FCC1982
Active Member
Oh boy - she’s even suggesting the resurrection of the Deerfoot valley for NC LRT - wasn’t that dismissed decades ago ?
But of course it ties into rail to YYC and the high speed rail corridor.
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
But of course it ties into rail to YYC and the high speed rail corridor.
FCC1982
Active Member
Or … return 7th to vehicle traffic … Gasp!
ByeByeBaby
Active Member
The maximum number of people will take transit into the downtown core if the whole trip to the place they want to go to is convenient, and the vast majority of places people want to go to are not east of City Hall. Nobody working at Eighth Avenue Place or Centennial Place will say "Hooray! I'm in the downtown core!" getting off their train east of City Hall; they'll say "Now how the heck do I get to my office?"
If you work somewhere in the middle of the downtown, say Banker's Hall and the train stops east of City Hall, you have the following options:
1). Walk all the way to work, 1 km -- about 15 minutes.
2). Take escalator or stairs to street level - 1 minute. Wait for the light at 7th Ave - 1-2 minutes. Wait for the next train - 1-2 minutes (in rush hour). Ride it one stop - 2-3 minutes. Walk 300m - about 5 minutes. Total: 10-13 minutes.
Adding in 10-15 minutes to someone's commute will reduce how attractive the transit alternative is. And yes, there's absolutely an argument that the cost savings is worth adding time to people's commutes (and reducing ridership).
But guess what? It doesn't matter where you add the 10-15 minutes to people's commute. The SETWAY busway plan that preceded the Green Line LRT idea envisioned a dedicated transitway to the southeast along the same route as the Green Line. The travel times for a trip all the way from Seton to downtown was 43 minutes by transitway, and 35 minutes by LRT. 8 minutes difference.
If the argument is that adding 10 minutes to the commute is worth the cost savings of the previous Gray proposal, there's an even stronger argument to not build LRT to the southeast but instead build the SETWAY, which adds 8 minutes to the commute, and would be a fraction of the cost of the Gray proposal.
MichaelS
Senior Member
No, it was dismissed with the election of Naheed Nenshi with the thorough analysis behind moving it to Centre Street of "because that is where the people are" with no consideration of what that move would cost. The 2009 Calgary Transportation Plan (sister document to the MDP) showed the future North Central LRT up the Nose Creek Valley.
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FriendlyDrunks
Active Member
Well she seems to want the original plan but also hates the original plan?
Nawads
Active Member
She wants the full 40km green line for less than 5 billion. But that was clearly never possible unless it was built over ten years ago.
Also, I see the UCP is saying that if the city tries to make the UCP take over the project they will kill it. They want the city to continue to run the project, have the biggest share of financing, and agree to some future plan that the UCp proposes otherwise they will cancel the project outright.
darwink
Senior Member
The Premier as always has some interesting ideas. Policy wishes, as they were.
Anyways, I think the Premier has even odds on not being Premier by the time the next budget roles around. Things are WAY worse internally in the party, and in the government, than is filtering out into the media.
Anyways, I think the Premier has even odds on not being Premier by the time the next budget roles around. Things are WAY worse internally in the party, and in the government, than is filtering out into the media.
Chinook Arch
Active Member
It’s true, there wasn’t much consideration on the cost, but IMO building the line through the Nose Creek Valley would be a huge mistake. Better to pay extra money now and have it done properly, building it where the people are.
lemongrab
Active Member
The problem is the existential risk posed to the whole buildout from delivering an expensive boondoggle. "Just another $3B will make this useless LRT useful!" kinda resembles "one more lane, bro!".
Perhaps its useless hindsight, but rewind to 2015 and ask ourselves what we'd prefer:
1. Stage 1 of a BRT opening by 2020 and ROW fully built out from 4 St to Seton by say 2028. Probably some progress LRT north and/or upgrade SE to LRT circa ~2060
vs.
2. LRT Lynnwood-Eau Claire by 2033, Shephard by 2036, Seton by 2043. Probably no real LRT progress to the north
(at this point 2033 seems optimistic for a first train, but maybe 10 years is too long for further build out...)
And that 8 minute difference is only to one specified point (2nd & 7th). If your destination is east of Macleod then getting off BRT near City Hall is probably ~equivalent to LRT to 2nd and backtracking. If your destination is west of 4th St, then BRT is probably a few minutes slower compared to LRT to 2nd (depending on how far west the BRT actually ran - MaxPurple loops back at 1st St SW...).
And then we could also ask whether more could/should be done on 6th/9th Aves to expedite the [then] 3 BRT routes running them.
kiggupiggu
New Member
Green Line cost escalations draw further scrutiny by Alberta government - LiveWire Calgary
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the Alberta government’s insistence there will be no further funding help for the Green Line isn’t anything new. The mayor responded to questions on the $5.5 billion project on Thursday morning, after a letter from Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors...
livewirecalgary.com
I saw there was actually some numbers in this old article:
“It says that, it’s that area that’s going down to Eau Claire, and the alternative, an elevated line from the Event Center to City Hall hub would avoid the costly tunnels, would only cost $200 million, which would save about 1.8 billion,” the Premier told reporters.
To me, it doesn't seem like that much to just build it right.
MichaelS
Senior Member
Why would it be a huge mistake? And, what does "done properly" mean for Centre Street? Is it an at-grade neighbourhood oriented streetcar, that runs at a maximum of 50km / hour between stations? Thus, making travel time so long, none of the hundreds of thousands of residents in north central Calgary would consider it a viable alternative for their commute? Or, does it mean the train runs at 80 km/h in order to provide competitive travel times? If it is the 80km/h option, is it tunnelled all the way to Beddington at a cost of $100 billion dollars? Or, does it also run at grade, thus creating a terrible experience (noise, danger, etc...) on what is also planned to be an important urban high street?
It takes real thought/nuance and an honest conversation of cost/benefit to make this decision. Hence why the extremely superficial decision made by politicians has blown up in our face.
darwink
Senior Member
A city hall hub is short sighted.
Not protecting enough on centre st would also be a mistake. but if you're willing to insure the wrath of NIMBYs' 60 km/h works just fine on the design.
I think elevated would also work just fine on Centre St. But people seem to care more about aesthetics than either function or cost.
Not protecting enough on centre st would also be a mistake. but if you're willing to insure the wrath of NIMBYs' 60 km/h works just fine on the design.
I think elevated would also work just fine on Centre St. But people seem to care more about aesthetics than either function or cost.
Tothewest
Active Member
There isn't going to be tunnelling though, which takes the option of 11th right off the table, so what other options would there be? The provinces goal is to get people to the event centre, likely the city's cost on where to go from there, assuming no tunneling.
The reasons people take LRT are far larger than just, "is my walk 5 or 10 min from the train". No battling traffic, finding parking, paying for parking, buying gas. It's not necessarily the goal of these trains to put you within 4 blocks of your work. Take any commuter rail line in the US, they all spur in from the suburbs to that city's "grand central", literally only only one stop in the downtown, it's then up to the user to use bus or light rail if their walk is too far. This really isn't that different, and in a perfect world with rational costs yah it would be great to take it down centre street, but it certainly isnt the obligation of every resident of Calgary to fund a $2B++ added cost for 4 subway stops to make things a bit easier for 1/6th of the city. It's going to take looking at this different, maybe a BRT loop in the downtown, adding the 4th rail cars, station modifications on 7th....
Tothewest
Active Member
$1.8B is a massive savings, massive. A savings that will extend the benefit to MANY more peopleGreen Line cost escalations draw further scrutiny by Alberta government - LiveWire Calgary
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the Alberta government’s insistence there will be no further funding help for the Green Line isn’t anything new. The mayor responded to questions on the $5.5 billion project on Thursday morning, after a letter from Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors...
I saw there was actually some numbers in this old article:
“It says that, it’s that area that’s going down to Eau Claire, and the alternative, an elevated line from the Event Center to City Hall hub would avoid the costly tunnels, would only cost $200 million, which would save about 1.8 billion,” the Premier told reporters.
To me, it doesn't seem like that much to just build it right.
This is a great point...there seems to be a lingering perspective that plan "A", usually the most costly, is always the preferred model. Well guess what, with costs now, unless you want to sink the city into irrecoverable debt while building out LRT, we would be wise to explore existing infrastructure and locations for those that live the furthest away, and possibly look at BRT lanes for people who live within 3-4km of downtown. As mentioned in my above post, this is how commuter rail works in the US
accord1999
Active Member
But it's not being paid for now. Centre Street on paper does have many advantages, but if it's so good and North Calgary already having high transit ridership why did it lose out to the SE in 2017? And why has it consistently been on the bottom in terms of priority, with no work or land acquisition being done while the Green Line continues to spend almost without limits in the DT core and SE?