TAS said:
@thommyjo

You explained why ridership did not increase with the NAIT line and that makes good sense. But why then did the city expect it would increase by 2.5 million trips - did they not expect the same thing that you just explained. These projects are being pitched and decided upon based in part on ridership but the city did not seem to take into account what you explained as to why we shouldn't have expected ridership to go up.

Any thoughts on my other question regarding the BRT cost from the city for west valley line? Or any insights from anyone on that?

Why was the cost of BRT going to be so much higher in Edmonton versus other municipalities that have built BRTs?

I mean $1.7B for 14km of BRT? I looked at costs of several other cities including Calgary and none come close to what our administration reported it would cost here.
Click to expand...
Yeah. No idea on their estimates. I'm assuming the signal issues and other problems compounded the failure. It was a bad extension. Hopefully can be salvaged by elevating the current mess areas and extending to NW.

I remain hopefully on the new lines. So thankful we have dense university institutions in our core.

Also no idea on BRT costs sorry. I'm assuming buying new busses, similar station designs to the current, etc make up most of the cost. Not clear on the difference vs other cities though.

For me, even if BRT was 300mil, it's still not the right transit option for this area. Rail is needed
 
thommyjo said:
Yeah. No idea on their estimates. I'm assuming the signal issues and other problems compounded the failure. It was a bad extension. Hopefully can be salvaged by elevating the current mess areas and extending to NW.

I remain hopefully on the new lines. So thankful we have dense university institutions in our core.

Also no idea on BRT costs sorry. I'm assuming buying new busses, similar station designs to the current, etc make up most of the cost. Not clear on the difference vs other cities though.

For me, even if BRT was 300mil, it's still not the right transit option for this area. Rail is needed
Click to expand...
The one thing i remember from the BRT vs LRT cost comparison was the need to build a dedicated ROW. BRT needs to be separate from heavy traffic (ie the whole of the west leg, basically) so, even if they were to use busses instead of trains, infrastructure akin to a street-level line would have to be built. dedicated, protected lanes, special signals, stations, and possibly even grade separation at points. they'd need one lane each direction, the same footprint as the train. I'm going off memories of articles written at the time, sorry i can't be more specific. but i do strongly remember that the issue was with this particular route, BRT would need almost all of the same infrastructure the train would need, and given other issues (capacity, operating costs) the train was considered a better plan.

As an aside, i really like the idea of BRT, and think it would be a great idea for some of our more outer suburbs like Terwillegar, Ellerslie Road, etc. places where the roads have enough space lanes can be added or reallocated easily, and the busses would be sufficient for the amount of traffic. I see ideas like the MAX setup in Calgary, which, having ridden it a few times, is just some big bus shelters along lanes made out of old urban freeway shoulders, with the odd connector road here and there, and i think we could easily do that here. I think BRT in Edmonton gets misunderstood as 'Busses being trains' when it can mean something less intensive and easier to implement as well. We just need to look for different places to apply the idea.
 
Taken this morning
October 20, 2021
There were around 3 or 4 trains parked or moving in and out of the station this morning.
20211020_082541.jpg

20211020_082837.jpg
20211020_083549.jpg
20211020_083940.jpg
 
Was there a fire department on stand by when you were there? Lol…would imagine that a good chunk of the line has “wood chips” along the periphery……and that under any circumstance on the planet that there would/should be at least a water pumper working alongside
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top