It’s always possible we end up with a failed procurement and have to pivot to a different downtown design. I’d put it at less than 20%.
 
If that happens, and I truly wish it doesn’t, then no elevated or ground level tracks through downtown a la Jim Gray please!
 
One of the problems with this project is the competing priorities -
* The ridership demand is in the north-central part, but
* The railway yard is in the inner SE part, so you have to do that first, even though it's the lowest-ridership part, but
* The political priority is the outer SE, like MacKenzie, where for 20 years the residents have been looking at a sign on the empty right-of-way telling them the train is coming.

Of course phase 1 isn't going to make anyone happy. We've always known this. But I still think it's a good project because it's relatively cheap to finish the SE after that core section is done.
 
Be VERY CAREFUL with this line of thinking. $700 million will seem cheap if it ends up costing $10 billion to make only Eau Claire to Shepard work (just a wild ass guess from me, we have no idea how much until the agreement with the chosen RFP partner is released in about a year I think).

"We have to spend an additional $4 billion more than we thought, because we already spent $700 million on this thing...." is not a great way to prioritize limited capital resources.
The question in piece was about what do you get for 700M and what else it could've bought. That's spilt milk, you can't recover that money and do those other things. So my point is more imagine getting nothing, no green line and none of what they mention. As you point out, maybe we should imagine how that feels if this thing is that far gone.

Actual Green Line project risks aside.... I patiently await the monthly critique Herald piece on city and provincial road and highway expansion planning by Herald columnists and this strangely visible and politically connected cabal of random bored retired engineers "led by the inexhaustible dean of Calgary philanthropists and business leaders, Jim Gray" as Corbella impartially describes.

On the Green Line, surely if everything has changed and no one commutes anymore, we don't need any highways and the ones we have don't need to be as wide right? We should scrap half the lanes on all the arterials in the core tomorrow - they are no longer needed apparently! Starting next week, we should expect an endless series of Herald attack pieces slamming the city and province for failing to build more economical cycle-tracks fast enough on all these obsolete major roads everywhere that no one needs, right?

Where were all these prestigious engineers complaining about the cost and overbuilding on the ring road project before it was built? I don't recall 10 years of monthly Herald columns supporting the speculations of groups of concerned engineers that critiqued the unsubstantiated traffic projections and opaque project financials. The ring road project only cost about ~$10B and counting - not that we know or ever will know the exact number of course.

But as CB explores, it's hard to square the vehement Green Line opposition against a background of other large transportation projects.

It wasn't dragging out the process that caused, it was the Green Line team massively under-estimating costs and over-promising how ready it was. The original plan was to start construction in 2018 and finish all 40 km in 2024. What dragged it out was the Green Line team having to revise things to meet realistic cost estimates and turnover of top management.



It may not be the romanticized European tram system that urbanists fantasize about, but in terms of ridership/capital costs it's the best LRT system in North America. It's too bad McKendrick wasn't in charge during the initial days of the Green Line, we likely have had reasonable estimates of costs from the beginning and therefore made informed choices on where the Green Line should go, rather than scrambling for the last 6 years trying to build anything.

I never asked for Lisbon, I'd love it, but my problem is the fact I live in a 10 minute drive from downtown or a 40 minutes ride. I wouldn't give McKendrick that much credit so say he would've been the one to save the green line.
 
Incidentally I think the plan for the inner north central part (Eau Claire to 16th) is terrible. Centre street was congested enough that we had to add a reversible lane and HOV lanes from downtown to 20th, in no small part to keep the buses moving. But now we to turn that into 1 lane in each direction, north of about 7 Ave N. I foresee cars backing up into downtown and misery on the route 2, 3 and 301.

The plan also has the LRT meeting 16 Ave at grade. This road is busy enough that the train goes under it on the other two lines.

There is also no real clarity on how the tracks will cross the southbound lane of Centre street where they meet around 7 Ave N. Are they adding a light there?

Finally, I don't love the new bridge over Prince's Island, although I could live with it. If we must go up Centre street, that's probably the best option. But if we do that I think we really need the train to be in a (hopefully shallow) tunnel between 7 and 16th Aves N. This 9-block stretch connects a major bridge to downtown with a major crosstown road, and already has some decent existing and upcoming development, so I think it's justified there.

But what I would prefer is if the LRT went at-grade on a completely different street, like Edmonton Trail. You would still need to cross above or below 16 Ave N, but I think this would avoid all of these other issues, and breathe life into a neglected streetscape. Alas I think it's too late for that.
 
Incidentally I think the plan for the inner north central part (Eau Claire to 16th) is terrible. Centre street was congested enough that we had to add a reversible lane and HOV lanes from downtown to 20th, in no small part to keep the buses moving. But now we to turn that into 1 lane in each direction, north of about 7 Ave N. I foresee cars backing up into downtown and misery on the route 2, 3 and 301.

The plan also has the LRT meeting 16 Ave at grade. This road is busy enough that the train goes under it on the other two lines.

There is also no real clarity on how the tracks will cross the southbound lane of Centre street where they meet around 7 Ave N. Are they adding a light there?

Finally, I don't love the new bridge over Prince's Island, although I could live with it. If we must go up Centre street, that's probably the best option. But if we do that I think we really need the train to be in a (hopefully shallow) tunnel between 7 and 16th Aves N. This 9-block stretch connects a major bridge to downtown with a major crosstown road, and already has some decent existing and upcoming development, so I think it's justified there.

But what I would prefer is if the LRT went at-grade on a completely different street, like Edmonton Trail. You would still need to cross above or below 16 Ave N, but I think this would avoid all of these other issues, and breathe life into a neglected streetscape. Alas I think it's too late for that.
I'm a little back and forth on this one in my head. I really dislike the bridge over Prince's Island, but I understand how they've arrived there. I don't think Center St will be a soul crushing hellscape like 36 St NE with the low floor LRVs, but I suppose time will tell. There is also something to be said about the convenience of just hopping on and off at street level, versus several levels of escalators to get down to subway track grade. Keeping in mind that's from a visitor perspective, if I lived near it on the north end I'd probably want it buried... lol.
 
One of the problems with this project is the competing priorities -
* The ridership demand is in the north-central part, but
* The railway yard is in the inner SE part, so you have to do that first, even though it's the lowest-ridership part, but
* The political priority is the outer SE, like MacKenzie, where for 20 years the residents have been looking at a sign on the empty right-of-way telling them the train is coming.

Of course phase 1 isn't going to make anyone happy. We've always known this. But I still think it's a good project because it's relatively cheap to finish the SE after that core section is done.
Did the railyard HAVE to be in the SE though? I've forgotten the exact rationale for not using Aurora business park, but I think it was something about that area having too much other development, which has not panned out at all...(I've always speculated that some key influencers have personal interest with Shepard).
 
Did the railyard HAVE to be in the SE though? I've forgotten the exact rationale for not using Aurora business park, but I think it was something about that area having too much other development, which has not panned out at all...(I've always speculated that some key influencers have personal interest with Shepard).
Yeah, that was the answer given by Fabiola MacIntyre in the 2017 meetings, to save it for development purposes. But as you point out, there hasn't been much at all.

.(I've always speculated that some key influencers have personal interest with Shepard).

It's always been questionable to me on how they only bothered to look in the SE and when hard decisions had to be made, prioritized it over ridership and ability to replace buses. It would be like building the NE LRT all the way to the Oliver Bowen site first, before building the S LRT.
 
I see your point, but Anderson also had at least a bit of a residential population within walkable range of the station, and was on a major thoroughfare for park & ride people. Shepard is a different story.

I’ve said it many times and I’ll bloody say it again, if they’re not jumping the Bow in the first phase, it should be extended south to at least Auburn Bay Station. If not all the way to Seton.
 
If that happens, and I truly wish it doesn’t, then no elevated or ground level tracks through downtown a la Jim Gray please!
Amen to that - Do Not run surface tracks downtown. We already have one set to bury so it can become “Rapid” transit.
 
Incidentally I think the plan for the inner north central part (Eau Claire to 16th) is terrible. Centre street was congested enough that we had to add a reversible lane and HOV lanes from downtown to 20th, in no small part to keep the buses moving. But now we to turn that into 1 lane in each direction, north of about 7 Ave N. I foresee cars backing up into downtown and misery on the route 2, 3 and 301.

The plan also has the LRT meeting 16 Ave at grade. This road is busy enough that the train goes under it on the other two lines.

There is also no real clarity on how the tracks will cross the southbound lane of Centre street where they meet around 7 Ave N. Are they adding a light there?

Finally, I don't love the new bridge over Prince's Island, although I could live with it. If we must go up Centre street, that's probably the best option. But if we do that I think we really need the train to be in a (hopefully shallow) tunnel between 7 and 16th Aves N. This 9-block stretch connects a major bridge to downtown with a major crosstown road, and already has some decent existing and upcoming development, so I think it's justified there.

But what I would prefer is if the LRT went at-grade on a completely different street, like Edmonton Trail. You would still need to cross above or below 16 Ave N, but I think this would avoid all of these other issues, and breathe life into a neglected streetscape. Alas I think it's too late for that.
👏🏼The north central portion as currently envisioned is a disaster.
 
I wonder if it would be possible to have the railyard in Lynnwood on that contaminated land, or if we could move the Pop Davies athletic park to the contaminated land and put the railyard in its place.
 
What is the advantage of Lynnwood over Shepard? I think the bare minimum if we're doing any portion of the SE at all is to go to Quarry Park, and once you're there you're only two stops from Shepard.
 

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