The_Cat
Senior Member
There’s over 100,000 people living south of the Henday. The trains will be packed in day one.
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- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
Blizzard
New Member
Also a lifelong northsider and I too agree that this extension will have strong ridership and needs to go ahead. However, the Castle Downs extension absolutely must remain as the next priority after getting to Heritage Valley.
thommyjo
Senior Member
You guys are probably right. I’m just getting cynical after years of our LRT struggling.
Heritage Valley P&R has sort of flopped until now, but the psychological reality of a train there will likely change that vs just express buses.
The cost is still egregious imo. But I’ll jump back on the booster train.
David A
Senior Member
If you don't have much park and ride, it can also tie up more buses on short routes to the LRT stations and I thought not having enough buses was an issue too.
Kosy123
Senior Member
As someone who used the Heritage Valley P&R, for a few months, it was actually nice but was prone to being stuck in traffic. Especially when 111 St south of 23 Ave was under construction for a bit.
Overall a great service but the psychological difference between “train vs bus” is genuinely big and honestly kinda dumb. Shiny train will always win out.
accord1999
Active Member
Not sure there is, may be other than to get East Asian companies to build them. Almost every recent major LRT project in North America (from Honolulu to Calgary to Ottawa to Austin) has gone over-budget and delayed, sometimes just a year after they were approved.
The best thing we can do is to get accurate estimates so that stakeholders can actually make informed decisions, rather than getting hopelessly optimistic initial costs that require billion dollar decisions to be made almost on the fly when those costs turn out to be way too low.
SarcasticMarmot
Active Member
I don't think getting East Asian companies to build them would make much of a difference. The difference in governance likely plays a bigger role than who is building it. When I lived in Taiwan while they were building a bunch of commuter rail projects the difference was stark, no community consultation, no negotiation about land acquisition, nothing. The government just told people "We are taking these homes/businesses and building a train line here. If you don't like it, vote us out in the next election".
dunno
Active Member
Do you have a source for this? Not disputing, just curious.
MacLac
Senior Member
We know why everything is so expensive - it's not rocket "appliances" - bought groceries lately?
EdwardEdm
Active Member
First of all, and this has already been mentioned before I believe, but this extension has a lot of challenges. A tunnel under 23 Ave, the bridge over Blackmud Creek, the bridge over the Henday, and while it's not a challenge exactly, the OMF is needed and won't be cheap. However, once the SLRT reaches Ellerslie Road, the extensions after that should be relatively straight forward and cheaper. This isn't unlike 25 or so years ago when the push was to just get the LRT out from under the University as after that was done it, would be much easier to get the extension to Century Park. Now, that argument certainly also exists for getting the Metro Line over Yellowhead and Walker yards... but that's another thread.
I'm not sure how many people realize the amount of bus traffic from Century Park uses 111 St. I remember in the early days of the BNR being awestruck at the amount of buses at Century Park during AM and PM peaks and the frequencies on the 721 and 722. I think they have scaled back some of the routes to better align with post Covid ridership, but, there is still a substantial number of buses.
How many? I did some counting based upon the PDF schedules.
I was just counting SB departures from Century Park and NB arrivals at CP. AM I used 7:00-9:00 and PM I used 15:00-17:00. I only included routes that travelled south of the Henday (so no 713). Those routes are: 521, 700x, 718, 719, 721, 722. This doesn't include any school extras.
NB AM= 94 buses
SB AM= 43 buses
NB PM= 42 buses
SB PM= 75 buses
AM total= 137 buses
PM total= 117 buses
Since the PM peak is usually spread out longer, you'll probably end up with close to the same total overall number of buses between the two peaks. These numbers are just a snap shot for a 2 hour period.
The stretch of 111 St between Century Park and Ellerslie Road is 3.3 KM, so, while you're not fully eliminating these buses with this LRT extension, for that stretch of road you're getting a significant number of buses off of the road, and not to mention, the concentration of diesel exhaust from them.
I'm not sure how many people realize the amount of bus traffic from Century Park uses 111 St. I remember in the early days of the BNR being awestruck at the amount of buses at Century Park during AM and PM peaks and the frequencies on the 721 and 722. I think they have scaled back some of the routes to better align with post Covid ridership, but, there is still a substantial number of buses.
How many? I did some counting based upon the PDF schedules.
I was just counting SB departures from Century Park and NB arrivals at CP. AM I used 7:00-9:00 and PM I used 15:00-17:00. I only included routes that travelled south of the Henday (so no 713). Those routes are: 521, 700x, 718, 719, 721, 722. This doesn't include any school extras.
NB AM= 94 buses
SB AM= 43 buses
NB PM= 42 buses
SB PM= 75 buses
AM total= 137 buses
PM total= 117 buses
Since the PM peak is usually spread out longer, you'll probably end up with close to the same total overall number of buses between the two peaks. These numbers are just a snap shot for a 2 hour period.
The stretch of 111 St between Century Park and Ellerslie Road is 3.3 KM, so, while you're not fully eliminating these buses with this LRT extension, for that stretch of road you're getting a significant number of buses off of the road, and not to mention, the concentration of diesel exhaust from them.
yeggator
Active Member
The key reason why the south extension was prioritized was because of the new OMF, no? We wouldn’t have had enough trains to run north of Blatchford if we did that extension first, unless we extended the Metro Line to Campbell road in one go. And to be honest, the south extension has wayyyy more value than extending the Metro Line past Castle Downs. Also, having a station with a park’n’ride by the Henday on the south side is a game changer for ridership, alongside closer bus connections (that don’t involve the creek crossing on 23 Ave that is absolutely wretched during winter).
supplanter
Active Member
Was also curious. Used this website: https://censusmapper.ca/maps/new#11/53.5462/-113.4912 to add up the census tract populations for all those south of the Henday and got approx. 130,000 which is from the 2021 census. Using the same method, population was approx. 86,000 in 2016. A rough calculation that assumes consistent growth and using population estimates for 2023, the current population could be over 200,000.
The_Cat
Senior Member
I took the number from the Government of Alberta IHDA website.
ntt1
Active Member
The 111 St/Henday interchange can also be a pretty bad chokepoint in the winter (or when there are accidents) as well if needing to get south to Ellerslie road, so having a train option will help, I think.
occidentalcapital
Senior Member
This makes sense. South is definitely a much larger area and continues to be fastest growing. I think some people mistakenly think that each quadrant of the city is "equal" in terms of services it should get/how many people are there/whether LRT service is warranted/shops and services, but the reality, at least for Edmonton's recent past, is that the south side has been far and away the biggest growth engine, is the most desirable area for new construction and growing most rapidly. My viewpoint is that the city should embrace this rather than attempt to change it. It would be folly to attempt to change the market preferences and you'll lose the advantages that would come with building out a really solid south side enclave, connection to the airport, and make an area that's large enough (with enough critical mass) to gain some national recognition as a very nice place to live/work within metro Edmonton.