What investments do you think would be better? (genuinely curious)
The core of the Greenline and as much as can be concurrently contracted.

A couple years old now, but did a bit of an analysis for a client. The greenline north has pretty uncertain costs. We don’t really have necessary costing north of 64th. What I recommended for the client at the time for an incremental transit spend:
Trenched or underground station for 16th.
Extension up to 64th to make the NC Line useful.
Extension to McKenzie Towne as the political price to ‘complete’ the greenline
A bunch of BRT

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Trying to prioritize the NC LRT now is zero sun thinking. Every year that passes there is more money to spend. Post 2026 there will be new federal funding. Provincial funding rolls on. City funding accrues at least $70 million a year.

There are lots of opportunities to go NC. But it should be connected into a project that hits the centre of the CBD.

The goal is speed. Dumping people to walk much further on average (the centre street surface runner) creates an illusion of speed. It is not better than when SE LRT advocates in 2010 were pushing for a SE LRT which ended south of the CPR. Missing the objective, just focused on the tool. If the tool exists the objective must be met right?

Anyways. We will see whether procurement succeeds or not soon — hopefully it doesn’t succeed now then fail 10 months from now but that risk is much lower.

Resetting the project now creates a huge funding hole. Getting a grant from the feds—it isn’t sitting in a bank account for the city to use. The feds expect the money to be spent before the end of fiscal 2026, maybe being ok with spending a little in fiscal 2027.

If there isn’t a plan to spend it on an eligible project within that window Calgary just misses out. It either gets spent elsewhere in the province or elsewhere in the country.

Imagine applying for funds for the next program: we’re totally going to deliver this time on a totally different project after accomplishing only enabling works after more than a decade is super weak. Don’t expect any bending over backwards to find interesting ways to fund more than the basic envelope.
 
The core of the Greenline and as much as can be concurrently contracted.

A couple years old now, but did a bit of an analysis for a client. The greenline north has pretty uncertain costs. We don’t really have necessary costing north of 64th. What I recommended for the client at the time for an incremental transit spend:
Trenched or underground station for 16th.
Extension up to 64th to make the NC Line useful.
Extension to McKenzie Towne as the political price to ‘complete’ the greenline
A bunch of BRT

View attachment 458019

Trying to prioritize the NC LRT now is zero sun thinking. Every year that passes there is more money to spend. Post 2026 there will be new federal funding. Provincial funding rolls on. City funding accrues at least $70 million a year.

There are lots of opportunities to go NC. But it should be connected into a project that hits the centre of the CBD.

The goal is speed. Dumping people to walk much further on average (the centre street surface runner) creates an illusion of speed. It is not better than when SE LRT advocates in 2010 were pushing for a SE LRT which ended south of the CPR. Missing the objective, just focused on the tool. If the tool exists the objective must be met right?

Anyways. We will see whether procurement succeeds or not soon — hopefully it doesn’t succeed now then fail 10 months from now but that risk is much lower.

Resetting the project now creates a huge funding hole. Getting a grant from the feds—it isn’t sitting in a bank account for the city to use. The feds expect the money to be spent before the end of fiscal 2026, maybe being ok with spending a little in fiscal 2027.

If there isn’t a plan to spend it on an eligible project within that window Calgary just misses out. It either gets spent elsewhere in the province or elsewhere in the country.

Imagine applying for funds for the next program: we’re totally going to deliver this time on a totally different project after accomplishing only enabling works after more than a decade is super weak. Don’t expect any bending over backwards to find interesting ways to fund more than the basic envelope.
I don't get that table. For example, why is the capital cost for Beddington to North Pointe zero? Why are capital costs identical for 16 Ave to 64, 16th Ave to North Pointe and 16th Ave to Beddington? Does capital include land acquistion (I would expect so)? Why are the capital costs south of Shepard so high given that the right of way is already in place?
 
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.
I like the idea of moving moving the sports fields at Pop Davis to some combo of Refinery Park and Lynwood Ridge and developing Pop David into residential. I have no idea if the land underneath Pop Davis is contaminated.

Even better would be to remove the CN embankment that divides Pop Davis from Refinery Park that also continues over Deerfoot. I have never seen a train on that line.
 
The Green Line as envisioned seems to be more of a ploy to gain future funding than actually deliver useful transit. Neil McKendrick's point about few bus riders wanting to transfer at Shepard or 16th Ave is valid. Seems like the plan is to deliver a white elephant and hope that the Province forgets sunk costs and funds extenstions either north or south to deliver a minimium operable segment. A better plan would have cut the tunnel off at 7th ave and built as far south as possible.
 
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Even better would be to remove the CN embankment that divides Pop Davis from Refinery Park that also continues over Deerfoot. I have never seen a train on that line.
It serves some businesses in the Highfield industrial area and a few things like scrap metal recyclers along Ogden Road. It doesn't see mainline traffic but I think it would be a shame to close it and move that stuff to trucks, especially since they already built a tunnel for the green line to pass underneath the freight track.
 
I don't get that table. For example, why is the capital cost for Beddington to North Pointe zero? Why are capital costs identical for 16 Ave to 64, 16th Ave to North Pointe and 16th Ave to Beddington? Does capital include land acquistion (I would expect so)? Why are the capital costs south of Shepard so high given that the right of way is already in place?
The city does not have reliable costing north of 64th, and that was reflected in the prioritization document presenting in spring/summer 2021 which was useful in some respects and not others.

Capital should have an estimate, but lets say to relocate utilties it was necessary to acquire land, that wouldn't be known or estimated.

To McKenzie Towne it is still 3.5 km, requires additional vehicles, and doesn't have the ROW fully ready to build even if the land is secured. It requires landfill/fill remediation to avoid some expropriation (boo the corridor work being done right when the buildings on 126 ave were being built, in 2005-6) and/or taking away road capacity. Could probably do it for less as part of a larger project, but running it as a project on its own was the name of the game for this work.

We also can't expect accurate comparable costing on non-priorities. They're going to be estimated based on the best study available and rules of thumb.
 
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Most places have. Even Calgary. The West LRT was close to triple the 2005/6 cost (when Westbrook was to be elevated!) Scope control is really hard. Just have to look at the Canada Line in Vancouver. Even 15 years later the main complaints are still about scope without any acknowledgement that changing the scope would change the cost.
 
The Canada Line was a steal by contemporary cost standards. Are people wishing it was built with higher capacity (longer platforms and trains, double tracking to the terminal station in Richmond) or something else?

I haven't heard similar comments about the west LRT, other than Shaganappi being in the wrong place and lacking an overpass (but I was there for the engagement and it's what the "community" at the time wanted), which could indicate that we got a system with appropriate capacity.
 
the above plus provisions for multiple tie ins and flying junctions with existing skytrain and future skytrain lines, and multiple exits per station.
If the trade-off is undersized but in-operation, efficient, rapid and reliable transit v. spend billions more with more projects risks to get a higher capacity line, they made the right choice. Transit needs wins and far more examples of it being a victims of it's own success rather than failing to deliver anything or taking so long to deliver political interests change. 150,000 new daily riders is 150,000 new daily advocates for service improvements.

If it could be replicated (acknowledging many technical reasons why it's unlikely to be this easy) - Spending the same to get 3 Canada Lines on 3 separate corridors v. 1 corridor with a 3x higher capacity Canada Line would be a great win and would transform Vancouver even more remarkably than it's already impressive transit system has.
 

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