TAS said:
Made a bike trip out to Blatchford this morning.

This is from the north end station looking north toward Yellowhead. The rail line, bike path and sidewalk extend about 100m north of the station.

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North end of the north Station looking south. The bike lane and sidewalk are completed about half way from here to the NAIT station.

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This is where bike trail and sidewalk ends looking south toward NAIT station.

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The NAIT station. No sidewalks or bike lane completed in this area versus the north Station where all that work is completed including bike racks. North Station also ready for landscaping.

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The NAIT station is definitely a lot closer to the current residential. Not sure who would be using the north Station for a few years.
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Great photos, thanks for the update!

Edmcowboy11 said:
The wise thing to do is get the sidewalks completed at least from the current residential to the NAIT station.
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Was there any sign of sidewalks and/or bike paths connecting Blatchford to either of these stations yet?
 
Dubas said:
Great shots! in the Global article posted above, it seems the city is indeed considering not opening the Blatchford station right away once it's completed. They did say the NAIT station will open once it is completed.
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How many years is the completed Blatchford station going to sit, unused, with temporary fencing around it? With the slow pace of residential development in the area, we could have a ghost station on the site for a long time--especially given that the CN/Yellowhead Trail bridge issue is a big obstacle to further northward extension to Castle Downs.
 
TravellingChris said:
How many years is the completed Blatchford station going to sit, unused, with temporary fencing around it? With the slow pace of residential development in the area, we could have a ghost station on the site for a long time--especially given that the CN/Yellowhead Trail bridge issue is a big obstacle to further northward extension to Castle Downs.
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I think the city should at least have enough common sense to realize it could establish a transit centre there and feed lots of bus service to that station to boost ridership. Then again, they've disappointed me in the past.
 
CplKlinger said:
Great photos, thanks for the update!


Was there any sign of sidewalks and/or bike paths connecting Blatchford to either of these stations yet?
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Definitely no signs for the North end station. When I was there, ground was dug up and dirt being moved around to the west of the new NAIT station but nothing really apparent in terms of connecting it to existing neighbourhood.
 
yeggator said:
I think the city should at least have enough common sense to realize it could establish a transit centre there and feed lots of bus service to that station to boost ridership. Then again, they've disappointed me in the past.
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Transit Centres aren't some sort of automatic ridership booster for LRT ridership (as I think is being implied?). Re-routing routes into Blatchford for the sake of serving a new transit centre would be pointless. Existing buses in the area are already connected to LRT at either NAIT(8, 110x and 902) or Kinsgway/ RAH (102, 140x, 903 and others).
This actually does bring up the question of perhaps less convenient transfers from the 8, 110x and 902 to LRT as they will be quite a bit further walk to the new NAIT Station than that existing one, although for those routes, I'm not sure how many people actually make the bus/ NAIT station transfer. Perhaps the 902 could be extended from the NAIT loop to Blatchford Gate station once the demand is there, however, it wouldn't really facilitate any additional ridership.
The 110x is an express route, so, there's little logical sense for someone going Downtown to transfer at NAIT to go Downtown when they're already on an express bus.
If you're on an 8, again, little need to transfer at NAIT. The 8 hits McEwan and can get you to Corona Station relatively fast if you do need LRT. And if you're on an 8 anyways, if you need LRT, it might have made more sense to go to Coliseum Station.
Perhaps the if the right roads are built, you could send the 8 further west on a future 118 Ave and then south from the future NAIT Station without disrupting it's route too much. There could be an argument to route the #102 into Blatchford. This route is already a local, so routing it via Blatchford will just cost it time. It wouldn't, however, bring ridership the LRT, as those connections are already being made at Kingsway/ RAH.

It should be noted too that ETS moved away from some Transit Centre connections in this part of town . The 8, 9, and 902 (pre BNR 130) were removed from Kingsway/ RAH with the introduction of the BNR (the 130 actually left quite sometime before that).

And finally, in this green development, I kind of think that last thing people expect would be 40 and 60' diesel buses blasting through their neighborhood to serve a transit centre. From the few roads that have been built so far, they don't seem to be built to scale that would be intended to see frequent 40'+ bus service. A frequent 30' shuttle bus would fit in well though I think.
 
EdwardEdm said:
Transit Centres aren't some sort of automatic ridership booster for LRT ridership (as I think is being implied?). Re-routing routes into Blatchford for the sake of serving a new transit centre would be pointless. Existing buses in the area are already connected to LRT at either NAIT(8, 110x and 902) or Kinsgway/ RAH (102, 140x, 903 and others).
This actually does bring up the question of perhaps less convenient transfers from the 8, 110x and 902 to LRT as they will be quite a bit further walk to the new NAIT Station than that existing one, although for those routes, I'm not sure how many people actually make the bus/ NAIT station transfer. Perhaps the 902 could be extended from the NAIT loop to Blatchford Gate station once the demand is there, however, it wouldn't really facilitate any additional ridership.
The 110x is an express route, so, there's little logical sense for someone going Downtown to transfer at NAIT to go Downtown when they're already on an express bus.
If you're on an 8, again, little need to transfer at NAIT. The 8 hits McEwan and can get you to Corona Station relatively fast if you do need LRT. And if you're on an 8 anyways, if you need LRT, it might have made more sense to go to Coliseum Station.
Perhaps the if the right roads are built, you could send the 8 further west on a future 118 Ave and then south from the future NAIT Station without disrupting it's route too much. There could be an argument to route the #102 into Blatchford. This route is already a local, so routing it via Blatchford will just cost it time. It wouldn't, however, bring ridership the LRT, as those connections are already being made at Kingsway/ RAH.

It should be noted too that ETS moved away from some Transit Centre connections in this part of town . The 8, 9, and 902 (pre BNR 130) were removed from Kingsway/ RAH with the introduction of the BNR (the 130 actually left quite sometime before that).

And finally, in this green development, I kind of think that last thing people expect would be 40 and 60' diesel buses blasting through their neighborhood to serve a transit centre. From the few roads that have been built so far, they don't seem to be built to scale that would be intended to see frequent 40'+ bus service. A frequent 30' shuttle bus would fit in well though I think.
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I think, as someone previously mentioned, making the Blatchford station as the connection point for the Spruce Grove and St. Albert bus services would be a good idea. On both services you have a lot of people going to the U of A and MacEwan, for example, and this would feed them to/from the direct LRT line to the two institutions.

I do think something definitely needs to be done to "salvage" the underlying problem: the City has built an LRT station that isn't going to be needed for the surrounding community for many years. Using it as a commuter connection point at least gets some use out of an asset that will otherwise be wasted.
 
I didn't realize NAIT had a huge campus development plan
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I think not opening the station at the end may be a bit of mistake. Leaving it unused may expose it to vandalism and other problems.

I don't think the extra cost and time to run the trains to this station will cost that much more and seeing the service running might provide an incentive for development to happen around it.

So, I am questioning transit's judgement on this, not for the first time.
 
Despite all the complaining I think this extension is a very good idea. Not only is being paid for mostly by the feds, but it will help encourage the type of transit oriented development that is not possible in already completed neighbourhoods, like along 111 street on the southside. Development near the stations needs to be prioritized, but I think it is great the city is finally trying to do something different rather than just overlaying transit on areas that were built 40 years ago that were designed for cars.
 
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