Social Justice
Active Member
The city changed the route alignment from 12th ave to 11th ave, they scrapped the trenched station at 16th ave and they still haven't figured out how to cross Bow River. All these changes came very late in the game.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
The city changed the route alignment from 12th ave to 11th ave, they scrapped the trenched station at 16th ave and they still haven't figured out how to cross Bow River. All these changes came very late in the game.
The Familia
Senior Member
Personally I would scrap the entire north section for now. I say start the Green line with a subway station on 7th Ave downtown (as proposed) and build the line to the South health Campus/Seton as proposed. This line is considerably cheaper than the north section and it would hit it's maximum potential right away. Quality over quantity. Why half ass two lines when we can do one line really well! The south in underserved in my opinion (I'm a naorth guy living in Evanston). Let's build the south east line and come back and revisit the North at a later date. It will give them time to plan a better route and secure proper funding at that time.
Last edited:
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
I like that idea. There has already been a lot of work done and in progress, on the south leg. As far as I know, nothing on the north leg yet.
accord1999
Active Member
I would consider these changes not a change in scope so much as the consequences of the failure of the planners to accurately estimate costs.
darwink
Senior Member
I would say it is one thing: you cost an el-cheapo line that no one would like - slow, takes lots of traffic capacity away and provide very high level estimates of the cost. Every cost change except for what would always have turned out to be much more difficult tunnel at 8th Ave and 2nd Street is the result of scope changes.
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
I would be all for this. I don't want the north to be a hodgepodge of bullshit. Crossing 16th at-grade is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, so we should just stop it downtown and make it useful. The great thing is that at Sheppard, shortly after the proposed terminus is where the ROW for the Green Line that has been reserved for decades actually begins.
Joborule
Active Member
The one drawback in doing this, is that it makes it even more of a political battle, and requires much more financial will to convince the public to put in money into the north extension, since the part from the river to 16th itself (especially if it's underground as intended originally) will be extremely expensive. This will make the extension to the north, which is needed since yesterday, take even longer to get done.
At least with getting to 16th ave off the get go, the hard part of the north is already dealt with. At that point the extensions hurdles is just getting ROWs for some small segments, which should be that challenging. This way, the LRT should get into the upper regions of the north sooner as a result.
But I do get your point, and don't completely disagree. I could go either way on if they just do all of SE in one go (or close to at least), or proceed with the current plan. If they do go with the current plan though, I would hope there would be a lot of work during phase I construction to get plans solidified, and funding for the northern extension to be done as phase II, and get it going very shortly after phase I completes.
Social Justice
Active Member
I agree with your points. The NC LRT will unfortunately be delayed if the Green Line's northern terminus is Eau Claire. However, there's a limited amount of funds available. It's better to build the LRT properly and not cut corners. Sometimes you have to cut off the finger to save the hand.
outoftheice
Active Member
Curious what people would define as 'building it properly'? Based on the information shared by the City of Calgary it is no longer technically feasible to build a tunnel under the river as the cut and cover method required through the downtown core means the Eau Claire station won't be built at a sufficient depth to permit tunneling under the river. So regardless of whether or not the northern segment to 16th is built now or 20 years from now we are going to be stuck with a bridge.
The Council approved plan originally had the line surfacing at 21st Ave N and there's been no talk of that ever really changing. So knowing those two constraints (a bridge is required over the Bow River and the train will run on the surface starting at 21st Ave N) what does everyone's ideal Green Line plan look like for the missing middle and what aspects of that plan makes it worth the delay by not building to 16th Ave now using the City of Calgary's latest proposal?
The Council approved plan originally had the line surfacing at 21st Ave N and there's been no talk of that ever really changing. So knowing those two constraints (a bridge is required over the Bow River and the train will run on the surface starting at 21st Ave N) what does everyone's ideal Green Line plan look like for the missing middle and what aspects of that plan makes it worth the delay by not building to 16th Ave now using the City of Calgary's latest proposal?
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
The bridge should punch into the bluffs, not make a ridiculously awkward serpentine curve on to one of the busiest bridges in the province. Once the line punches into the bluffs it will stop between 15 and 16 Avenue N, and then surface at 21 Avenue.
Social Justice
Active Member
You're right. "Building it properly" is a vague term. I'll try again.
I'd like to see the LRT system avoid conflicts with key at-grade crossings. These crossing would see a high number of daily vehicle and pedestrian volume. Ideally key intersections would be grade separated.
A bad example of an at grade crossing is at 162nd Ave:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com
The 32nd Ave crossing:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com
North Line in Edmonton:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com
Even though the LRT has priority at these intersections, I believe the LRT has to travel at a slower speed at these crossings. Also, vehicle and pedestrian movements are impeded. I'm not against cost saving measures, but every at-grade crossing is a point of failure in the system. I'm not against surface LRT on Centre street, but the city has to take their time and design it so that it integrates well with the streetscape. The fact that they proposed a surface crossing at 16th Ave has me extremely worried.
Joborule
Active Member
I guess though that since no matter what, NCLRT is primarily going to be at grade, and as grade crossings, is it a dealbreaker issue if 16th Ave is permanently an at grade crossing also? The point of these low floor LRVs is for it be integrated with traffic. Will having the LRT cross there make much of a difference for cross traffic and pedestrians as it is currently?
darwink
Senior Member
Or at least have the option to in the future use the landing on the bluff as a tunnel portal.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I have the position that grade-separated is really nice, but can be done quite effective under one condition - the trade-offs have to be on the car commuters. You can't create a successful street-level LRT and maintain complete automobile hegemony on all areas of the street. It's incompatible for success.
36th Street NE is terrible in form and function because we never asked drivers to sacrifice anything - their land uses protected through auto-orientation, their turns are protected and still at every intersection possible (believe it or not, no turn access was restricted pre-NE LRT or post-NE LRT, every single intersection was planned in advance so there was no "sacrifices" for drivers). Several grade separations of roads were rolled into LRT extension projects even (16th Ave NE and McKnight Blvd).
The argument can be made that 36 Street NE only exists because we didn't ask drivers to sacrifice anything (i.e. political compromises), but I have no knowledge of how that public debate played out in the late 1970s or 1980s to know that. A similar debate has played out on almost all LRT projects since in this city - we will invest heavily in transit, but only if we don't ask drivers to sacrifice. Think Crowchild grade separation paired with LRT expansion of the 1990s - 2000s and Bow Trail widening in the West LRT project in 2010ish.
This compromise of building transit only when we don't ask drivers to sacrifice anything can build you a lot of transit that's not bad, our system length and ridership is partially a testament to this*. But it doesn't build great transit. Nor does it build create urban transit where there is no space to give everyone what they want. Crossing 16th Ave N at-grade is not ideal for drivers or transit users for the reasons mentioned - but it doesn't have to be bad for transit users, and it doesn't have to be worse than today for pedestrians. With the right sacrifices by drivers it can all work reasonably fine in a constrained budget (e.g. no left turns allowed, remove all right turn slip lanes for station and pedestrian infrastructure, prioritize train movements). I want to be careful, it's not suggesting just make driving worse and people will take the LRT, it's suggesting we've tipped the scales so far to be pro-driver we forget what true balance even looks like where transit at-grade works just fine.
*the often-quoted reason for our LRT's high ridership is a high downtown parking costs, a rare examples of drivers sacrificing something in our system. Surprise: the sacrifice improves transit performance.
accord1999
Active Member
That does seem to be the only way for the current section north of the river to even remotely work:
I'd assume that if the NC line ever gets far north, that local traffic only rule will go up to 40th Avenue.
But it's hilarious in a perverse way that despite claiming improved transportation for the NC being a critical goal of the Green Line, even after $5B (and using up the City's financial capacity for the next 30 years), the NC will see no increase in public transit capacity into downtown and significantly less car capacity.