Airboy
Senior Member
Across Blatchford. Next Time I go out I'll get photos.
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
YEG imagineer
Active Member
A bit of a long thread. With Blatchford being a giant brownfield and slowly developing and the Yellowhead freeway project happening now, I believe Edmonton has a big opportunity. The plan with the Yellowhead project is to close the 121st Street access and build a new interchange at 115th Street where Northpoint Equipment is. https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/defau...ents/YHT_SATto97_Schematics_Final_Concept.pdf With this change the VIA station is going to be isolated even further. But what if we move the train station to just west of the Blatchford Gate station. You could build a train bridge directly east of the future 115th Street interchange and a new rail line towards Blatchford Gate station. Then the land where the VIA track was (118th Avenue north) could be changed into a MUP crossing the Yellowhead and connecting to already existing MUPs south. This could be a cash land and bridge exchange with the city, CN and VIA. City gets the VIA rail line to just across the Yellowhead including the western curving bridge and in exchange a new bridge is built with new line allowing the train station to be connected to an LRT station. This accomplishes many goals. It removes the isolation of the train station and sets it up to be more visible and connected. (Good for local and tourist train users). The city gets a ready made MUP and crosses the Yellowhead. The city could build a road crossing at 120th or 121st Avenue to connect Blatchford to Prince Charles neighborhood. This most importantly will give a shorter route into Prince Charles and areas west for the future fire station that is proposed to be built on 121st Street. But more importantly connects Blatchford to an existing residential area. The current VIA station lands could be residential whereas the potential rail line would be beside the Yellowhead and parallel to the LRT line. Of note, the current VIA station is 25 years old and HVAC is likely near the end of its lifecycle if not already. Prime opportunity to make change.
And if a train station was visible and near public transit it may encourage additional and better timed rail service to Jasper for example. Different levels of government are talking about better use of infrastructure, 15 minute city, bike lanes, better passenger rail service. And really if you look at the Blatchford development map, https://blatchfordedmonton.ca/community/#neighbourhood_plan the NE corner is the least desirable to live in with the freeway to the north and a LRT line going north south. And at the speed of the current development, this is going to take a long time to get to this portion. Moving the current rail line from the western border and effectively putting it parallel to the LRT line would make Blatchford more developable and connected to the one neighborhood (Prince Charles) directly bordering it. It makes the possibility of commuter train service to Spruce Grove and Stony Plain or even Fort Saskatchewan, and further east, north or west. This could become a northern passenger train terminus connected to Edmonton's LRT system. There is still a window of opportunity in the next 2 to 5 years that this could be done very easily. Once Blatchford starts developing in the NE it becomes much harder and more costly.
What does the forum think?
And if a train station was visible and near public transit it may encourage additional and better timed rail service to Jasper for example. Different levels of government are talking about better use of infrastructure, 15 minute city, bike lanes, better passenger rail service. And really if you look at the Blatchford development map, https://blatchfordedmonton.ca/community/#neighbourhood_plan the NE corner is the least desirable to live in with the freeway to the north and a LRT line going north south. And at the speed of the current development, this is going to take a long time to get to this portion. Moving the current rail line from the western border and effectively putting it parallel to the LRT line would make Blatchford more developable and connected to the one neighborhood (Prince Charles) directly bordering it. It makes the possibility of commuter train service to Spruce Grove and Stony Plain or even Fort Saskatchewan, and further east, north or west. This could become a northern passenger train terminus connected to Edmonton's LRT system. There is still a window of opportunity in the next 2 to 5 years that this could be done very easily. Once Blatchford starts developing in the NE it becomes much harder and more costly.
What does the forum think?
yeggator
Active Member
I think rather than relocating the Via Rail bridges, we could maintain them where they are and simply have the tracks curl east towards Blatchford station along 121st/115th Street. The Via Rail station could be relocated next to Blatchford Gate Station. This would be less costly (and more palatable that way). I don't see much utility in a MUP crossing the Yellowhead at that location because it's just a giant rail yard after crossing the highway.
YEG imagineer
Active Member
Hi yeggator,
The potential MUP would get to the north side of the Yellowhead without the current bike route which is to cross at 127th Street. Yikes. Here is the Edmonton bike map and you could see that this potential MUP could be a big missing middle type path. https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/assets/PDF/EdmontonBikeMap.pdf The reason for the new bridge east of the new 115th Street interchange is to still have much of the railway on the CN side and hop over for the least amount of distance without having to block and cross lots of roads. If you added a long trunk line from the current VIA station to the potential Blatchford Gates LRT station you would be going out and back and taking up a lot of land as well as not having the opportunity to redevelop the area where the station currently resides. The goal would be to use the land as efficiently as possible and have a new train station beside the LRT station. Here is my rudimentary drawing of how to use the space efficiently. The rail would be on the north side of Blatchford and then directly west of the LRT line.
The potential MUP would get to the north side of the Yellowhead without the current bike route which is to cross at 127th Street. Yikes. Here is the Edmonton bike map and you could see that this potential MUP could be a big missing middle type path. https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/assets/PDF/EdmontonBikeMap.pdf The reason for the new bridge east of the new 115th Street interchange is to still have much of the railway on the CN side and hop over for the least amount of distance without having to block and cross lots of roads. If you added a long trunk line from the current VIA station to the potential Blatchford Gates LRT station you would be going out and back and taking up a lot of land as well as not having the opportunity to redevelop the area where the station currently resides. The goal would be to use the land as efficiently as possible and have a new train station beside the LRT station. Here is my rudimentary drawing of how to use the space efficiently. The rail would be on the north side of Blatchford and then directly west of the LRT line.
yeggator
Active Member
Your redevelopment argument, now that I read it again, it quite convincing. You're right. They should build a rail overpass alongside the 115 Street overpass while they can.
NateTheUrbanist
Active Member
It would make a lot of sense to have Via Rail's Edmonton stop simultaneously connect to the Metro Line LRT. Especially if Prairie Link's High-Speed Rail project builds their central Edmonton station downtown like planned.
chrisvazquez7
Active Member
I would rather keep the VIA station where it is for now and eventually relocate it further south on the old rail alignment, maybe terminating at 107 Ave instead. Long-term, I would love to see tracks continue into a tunnel under 105 Ave. and make their way to a downtown station, allowing intercity and regional/commuter trains from the northwest connect to downtown once again.
yeggator
Active Member
I think a better alignment for sending VIA Rail downtown would be to re-establish a ROW along the Capital Line from Coliseum to Station Lands.
EdmTrekker
Senior Member
The way it was … except Qualico own the bridge and land now.
Gronk!
Senior Member
I've always wanted the VIA Rail terminal to be relocated to the CN rail yard north of Yellowhead Trail around 127 St. It's less isolated and it would be more convenient for VIA trains and passengers than the current setup, which can be dismantled in favor of a MUP. In fact, I mentioned my ideas to city planners at a drop-in session for the Yellowhead freeway project in 2019 or so, but unfortunately this fell on deaf ears.
chrisvazquez7
Active Member
I don't think that alignment would be ideal for a couple of reasons. First, it would require a sharp turn from CN's mainline to the Capital Line which would require Fort Rd and 66 Street to be realigned. Second, it would require passengers trains to navigate through Walker Yard, which is already beyond congested. Having trains avoid the yard altogether (westbound departing the city using the new alignment under 105 Ave, and eastbound departing the city using the Capital Line) would greatly increase service reliability.
chrisvazquez7
Active Member
Unfortunately the city has no say over where VIA puts their station. A lot of it is down to CN as it's their property. I don't think CN would ever allow a station to be built on the mainline near 127 Street as it's already a bottleneck for CN as trains enter and exit Walker yard.
BASE
Active Member
Agree better to wait and do it right than a half solution now which would be much better than current setup but not the ultimate goal.
David A
Senior Member
I wonder if being deaf is a job requirement for city planners here. They seem impervious to feedback and mostly do what they want.
I realize that despite the occasional platitudes from the city, tourism is really an after thought here - hence all the past negative reviews of travelers here being stuck in a train station in the middle of nowhere, with no easy way to get to the more central part of the city.
A lot of people come here from places where train stations are more sensibly located - I guess silly of them to expect that here.
YEG imagineer
Active Member
I would love this idea of the downtown connection. The negative is it would cost a lot to buy back some of the former CN lands as well as tunnelling and the such. I can’t see COE wanting that since we usually end up with value engineering anyways. To terminate at 107th Ave would be better than the current station but would be limited in transit connections (east-west buses). Hence my idea of moving the tracks to Blatchford Gate. Intermodal station (small scale) would make it a better connection point.