[FCC1982]

Yeah - just trying to save utility relocation - relocation. But as you suggest - 10th might be a better route (I’m so torn on all the options west of GCS).
And there is no time to deliberate.

Thanks for the info CT & BC.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

If the line is going to be elevated over 10av, does it really matter if there are utils under the pavement?

Supports for the guideway could be built on the sidewalks if utils are under the road, or a centered support column could be used for the guideway if the utils happen to be under the sidewalks.

Either way, doesn't really seem like it should be a showstopper? Fingers crossed, those utils don't need to be rerelocated...

While I do like the elevated concept more and more, what's bothering me now with the proposed line as it stands is the price for phase 1.

7bil and change is going to make a big dent in finances for a while, and I can't help feeling the NC leg will be a long ways out..

What I'd like to see is a cost estimate for extending the elevated option across the river, into the hill with the 16av underground station, and far enough past to surface and go elevated again, stopping at the 28av or 40av station.

That way the big big spend covers the core of the system, and further extensions for both SE and NC can be done station at a time, rather than as big multi-billion megaprojects.

If that can be done for 10 bil or less, I say go for it!

If not, I vote setway for the SE until construction costs get... recalibrated.

 

[lemongrab]

Not sure elevated on 7th could work without significant disruptions to the red/blue lines? It's gotta be Calgary's busiest street...

 

[HudsonA08]

Thinking about the NC expansion - and I think the key to getting this done will rest on the airport connection and the provinces grand central idea. An airport connection with transfers to Banff is really only great for tourism if it takes the green line right through downtown. Over to the Blue and then transfer to the green - not sure if that is enough of a deal breaker to have the airport connection, and NC linked together.

Just an idea.

 

[darwink]

If the line is going to be elevated over 10av, does it really matter if there are utils under the pavement?

Yes and no. It depends where the city put the new utilities.

In the end the city knew the risk it was taking moving utilities before the design was complete. They thought the risk was worth it given the chance to save time and money. My memory is hazy as to whether the city was approached with the opportunity by local companies—if that was the case it would be another instance of capture by local interests.

 

[darwink]

For wanting a larger project by spending more money. I get that very few people have the need to understand how infrastructure funds flow. But here is a bit:

It is not: Feds, province, city approve money, and money is drawn from each at a fixed rate, and if the amount is higher, money is just drawn from more years. Some of the confusion comes from that the province’s MSI used to be like this. The city got an allocation and could spend it on capital projects as it pleased—even moving spending forward and backwards in time, within limits.

The feds cannot approve 1/3 of a $10 billion project. They can approve 1/3 of $4.9 billion from the 2015-2027 transit fund and 1/3rd of $5.1 billion from the 2027-2036 transit fund. The problem with delaying until you’re ready for the $10 billion project approval, the project will be too late for the program criteria for the 2015-2027 fund.

All federal fund applications require provincial nomination as it is constitutionally dubious for the federal government to fund cities directly. The Feds do this to help bind the provinces to the projects, ensure the feds don’t have to exercise as much oversight, and because municipalities even large ones are not universally competent.

 

[Dārayavauš]

Right, elevated obviously doesn't impact you directly physically, so you're taking the approach that any compromises don't matter to anyone.

You would never be able to build anything ever with that kind of outlook.

There will always be those opposed to anything. Just ignore them.

 

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

For wanting a larger project by spending more money. I get that very few people have the need to understand how infrastructure funds flow. But here is a bit:

It is not: Feds, province, city approve money, and money is drawn from each at a fixed rate, and if the amount is higher, money is just drawn from more years. Some of the confusion comes from that the province’s MSI used to be like this. The city got an allocation and could spend it on capital projects as it pleased—even moving spending forward and backwards in time, within limits.

The feds cannot approve 1/3 of a $10 billion project. They can approve 1/3 of $4.9 billion from the 2015-2027 transit fund and 1/3rd of $5.1 billion from the 2027-2036 transit fund. The problem with delaying until you’re ready for the $10 billion project approval, the project will be too late for the program criteria for the 2015-2027 fund.

All federal fund applications require provincial nomination as it is constitutionally dubious for the federal government to fund cities directly. The Feds do this to help bind the provinces to the projects, ensure the feds don’t have to exercise as much oversight, and because municipalities even large ones are not universally competent.

Interesting, thanks for the explanation. Sounds like a lot of hoops and bureaucratic overhead, but I suppose there has to be some decent checks and balances on multi billion projects.

I guess I'll rephrase my poll response to supporting elevated LRT *IF* the SE line is built with automated trains, forcing any future NC extensions to the same spec.

If not? Bus it up SE...
The left over billions can be put to better use.

 

[Red Star]

What are the advantages of 11th? That the street is wider, and it already has utilities removed? And I guess a Beltline station that is 1 block deeper into the community?

If we're going with elevated it just seems like both a longer and more disruptive route, with more storefronts and windows, and fewer parking lots and elevated parkades.

Forgive my ignorance...

But if the utilities have already been relocated along 11th Ave. and 2nd Street why is the underground option so much money? Shouldn't it be cheaper to do a cut and cover subway? You'd think 6 billion dollars can go a long ways.

 

[lemongrab]

All federal fund applications require provincial nomination as it is constitutionally dubious for the federal government to fund cities directly. The Feds do this to help bind the provinces to the projects, ensure the feds don’t have to exercise as much oversight, and because municipalities even large ones are not universally competent.

Interesting. Do you happen to have a link to the granular details of the federal program? I've searched before but its a maze of longwinded pages for similar but different programs, including the next phase replacement program.

Everything you wrote makes a ton of sense, but I will say that the original 2015 announcement kinda gave the impression that the provincial funding was not actually a prerequisite for anything (but of course it was just a high-level press conference where I wouldn't expect that kind of detail and there were probably simple explanations for how it was framed - like the ABNDP having barely taken office at that piint)

Forgive my ignorance...

But if the utilities have already been relocated along 11th Ave. and 2nd Street why is the underground option so much money? Shouldn't it be cheaper to do a cut and cover subway? You'd think 6 billion dollars can go a long ways.

Too deep and too long for c&c. Going under red line along Macleod and future 8 Ave subway make it too deep.

It might have been more viable if you run at-grade through beltline and opt for ~900m of shallow tunnel from 11th-4th, which would have a whole bunch of other implications like forcing the 8th ave tunnel deeper, a demo/rebuild of the parkade ramp where they've since built a fancy new walkway, etc. Lots of trade-offs with every option.

 

[darwink]

Sounds like a lot of hoops and bureaucratic overhead

When politicians talk about ‘running government like a business’ few understand the real world implications for switching from cash accounting to accrual accounting. Money cannot change hands without activity, and unless you lapse approvals eventually, you could end up with imaginary surpluses during the years you had hoped to spend the money and not predicted deficits when the money is actually spent by an activity.

It doesn’t help that municipalities are particularly bad at spending money on infrastructure. 2 years of stimulus funds intended by senior governments typically turn into 5 years of projects at the municipalities, with a bunch of the allocation lapsing due to failure to spend.

 

[darwink]

Interesting. Do you happen to have a link to the granular details of the federal program? I've searched before but it’s a maze of longwinded pages for similar but different programs, including the next phase replacement program.

This is mostly ‘how accounting rules, government grants and the federation interact to describe how infrastructure funding works in general’.

I will say that the original 2015 announcement kinda gave the impression that the provincial funding was not actually a prerequisite for anything

At that point provincial infrastructure funds were mostly untied and the city could direct them as it pleased within certain bounds. This has changed over time as the province realized it was getting little credit for massive infrastructure investments, and municipalities were perhaps far more willing to spend provincial money than their own, significantly loosening their built in oversight preferences to build projects with very high benefit to cost ratios.

A big part of this is due to capture: municipalities in interacting solely with their community can become so responsive to complaints of the few that benefits for the many become secondary while avoiding complaints from the few becomes paramount.

 

[jimb]

I’ve been digesting the AECOM report and the last couple of dozen pages of discussion here, and I’ve noticed something interesting in a few of the rejected AECOM options. A few of them stopped with a terminal at (or east of) city hall to connect with the existing red or blue LRT lines.



It occurred to me that was a bit short-sighted (pardon the pun).



7th Ave. from 4th St. East to 11th St. West is already a transit oriented street, with the LRTs and buses having exclusive use and rights of way. North- and South-bound traffic using public or commercial vehicles can cross 7th Ave., but can’t otherwise run on it.



Why can’t the new Green Line stay elevated and run over 7th Ave. as far west from city hall as the budget will allow for?



Starting at Grand Central (don’t get me started on that subject) the GL turns north, crossing the CPKC mainline and continues north on 4th St. E with a station at 4th & 7th, then at 7th Ave. it turns west with the first transfer station at (and over) the city hall platforms.



Continuing west along 7th Ave., in a full build-out the other GL stations could be between the 1st St. W and Centre St. LRT platforms, between the 4th St. and 3rd St. W platforms, between the 8th St. and 7th St. W platforms, with a terminus at (over) the Kerby LRT station .



These GL stations can be connected to the existing EB or WB LRT platforms on either side of the new GL mezzanines, and to the existing plus 15s crossing 7th Ave. As an elevated line, it can also have stations or mezzanines over intersections if needed, and since these stations are on the long blocks of 7th Ave. they can have the full length 125 M platforms built for future longer trains.



The crossing at 2nd St. W (or other street crossings) could have space for the future switches, interlocking and curve up 2nd St. to prepare for the connection to the next phase of GL North.

After terminating at Kerby in Phase 1, for Phase 2 the GL can be sent south still elevated over 11th St, elevated over the CPKC mainline (again) and remain elevated over 11th & 12th Aves (with an 11/12 Ave station mid-block) before returning to its natural habitat on the ground and running as far as the new GL terminal at 17th Ave. This gives the Beltline their long awaited LRT connection to downtown & the rest of the city.

I had thought about other ways for the GL to go south from downtown into the Beltline and resume ground running after crossing 12th Ave. Using 10th St requires a jog (like 11th St) along 17th Ave before resuming the journey south of 17th Ave into lower Mt. Royal, though Mt. Royal NIMBYs will have objections to a 'crime train' running on any street south of 17th into lower Mt. Royal and coming too close to their sanctuary. Using 9th St has a clear path to 17th Ave & further south. In the future however, 9th St downtown is expected to have the portal for the mythic 8th Ave subway, so adding a southbound elevated turnout here could make future subway construction a worse nightmare.

Using 7th St also has a clear path to 17th Ave & further south, although Mt. Royal NIMBYs will still howl that the line is too close to them.

Running on 6th St, it has to get around Lougheed House & the park (which should be easy to do for these street running trains) before ending at 17th Ave.

This leaves 2nd St W, which is already the proposed route for GL North through Eau Claire and Sunnyside. Running south on 2nd St, it has an unobstructed path to 17th Ave, and can continue 10 more blocks as far south as 26th Ave. It might be far enough away from Mt. Royal to quiet a lot of NIMBYs, and it also gains access to the Holy Cross site and to the businesses along 4th St just a block away. This could be a Phase 3 for this project.

A full grand union at 7th Ave & 2nd St could allow GL trains to continue their journeys in any of three directions.

While on the subject of 2nd St W, the line north to Eau Claire could be built at the same time as the south leg, as a prelude to construction of GL North.

 

[badc0ffee]

This leaves 2nd St W, which is already the proposed route for GL North through Eau Claire and Sunnyside. Running south on 2nd St, it has an unobstructed path to 17th Ave, and can continue 10 more blocks as far south as 26th Ave. It might be far enough away from Mt. Royal to quiet a lot of NIMBYs, and it also gains access to the Holy Cross site and to the businesses along 4th St just a block away. This could be a Phase 3 for this project.

I honestly lost track of what you're talking about here, but this is in particular not a good plan for a LRT line. Victoria Park and Erlton stations already serve these areas, and are just a little bit farther away. There are so many other routes to build before a line parallel to and 3.5 blocks from the red line.

 

[lemongrab]

Apparently terminating south of the CP Tracks could still generate about 80% of the ridership of getting to the core, so I think doing a beltline loop wouldn't have been the craziest thing in the world.

It's worth noting that the ridership data was established in 2020 - before shifting transit patterns had really taken root. TBF its hard to say exactly how things will continue to evolve (WFH potentially decreasing?)