David A said:
It is not called high speed rail, it is LRT. If you drive, you also have to factor in the time looking for a parking spot at your destination, unless you have a parking spot right at your work place.
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This is anecdotal... one of my workmates who lives just off the Manning fwy. opposite (river-wise) Fort Saskatchewan had a meeting for our company at City Hall. He drove to the park-n-ride facility in Clareview and drove around looking for a spot to park (he says for 20 minutes or so... and finally gave up). Instead of taking LRT then (time was ticking by -- tick-tock tick-tock), he drove downtown and parked in one of the adjacent parkades. He was 20 minutes late for the meeting (I was already in attendance via zoom). He was forever lost to the LRT conversion as a time-saving method of transportation -- the event is from pre-COVID days.
 
Edmcowboy11 said:
Well one thing I'm pretty certain of. Once the line opens up the Wagner park n ride will be full every day.
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1300 parking spaces at Wagner is rather insignificant in the scheme of things. Also there is no housing in the immediate area so people have to drive there which will be real handy for the people from Sherwood Park and Strathcona Country if its free. For that line to pay for itself (if it ever does) they need a lot more park and ride centres.
 
EdmTrekker said:
1300 parking spaces at Wagner is rather insignificant in the scheme of things. Also there is no housing in the immediate area so people have to drive there which will be real handy for the people from Sherwood Park and Strathcona Country if its free. For that line to pay for itself (if it ever does) they need a lot more park and ride centres.
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Honestly, I wish they had built a station somewhere and big park n ride/parkade somewhere along 50th street and Anthony Henday Drive. Something that would entice people along Ellerslie road and throughout the deep south corner of Millwoods to take the train instead of driving.
 
We need last mile bike networks to stations and parking garages that are secure and monitored for bikes as well. That reduces time with transfers to buses, eliminates walks to bus stops, and reduces parking spots needed.

Delft has crushed this. I believe we, especially outside of Nov-Feb, could see significant increases in biking. And if we strategically pair that with transit, we're laughing! The low hanging fruit to me continues to be university students. Innovative ideas to incenticize more biking and transit amongst uni kids is needed.
 
thommyjo said:
Tbh, I'm hoping that car ownership and usage plummet in the next 2 decades. Between climate change, the economic injustice cars perpetuate, their cost between roads built with taxes and personal ownership, the disturbance they are to the social fabric of a community, the ways they hurt and isolate children....

We have to stop all using cars. They have their use cases, but we basically need to flip how edmontonians use cars and transit/active transport. The once or twice a month use of the LRT for an oilers game or another function needs to become the once or twice a month rental of a car to head to the mountains or purchase a large item.

The future is car-less or greatly car-reduced. I'm not worried about this train being faster than cars. I'm worried about it connecting to a plethora of destinations...malls, hospitals, shopping centers, universities. And it does that.

Also, speed is overrated imo. We've been making everything in the world faster for the last 80 years, yet we are busier than ever. That tells me people just need to learn to slow down and chill a bit. Getting from millwoods to DT would be how much faster if it was underground metro? 15/20mins instead of 30? I think we'll all survive. Also, unlike a car, you can do stuff on a train like read, answer emails, etc. I was more productive when i took the train DT for work than driving, even though it was half the travel time.

Not to mention the need for 15minute communities to become real, sprawl to slow (fast transit also encourages sprawl....and often leads to commuting by transit, but all other trips being by car. See the GTA's regional rail for effect that has...), and traffic to be disrupted so it's not so convenient to live outside the henday.
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Preach @thommyjo !

ChazYEG said:
I agree 100%. A good way to summarize it: we need to stop thinking transit with a car-centric mentality.

@Aaron_Lloyd, you talk about "losing" 15min chunks of time, twice a day, but you can see it as gaining 20, 30 minutes, instead.
When I was able to commute safely by bus/LRT/subway, instead of driving 20 minutes to half an hour, it took me maybe 10~15 min more, that, instead of getting pissed at bad drivers, being on constant alert early in the morning or tired by the end of the day, I would take the time to read the news, watch an episode of a show, catch up with stuff from university, watch a language lesson... Or sometimes catch up with some work that was backlogged, read a report before a meeting, mentally prepare for an important presentation or meeting.

All stuff that I can't do while driving, that I like doing, but wouldn't have the time to do otherwise. Time in transit, especially comfortable, reliable and easy to navigate, like a low floor LRT (talking from experience, it was my main mode of transportation for two years), can be EXTREMELY productive, as opposed to a car commute, that is essentially a complete WASTE of your time, not to mention the financial and environmental costs of it.

I REALLY wish that commuting by bus or rail was easier and more convenient in Edmonton (and North America in general). I had to buy a car ao I could get to work, for my last job, simply because in the winter it was essentially IMPOSSIBLE to get to work safely using buses, as I had a good 15 min walk that had to be done either on 2 feet deep snow, in a place where there are no sidewalks, or on the street, as the area was intentionally developed assuming everyone would drive there, not take the bus.

I regret it sorely. A good 1/4, if not more, of my income went into the car, between maintenance, insurance, financing and gas. Now I've lost this job and I'm stuck with the financing, because even if I sold the car, it's not enough to pay off the whole loan. If I don't pay insurance, I can't use it for anything, but I don't use it enough to be REALLY worth it.

Cars are some of the most financially inefficient things we can ever think of and one of the most ecologically damaging. They also skewed our collective minds towards a lifestyle that is unsustainable and unhealthy (both physically and mentally), especially in North America, where for the past 70 odd years we were taught to love an cherish the suburban lifestyle, the "privacy and space" of the personal kingdom that are the massive single family detached houses, driving everywhere, ever increasing speed limits, large scale highways, expressways, etc... The human scale, the social interaction, EVERYTHING that made human societies what they are today, became obsolete and bad, synonym of underdevelopment, antiquated...

This mentality of comparing travel times and treating small increases in commute times as a disincentive to ride a certain mode of transportation is just a symptom of a much worse problem. It is, again, putting the private car in the centre of city planning...

________ end of rant_____
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Preeeach @ChazYEG !

thommyjo said:
We need last mile bike networks to stations and parking garages that are secure and monitored for bikes as well. That reduces time with transfers to buses, eliminates walks to bus stops, and reduces parking spots needed.

Delft has crushed this. I believe we, especially outside of Nov-Feb, could see significant increases in biking. And if we strategically pair that with transit, we're laughing! The low hanging fruit to me continues to be university students. Innovative ideas to incenticize more biking and transit amongst uni kids is needed.
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I agree, park & rides are cool and all but one thing that's sooo annoying for me is that 0 bike parkades exist here in Edmonton. They are such a common-sense thing to have you want to build a biking-friendly and by extension transit-friendly city, but for now we have improving infrastructure to move bikers (which is great) but no safe places for bikers to store their vehicles when they reach their destination :(
 
thommyjo said:
We need last mile bike networks to stations and parking garages that are secure and monitored for bikes as well. That reduces time with transfers to buses, eliminates walks to bus stops, and reduces parking spots needed.

Delft has crushed this. I believe we, especially outside of Nov-Feb, could see significant increases in biking. And if we strategically pair that with transit, we're laughing! The low hanging fruit to me continues to be university students. Innovative ideas to incenticize more biking and transit amongst uni kids is needed.
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Not just Delft! There are lots of bus stops in the middle of "rural" Netherlands with bike parking (including rain-protected). Bike networks should just be ubiquitous - we wouldn't need to think about "last mile" anymore. Maybe "last mile driving" can become a topic of consideration...
 
Edmcowboy11 said:
Taken Sept 16, 2021
My first attempt at a video of my drive from downtown to the southside.
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Thank you for this. I am surprised that there is only 1 lane of vehicle traffic on so much of the roads: up Connors Hill, along the Strath route and down 75th. Is it busy during rush hour or where has all the traffic gone?
 
Kaizen said:
@Edmcowboy11 great vid, cool muzac and transitions.

The bump up on the hoarding/covers over the crosswalks by the Avonmore stop on 83 st is pretty severe hey.
Also, it's nice to see the walkway and right turn lane is basically completed at 83/Argyll, finally.

Great job Paul, can't wait for part 2.
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Oh yeah, it's something else alright haha. It's not so bad as long as you slow down for it enough. I learned that the hard way though...
 
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