[CalgaryTiger]

The below by my estimation includes the potential break fee for the LRV order, as committed cost did not jump a huge amount with the CAF order was signed.

From June:
View attachment 595247

Owner’s Costs: Include City of Calgary Staff Time, Communications, Software, and General Corporate Overheads and Inter- Business Unit costs.
Design & Engineering: Includes all OE costs as well as general Project Consultants costs.
Construction, Land & Other Assets: Includes Land, Enabling Works, and Quick Win build costs.
Bus Rapid Transit: Includes all costs related to the Bus Rapid Transit work for Green Line.

Committed Costs represent issued PO values only for Design & Engineering and Construction, Land & Other Assets. For Owner’s Costs and Bus Rapid Transit these are primarily costs incurred to date.

Great breakdown. I believe part of the back and forth between the two orders of government is who is going to pay for this.

I can see the city for sure paying for the Owner's Cost and BRT but I can see an argument for why the province should pay for a large portion of the other items.

The Design and Engineering (south of the Elbow) can be used, so the city should be compensated for that?
Some of the Construction, Land and Other Assets can be used, like the landfill rehabilitation and work in Ogden. I do not think the city will be compensated for the utility relocation downtown, the townhomes in Eau Claire or the Mustard Seed on 11 Ave as I don't see the province's alignment requiring that work. Which does mean the city now owns some prime-ish land in Eau Claire and the Old Mustard Seed.

 

[Red Star]

Is it though? It can be about 2km of shallow cut and cover, and the disruption cost is also minimal (compared to say 11 Ave).

I highly (and respectfully) disagree. I think every building owner and CRU along Stephen Ave. would be up in arm about the disruption. Rightfully so. The construction disruption would be a massive blow to the urban realm in downtown...even if it is worth it in the long run.

 

[Red Star]

Has the city abandoned 4 car trains? As soon as they added them to 7th, it was completely overwhelmed. Haven't noticed many since the downturn / covid.

I think CT only running 3 car C-trains until the Haysboro storage facility expansion is complete.

 

[CBBarnett]

Stephen Ave has three destination clusters and should have 3 stations only. Keep the trains moving and minimize uber-expensive below-ground stations. It's a paradigm shift for Calgary Transit that has this weird reverse German-style LRT system - the slowest part is downtown with the closest stops at-grade, where most German cities do the opposite where the only grade-separated part is downtown with the fewer stops.

Following that logic there's only 3 required stations at 3 destination clusters. Build to 4 car trains, don't future-proof to 5 to save money. That's still 100m of train station and huge capacity if you grade-separate to up the speed and flow of Red Line trains. Many metro systems are around that length, 100m is not a toy train.


These three stations would be ~750m apart each.

Century Gardens Station (Stephen Ave between 8th and 7th Street SW):

• Highest density residential cluster in region
• West interchange to Blue line across the park above ground
• Busiest pedestrian flows from Beltline on 8th Street SW

City Centre Station (Stephen Ave between 3rd and 2nd Street SW):

• Highest density highest density office cluster in region
• The Core mall and main hub of Plus-15 Stations
• Easy walk to 1st Street SW for Beltline and 7th Ave Blue line stations

Olympic Plaza (built into the plaza)

• Highest density art/culture/events hub in region
• East interchange station with blue line across plaza

You build those three and keep the Red Line moving fast and reliably through the core and you've unlock some substantial capacity on 7th as well as shaving 5+ minutes off each of the 75,000 daily Red Line commutes. Essentially start converting Red Line into a metro-style system in the core.

 

[thecivilengineer]

Silly thought but if we are planning underground shouldn't we make it more capable to use that for all the lines and make 7th ave for street cars kind of for specific D/T use only.

 

[badc0ffee]

I think every building owner and CRU along Stephen Ave. would be up in arm about the disruption

If it can be done while keeping sidewalks open on both sides (the excavation is dead centre in the middle of 8 Ave), I'm not sure they would. Stephen Ave doesn't depend on cars driving by or parking, just pedestrians.

 

[accord1999]

Silly thought but if we are planning underground shouldn't we spend more capable to use that for all the lines and make 7th ave for street cars kind of for specific D/T use only.

I wonder if there's a reluctance to move trains to 8th Avenue because 7th Avenue is closer to the central heart of DT Calgary and the ground-level stations makes it more convenient to hop-on and off a train.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

The city can say to the businesses on 8th Ave, "you haven't truly operated retail business on Calgary's main streets until we've ripped up the sidewalks and street in front of your business". Survive that and you can survive anything. See 17th Ave, 33rd and 34th Ave, etc.

hop-on and off a train

It is very convenient at rush hour to know it's not much more than 2 minutes between trains. Moving the red line off 7th, you lose this, in 2040 Calgary you could do a smaller LRT vehicle that just runs up and down 7th between Blue Line trains.

 

[Tothewest]

This may come across as too simplistic, but i generally agree that the solution comes with some re-organization of station stops on 7th for all lines, perhaps making dual stations at the same location. The goal is to get as many people to the core as possible, even if that means a stop is sacrificed for red/blue. Perfect, no, but $6B is insane money so any existing alignment or plan should be considered null and void, unless that same money gets us the distance every expects. Scrap the tunnels, accept raised lines, move forward

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

For low floor, I posit another theory why they're preferred: they're more expensive, and require more specialized replacement parts still covered by patents instead of manufacturable in a capable machine shop.

That's definitely an interesting caveat to the low floor trains. Was that disclosed in any of the reports to council, or is it something you discovered from your own research?

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

I wonder if there's a reluctance to move trains to 8th Avenue because 7th Avenue is closer to the central heart of DT Calgary and the ground-level stations makes it more convenient to hop-on and off a train.

I think that argument held true when the LRT was first built, but now that beltline is much more densely developed I think 8av has greater balance for the core, if not DT specifically.

Splitting hairs though, the extra block one way or another doesn't add much to the overall commute time.

 

[badc0ffee]

i generally agree that the solution comes with some re-organization of station stops on 7th for all lines, perhaps making dual stations at the same location

They rebuilt 7 Ave (except Centre St, which is from 2000), eliminating stops, twinning one station* (City Hall), and integrating platforms into the sidewalk, only like 10-15 years ago. I can't imagine there would be any appetite to redo it again so soon.

*Well, two if you count removing 10 St SW and building Downtown West/Kirby, but that was part of the west line project.

I think what prevented them from twinning the other stations was operational concerns, but I don't remember the details.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

Is it actually feasible to interline all 3 lines on 7th Ave.?

If they are taking about running green line elevated in beltline, maybe they meant intersecting with 7av and not running down it? In other words, eau clair would be out of scope for now.

 

[badc0ffee]

Is it actually feasible to interline all 3 lines on 7th Ave.?

In my opinion, yes, in the short/medium term, as long as we use 4-car trains, and have a credible plan to separate one or more lines onto 8 Ave in the long term.

There are light rail systems like Muni in San Francisco and MAX in Portland that run more than two lines on the same pair of tracks. It's not ideal, but I think it could be a decent compromise.

 

[lemongrab]

I think what prevented them from twinning the other stations was operational concerns, but I don't remember the details.

Did the non-twinning facilitate running busses down 7th? When did they stop doing that?