CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Love me a good cut and cover. I assume the bored tunnel will be under the CP tracks. That would be the most economically efficient.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
I saw this image in the Event Centre thread, but it's more of a Green Line question. I'm curious why the city didn't put the station one block west? Unless they plan to have an entrance on Stampede Trail? I would expect a lot more pedestrian traffic along Stampede Trail to/from EV also the retail is closer to Stampede Trail.
Duck Lightning
Senior Member
Just from a glance it looks like they're trying to put the station in the middle of the undeveloped lands north of the arena. Likely trying to maximise the TOD potential
accord1999
Active Member
The first draft of the revised alignment after the 2019 issues wanted to place the station between 4th and 5th Street because of the reasons you noted. However, after the functional design phase they had to move it over for operational and cost reasons.
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whatchyyc
Active Member
In the recent Green Line update email:
'Green Line and 'ahead of schedule' are two things rarely ever mentioned in the same sentence lol.
In all seriousness, it's nice to see some progress.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
If you're always changing the schedule you're never behind schedule.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Don't know if I already asked this but.................when building the downtown tunnel for the GL are they planning to make it a double level station so any future East/West trips thru the downtown could potentially be tunneled more easily?
whatchyyc
Active Member
I just hope to be alive to see the 8th ave subway built
I just hope to be alive to see the Green Line finished firstI just hope to be alive to see the 8th ave subway built
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
That’s really great to hear, been wondering this for years. Historically the city has had a “we’lol deal with it later” approach rather than this level of proactive approach.
SlippinJimmy
New Member
The actually did an update to RouteAhead no too long ago and all but removed the plan stating that they don't see a need for it for the foreseeable future which sadly means mass transit in Calgary having a considerable constraint on frequency and having to wait at red lights for years to to come... In the plan they seemed to be more interested in extending the Blue Line west, Red Line south, iirc blue line further north as well, and considering some infill stations (stations that imo maybe aren't worth the disruption and cost).
The Green Line will already have to be deep enough to cross the below the rather shallow CP Tunnel that goes into downtown, so that's 1/2 hypothetical crossings with an 8th Ave subway already considered, the other would be at 2nd and 8th right at the corner of Banker's Hall and The Core. At any rate I personally think there is a good chance this is 2km of tunnel none of us will get to see in our lives, further supported by the fact that if built some time down the road there would effectively be no easy way to transfer from a Red Line station under 8th to the 7th Ave Green Line station that unfortunately seems like it would be located north of 7th. This would mean that transferring customers would have to walk 1-2 blocks outside. One would think if the 8th Ave subway really was a serious consideration, 7th Ave station would be between 7th and 8th to allow for a future easy transfer. Then again it is Calgary and they may just say that they find a 2 block outside transfer completely acceptable.
I do wonder how they would rework the Red Line's west departure from downtown to accommodate this; I often will just look around that area when going through it and wonder where they could possibly build a portal for the tunnel and whether or not the existing track would be replaced by that portal. I imagine they would leave the library portion alone for sure as the connection between the two lines in any event. Ripping up existing tracks along 9th St and replacing with a portal would be a massive disruption, but it also would allow them to then build a westbound 9th St station on 7th Ave if they so wanted.
Sometimes I think this city really does think underground infrastructure is the enemy, which is sad because that's my favourite kind.
Golfing guy
Active Member
After reading this I had a thought. If it costs maybe 1-2 billion $$$ to put red and blue lines under ground through downtown. Would that money not be better spent extending the green line north or south from this initial phases. I’d rather have the line extended right up through NC Calgary than use that money to sink existing downtown stuff. Get as much new stuff built before we glamor things up
SlippinJimmy
New Member
Well that could be done forever, just minimize costs and just keep building new things. The problem is that this leads to the question that has been beaten to death, is a street car up Centre St (or anywhere else they would end up building one with this mentality) worth the money and appropriate for that corridor. In my opinion, no it isn't. With that plan, all we end up getting more and more street cars that they will call "rapid transit" and have something like San Francisco's MUNI, the worlds slowest subway because it's also a street car, but with all of ours minus the subway part.
There is a place trains like those of course, it works great in places that have them, and it's a step above busses, when considering a Vancouver style BRT not even a very big one, but for much, much more cost.
Until I see busses and stops as busy as R4 or 99B-Line, maybe this very light rail that seems to be the future of just about everything in this part of the continent is just not even worth it. Then just spend that money on making the actual dedicated ROW real rapid transit even better than it is. To be clear, I'm saying 8th Ave subway, shovels in the ground tomorrow, I'm speaking in general. I remember having a discussion with some urban infra nerds about this before and we all agreed that ideally a corridor like Center St is more deserving of something more closely resembling the Broadway subway, especially since it will be a crucial part of the rapid transit access to the airport, but that this city would never want to pay for that.
A little off topic, but when they changed the design north of the river on the GL, it's really a shame that all of it was seemingly changed to street level. Too bad they couldn't at least go with the compromise from earlier that had tunnel to lower bridge to another tunnel until after 16th.
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
The west portal of the 8th Avenue Tunnel already exists, it was the only portion ever built. It was included in the construction of City Hall/Olympic Plaza in the 80s. That section is of least concern I’d say.