Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - [Update: Approved] First Leg of the Green Line LRT

frinkprof · 03-21-2019, 06:18 PM

This is a good example of path dependence. One of the biggest culprits here is the 2006 North Central Calgary Transit Corridor Review study that put the alignment for the North Central line in Nose Creek Valley, connecting to the NE line east of the Zoo station, and interlining with it into downtown. No land was to be set aside for an Operations and Maintenance Centre, or for right of way south of Beddington Trail.

The SE line was planned in parallel as a separate line with its own downtown infrastructure and OMC, and land was set aside for this.

The north central line was re-studied in 2011-2012 and the Green Line concept (linking north central to southeast via common downtown infrastructure) was solidified. The vertical alignment wasn't decided until 2016.

Politically, Shane Keating and Naheed Nenshi were elected in 2010. Keating made SE transit his top priority, and Nenshi made re-aligning the north central line (and the Green Line concept) one of his top priorities. From 2010-2017, the various councilors for what are now Wards 2, 3 and 4 were very weak on transit, weak councilors overall and/or weak-minded in general. Joe Magliocca, in his 2013 election campaign argued that an LRT line should be built to Airdrie (of course, a separate municipality than the one in which he was running for office at the time and ahead of the already-recently-realigned planned transit line to the ward he was running in). Sean Chu, for at least his first year as Ward 4 councilor, argued that the SE LRT (not in Ward 4), ought to be built ahead of the North Central LRT (in Ward 4).

Meanwhile in higher orders of government, the provincial and (especially) federal governments wanted a cost estimate on the Green Line ahead of their respective 2015 elections. Council wanted an estimate right away too, so they could exercise some options. Based on this number ($4.6B), $1.5B was committed by council by putting 30 years worth of $52M annual "tax room" from the Province toward the Green Line. However, as noted above, the operation and construction methods hadn't been fully studied and approved yet, which would heavily impact costs. So, by the time these costs became clearer, funding from the City was in place, and the (changed) Provincial and Federal governments carried through the pre-election promises.

So, in a nutshell, I think the three biggest factors for the North Central LRT are the damaging effects of a 2006 corridor study, weak local municipal politicians, which both led to the problem of not getting ahead of the election cycles of higher orders of government (which may be repeated this year).

03-21-2019, 06:18 PM	#185
frinkprof First Line Centre Join Date: Dec 2009 Exp:	This is a good example of path dependence. One of the biggest culprits here is the 2006 North Central Calgary Transit Corridor Review study that put the alignment for the North Central line in Nose Creek Valley, connecting to the NE line east of the Zoo station, and interlining with it into downtown. No land was to be set aside for an Operations and Maintenance Centre, or for right of way south of Beddington Trail. The SE line was planned in parallel as a separate line with its own downtown infrastructure and OMC, and land was set aside for this. The north central line was re-studied in 2011-2012 and the Green Line concept (linking north central to southeast via common downtown infrastructure) was solidified. The vertical alignment wasn't decided until 2016. Politically, Shane Keating and Naheed Nenshi were elected in 2010. Keating made SE transit his top priority, and Nenshi made re-aligning the north central line (and the Green Line concept) one of his top priorities. From 2010-2017, the various councilors for what are now Wards 2, 3 and 4 were very weak on transit, weak councilors overall and/or weak-minded in general. Joe Magliocca, in his 2013 election campaign argued that an LRT line should be built to Airdrie (of course, a separate municipality than the one in which he was running for office at the time and ahead of the already-recently-realigned planned transit line to the ward he was running in). Sean Chu, for at least his first year as Ward 4 councilor, argued that the SE LRT (not in Ward 4), ought to be built ahead of the North Central LRT (in Ward 4). Meanwhile in higher orders of government, the provincial and (especially) federal governments wanted a cost estimate on the Green Line ahead of their respective 2015 elections. Council wanted an estimate right away too, so they could exercise some options. Based on this number ($4.6B), $1.5B was committed by council by putting 30 years worth of $52M annual "tax room" from the Province toward the Green Line. However, as noted above, the operation and construction methods hadn't been fully studied and approved yet, which would heavily impact costs. So, by the time these costs became clearer, funding from the City was in place, and the (changed) Provincial and Federal governments carried through the pre-election promises. So, in a nutshell, I think the three biggest factors for the North Central LRT are the damaging effects of a 2006 corridor study, weak local municipal politicians, which both led to the problem of not getting ahead of the election cycles of higher orders of government (which may be repeated this year).