outoftheice]

At least for the 2017 version, it being underground up to 16th Ave meant that bus and vehicle traffic wouldn't be impacted until money was available to go to 64th. And once construction could start, it would just be a few years of pain until buses could offload riders.

But with at-grade from the start, we could be looking at decades of pain (given the complete lack of any progress in the NC or prioritization) until money is available, not just for drivers but for all of the bus users of Centre Street N.

I don't know about decades of pain. The next phase of federal transit funding launches in 2026. It will provide $3 billion per year towards projects across Canada. A future phase of Green Line that would extend the line north 96th Ave should easily qualify for some of that funding, especially since the last large federal funding commitment was announced in 2015 and the funds will be fully paid out by 2027.

Green Line also has a 91% support rating in YYC and the provincial funding commitment will be fully paid out by 2028. Any provincial government looking to be re-elected that year would be wise to splash some cash towards Green Line, especially with billions of dollars in matching federal funding on the table as well.

Also important to note that by 2028 construction on Stage 1 of Green Line still won't be complete so a funding announcement then for a Stage 2 northbound expansion would allow construction to begin prior to Stage 1 opening and that means Centre St north of 16th Ave will have 2 lanes closed before Green Line service on Centre St south of 16th Ave begins. All that to say I think it's doubtful these doom scenarios of a 4 lane Centre St north of 16th trying to dump a bunch of traffic and busses into a 2 lane Centre St south of 16th is going to exist for more than a year or two.

 

[lemongrab]

In the "Updated Segment 2 Alignment Concept Plan GC2020-0583", it does state that buses would be able to go on the LRT guideway. In ideal conditions, it would be beneficial to the limited stop buses that don't need to stop between 16th Ave and the Centre Street Bridge, but accidents and winter conditions may increase the risk of train stoppages due to a bus blocking the way.

View attachment 420007


I think it's going to be very tight and fragile:

Seems like it could be a pretty significant trade-off for pedestrians, too. Currently 11 and 9 Ave are the only ones without painted crosswalks (you can still cross there, but unlikely cars will stop for you). Dropping to every second block with less ped prioritized signals could suck.

 

[accord1999]

I don't know about decades of pain. The next phase of federal transit funding launches in 2026. It will provide $3 billion per year towards projects across Canada. A future phase of Green Line that would extend the line north 96th Ave should easily qualify for some of that funding, especially since the last large federal funding commitment was announced in 2015 and the funds will be fully paid out by 2027.

Yeah, I could be too pessimistic. The new Green Line governance and management team hopefully will allow the project to progress better then before and the high oil prices give Alberta the financial resources to extend the Green Line (and hopefully not just to pay for Stage 1 overruns).

But I sure would like to see Route Ahead finally put on paper the prioritization of the future Green Line Stages. I don't understand why they've haven't considering the obvious answer of going to Beddington, the supposed minimal useful terminus for the NC LRT.

 

[zagox]

Yeah, I could be too pessimistic. The new Green Line governance and management team hopefully will allow the project to progress better then before and the high oil prices give Alberta the financial resources to extend the Green Line (and hopefully not just to pay for Stage 1 overruns).

But I sure would like to see Route Ahead finally put on paper the prioritization of the future Green Line Stages. I don't understand why they've haven't considering the obvious answer of going to Beddington, the supposed minimal useful terminus for the NC LRT.

My three theories:

1) More councilors can be made happy by vague promises in both directions than making a firm commitment to a second phase.
2) The Eau Claire to Crescent Heights section will probably need to be cut to keep the phase 1 cost within budget given inflation, which will make the Beddington extension that much more expensive. No one wants to admit that up front.
3) city wants to wait to see who wins the provincial election in May 2023 before deciding how/when to ask for more green line money

 

[FCC1982]

Surface running a streetcar on Center St. will be a disaster and is a very dumb idea.
I hope sanity prevails and the new LRT bridge over the Bow gets tunnelled into the bluff at it’s north end and the line doesn’t daylight until at least 24th Ave.
Terminate at Eau Claire for now until you can afford to build it properly.

 

[FCC1982]

Exactly. Upgrading that stretch of Crowchild according to the current plans is $2 Billion+, which is more or less the same cost as the Green Line's north segment. In my opinion that's an easy choice to make.

Exactly. The Crowchild upgrades 10 times out of 10.

 

[FCC1982]

Stoney Trail might/should be the last large investment in major road projects for the city (understanding the city only really paid for approach road improvements). At least in the context of making roads bigger and faster.

Crowchild between the river and 24th is being looked at but what if we kept it as is and only made safety and aesthetic improvements? NW drivers are well served by the ctrain, north central drivers can be well served by the Green line? We would save a lot of money on projects that would only make a small difference. Heck, don't bother doing those deerfoot improvements either, lets get radical! Haha

No. Stoney Trail should not be the last large investment in major road projects for the City.

No. Do not leave Crowchild as it is between 24th & the river.

No. Do not cancel the Deerfoot improvements.

 

[darwink]

Surface running a streetcar on Center St. will be a disaster and is a very dumb idea.
I hope sanity prevails and the new LRT bridge over the Bow gets tunnelled into the bluff at it’s north end and the line doesn’t daylight until at least 24th Ave.
Terminate at Eau Claire for now until you can afford to build it properly.

Taking two lanes is fine. The north river crossings/escarpment roads carry far less volume today than in 1999, and we shut down 4 lanes right around then. Crossing one of those lanes, adding major delays to the Green Line? No dice for me.

 

[lemongrab]

Taking two lanes is fine. The north river crossings/escarpment roads carry far less volume today than in 1999, and we shut down 4 lanes right around then. Crossing one of those lanes, adding major delays to the Green Line? No dice for me.

What are the major delays? The north section is useless until it gets to at least 64th. This whole psychology notion of crossing the river now or never is silly to me.

I know a tunnel wouldn't be cheap. But I can't imagine a dual curve inclined bridge is going to be cheap, either...You can talk me into losing lanes, but I think there are some potentially big drawbacks to the public realm and pedestrian connectivity. I do see how running at surface could also have positive effects to the vibe of the area, but I think there could be better ways to neuter the road a bit. I also wonder if this will simply shift the 'car hell' more over to Edmonton Trail?

Would a full blown tunnel even be necessary? What about a portal near the bus pullout and then cut/cover to north of 16th?

 

[FCC1982]

North-south and east-west LRT lines cross at grade in downtown Portland (it's even one 1970s high-floor line and one current low-floor line like we have), so it should be possible to do that here as well, although our east-west corridor has higher train volumes, and eventually there will need to be a tunnel downtown somewhere.

I’ve ridden Portland’s LRT system and it’s painfully slow.


lemongrab:
“This whole psychology notion of crossing the river now or never is silly to me.”
Exactly!

 

[jhappy77]

Exactly. The Crowchild upgrades 10 times out of 10.

The Crowchild upgrades essentially accomplish the following:

• Adds one lane of throughput between 5 Ave and 16 Ave
• Removes 3 traffic lights for Crowchild users (Kensington, 5 Ave, 24 Ave)
• Makes it faster to go across Crowchild on 24th, 5th, and Kensington Rd (nice, but these roads aren't high throughput roads anyways, and you're shaving off a couple minutes of time. Do we invest billions to save a couple minutes of time for other modes?)
• Makes it easier to access on and off ramps to 24th and 16th

The question we have to ask is: is that really worth over $2 Billion? What's the opportunity cost? Where could we have invested $2 Billion to achieve better returns?

If our problem is that Crowchild has too much rush hour traffic, there is mountains of evidence that freeway expansions can't actually solve that - it will just induce additional demand for the road. People who were taking other roads will switch to Crowchild, people who were taking transit will switch to driving on Crowchild, new Calgarians in Airdrie and the far north communities will take Shaganappi+Crowchild instead of Deerfoot. And then we end up right back where we started: a congested road (but this time with slightly more people stuck in congestion).

On the other hand, congestion pricing is a proven way of reducing traffic while also being revenue-positive instead of costing over $2 Billion.

Then you can look at throughput. A lane of private vehicles has a human throughput capacity of 600-1600 per hour. A rail transitway has a human throughput capacity of 10,000 - 25,000 per hour. Rail simply blows private vehicle traffic out of the water.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Do you need access to and from Kensington and 5th? Or can you eliminate those lights? Aren’t the interchanges with 16th being improved? Still do 24th but save the massive infrastructure required for the Kensington-5th section.