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What do you think of a Hyperloop between Edmonton and Calgary?

  • Total voters
    72
David A said:
The NDP was in power in Alberta for 4 of the last approximately 50 years and zero of the last 50 years Federally. So, they would be about the last to blame about not having high speed rail anywhere in Alberta or Canada.
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This would be a good point, if our urbanist expectations of the UCP weren't so damn low. At this point I would take a vanity project from either party, but they are both to blame. The NDP is the opposition party, and the loudest critics in the opposition spend zero time pushing for these things.

Any criticism of the NDP shouldn't be viewed as picking on a specific party, I just have higher expectations for the party that supposedly represents working class people in cities.

I genuinely don't care which party fixes these issues with transport. I'll support them on that.
 
David A said:
The NDP was in power in Alberta for 4 of the last approximately 50 years and zero of the last 50 years Federally. So, they would be about the last to blame about not having high speed rail anywhere in Alberta or Canada.
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I don't think anyone was blaming the NDP for the current state of rail. Just observing that it's not an area that the party has shown any serious interest in and that we can't really expect them to push the issue forward. Hopefully that changes.
 
Didama said:

I'm not commenting on the likelihood of hyperloop being a real thing any time soon (if ever) but you gotta admit the theoretical impact of a technology like this would be pretty mind blowing.
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For sure, and I do want to see the tech develop, but it's going to take a long time imo.
 
So the man says -- the question that wasn't asked was where does the current design and logistics stand vis-a-vis "pre-construction" -- land rights, etc.
 
They said the initial test line will go from heritage valley/capital line south terminus. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the first time they've actually said where the test track would be starting from? I thought all the previous media releases just said "test track to the airport".

Maybe that means they actually have something in place in terms of land rights?
 
A concern from what he said was the test track would go to Heritage Valley for LRT proximity. The Government of Alberta could very well leave it there for decades without further stops or into downtown. Is this the best route that is good for Edmonton? Where is the route beyond Heritage if 60% of cargo is freight ... freight coming from where and going to where? Does the City have other route options for other types of trains? Let's hope the GoA and Feds do not sink $$$SS into a project that is neither viable freight wise or serve the best interests of passengers in Edmonton including downtown workers getting to YEG/EIA (and not YYC airport).
 
SarcasticMarmot said:
It's important to remember that the NDP's pocketbook is located deep in the status quo/NIMBY core of central SFH neighborhoods. This is true across Canada. The NDP is not an urbanist party and has rarely shown serious interest in mass transit, density, or city design beyond the protection of union jobs. The ANDP could have used stimulus dollars in 2015 to start building rail but instead invested it in massive highway expansion. I suspect if rail every does get built it will be from the Conservative side as a way for some of their donors to profit, like the private group pushing the Banff/Calgary rail which is made up of major UCP donors.
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They did fund LRT expansion in Edmonton and Calgary during their tenure. But admittedly they are often not as urbanist as I would like them to be, and there is a certain NIMBYness within the base.
 
Didama said:

I'm not commenting on the likelihood of hyperloop being a real thing any time soon (if ever) but you gotta admit the theoretical impact of a technology like this would be pretty mind blowing.
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It would be more of a curiosity than a game-changer. It offers so very little in terms of real world advantages over technology that already exists (especially for the Edmonton-Calgary context), and poses significant disadvantages in terms of cost and complexity (like just safely getting people in and out of the thing in the station, let alone rescuing from a pod mid-trip). I mean presuming you use the most optimistic figures presented and that track is absolutely perfect and there are no turns (because according to the Virgin Hyperloop folks that would've meant reducing speeds to 360km/h for comfort and safety), it's saving approximately 20 minutes over a modern maglev train, because passenger comfort and safety remains the limit on acceleration and deceleration.

Oh, except at either end you have to do a thing where you safely transition the environment between 0 atmospheres and 1 atmosphere. And you probably REALLY want airport style security in this thing because a bomb on board is going to destroy a lot more than just the one pod that's carrying it.

For any route involving a stop in Red Deer or any of the airports, the travel time advantages/disadvantages are even worse.
 
^This

The advantages of Hyperloop are small when compared to MagLev or even regular HSR not to mention all the other issues with safety and the unknown of building and testing an entirely new technology, I personally think that the EDM-CGY route shouldn't even be MagLev (though it would be cool) regular High Speed Rail is the best option for this route IMO. MagLev is just that much more expensive for relatively small gains when considering acceleration, deceleration and cornering. It's really only worth it for extremely high traffic routes (like say Tokyo to Osaka, where they currently are building a MagLev train). This Hyperloop project is in my opinion, just distracting from what we should actually be building here, regular, run of the mill High Speed Rail.
 
erudyk_29 said:
^This

The advantages of Hyperloop are small when compared to MagLev or even regular HSR not to mention all the other issues with safety and the unknown of building and testing an entirely new technology, I personally think that the EDM-CGY route shouldn't even be MagLev (though it would be cool) regular High Speed Rail is the best option for this route IMO. MagLev is just that much more expensive for relatively small gains when considering acceleration, deceleration and cornering. It's really only worth it for extremely high traffic routes (like say Tokyo to Osaka, where they currently are building a MagLev train). This Hyperloop project is in my opinion, just distracting from what we should actually be building here, regular, run of the mill High Speed Rail.
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Hell, if there were a just reasonably fast train that would get me from core to core in approximately three hours and it had decent service frequency, I would take that option literally 100% of the time, and not hate going to Calgary with the heat of a thousand dying suns. Just to get there comparably fast, but be able to spend those three hours in a space where I can get up and walk around, use an acceptable bathroom, eat breakfast, read, nap, or just stare out at the landscape and contemplate the past movements of glaciers would be a game changer. Even if it cost twice as much as the gas to drive, it would be so much more wonderful than having to be constantly hyper-vigilant for those three hours lest Bingus Numpty accidentally spill his Timmy's into his crotch while texting and driving at 160km/h resulting in loss of control of his giant pickup truck.
 
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