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Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15
With the talk of a North C-Train line the two ideas being knocked around were up Centre Street, or up Edmonton Trail. Does council really see either of these two options as viable ideas? I would assume the cost of land alone would be huge. I believe they are doing a study to see their options, where does the Mayor stand on this?
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Great question. It was the Mayor that pushed Transit to reconsider the alignment from Nose Creek to a more central alignment. Nose Creek is just fraught with too many downsides - particularly that practically no one lives or works in that corridor and it would bypass the majority of the 110,000 people that live in North Central Calgary. It also had the problem of connecting into downtown. Would it interline with the NE line going into downtown? If so, where would we find the capacity? Where would the train turn around?
The NC line needs to be the same line as the SE line. You'll hear the Mayor start talking about it as one giant North to SE line called "the Green line" 40+ km, $5 billion +.
Calgary transit is currently studying the two options Edmonton Trail and Centre Street.
Edmonton Trail suffers from some of the same issues as Nose Creek - how to get it in and out of downtown? The SE line comes up into downtown via 2nd street SW - it wouldn't be possible to connect over to Edmonton Trail.
As such, Centre Street is the likely choice as it would be possible by tunnelling or by bridge to connect it from Eau Claire, up the bluff and then onto the Centre Street alignment.
Your question about land acquisition and cost depends really on the vertical alignment of the train. Will it run underground for a portion (say from Crescent Heights to 32nd Street?), will it run primarily at grade, or will it run above ground. Each has its pluses and minuses and each may or may not require land acquistion.
For instance a subway may not require much land at all. Even at at grade urban-LRT - something like Toronto's St. Clair streetcar line may be able to be achieved within the existing right of way - it would just require sacrificing a lane or two for general traffic. Given how many buses currently run up and down centre street now, the curb lanes become defacto bus-only along certain stretches anyway. The volume of people carried on an LRT might justify reducing the vehicular lanes on Centre Street - and Edmonton Trail and 4th NW may be able to take on some additional traffic volumes (although one would hope that there would be fewer overall cars due to more people taking the train). As a precursor to North Central LRT Transit does plan to construct dedicated, fully separated bus-lanes on Centre Street - potentially that could be converted to rail lanes in the future.
The big trade-offs of course are cost. Underground is ideal, but may be cost-prohibitive. At-grade can be really attractive for the streetscape if done right, but also reduced travel speed, can have a greater impact on traffic congestion, reduce on street parking etc. Above grade is uglier, and slightly costlier, but has big travel-time advantages.
At this point I think the Mayor is agnostic vertical alignment - and will wait and see until it reaches that stage of design. It's still not certain (although I think it's the only actual choice) that it will be Centre Street.
Maybe frinkprof has more thoughts on this.