[Joborule]

Originally Posted by timun

The low-floor LRVs need just as much ROW space; anyone who says otherwise is dreaming. The only difference is that a station platform for a low-floor LRV only needs to be about a foot above grade, instead of a metre. In that respect the actual line will be "better integrated with the road" and more "pedestrian-friendly". But don't be mistaken: the overall size of the new LRVs (CAF Urbos 100) themselves will be very similar to the Siemens trains (SD-160, SD-200) we have now. The new ones may be marginally shorter in height, but we're still talking well over 10 ft/3 m. They won't look all that different than Siemens LRVs running up 7th Ave.

...

The ROW should be similar to 7th Ave, but shouldn't it be skinnier than along 36 Street and Crowchild? Looking at Google Maps, those lines have wider than tracks width in between stations for utility boxes, whereas the conceptual video posted in this thread a page back shows the train should run along traffic as if it's own lanes.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Elevated. It will cross the river on it's own bridge. As it curves towards centre, you continue the upward grade until it is high enough to cross to the east side. Then you just use pillars all the way north until 20ath ave, then drop to street level. It's about 1.7km, the same length of the elevated west line. This entire line was built with stations for $1.4 billion, so the elevated portion can't be that expensive.

And before anyone worries about the buildings on the east side of centre, most are dumps anyway, or have big parking lots. You would still build the pillars on the sidewalk, so wouldn't expropriate much, if any. Other decisions can be made, such as reducing a lane. Alternatively you could build it up the centre of the road, but I think that leads to more wasted space.

I could see if you don't figure there's much of a potential to revitalize that portion of Crescent Heights that the elevated portion is viable. But I think there's potential that it could be a good corridor just like 10th Street in Kensington is; there's already some nice restaurants and bars that have appeared in the past few years along there. So don't want to kill it with shadowing and monolithic concrete along the road. Underground would be the preferred choice here, but if it's at grade or nothing, I would rather have at grade since I don't think it'll truly be a hindrance.

If it was my choice though and the NDP get elected this spring, I would go back to the federal and provincial government and push for more funding on the northern phase. Instead of getting to 16th, push to get up to 64th Ave, and have centre street be underground from the bridge over the Bow to north of 16th ave.

As to your last paragraph, the problem with that is you direct so much traffic onto 10th that you damage that space, which is already a better shopping area. I just don't see how putting an LRT stop transforms a community, and we have a lot of evidence(LRT stations) that it does not.

I agree with you that 10th shouldn't have an increase in traffic, and with it far enough away from Centre, it probably wouldn't anyway. Any traffic that would be coming from around North Haven and such would most likely use 14th Street instead since 10th doesn't go that far north.

As for lack of TOD development. Majority of them are definitely cases of not working at least up to this point. There's many factors in why that's probably the case, but again using Kensington as an example, they can work if the environment is set right for them. Sunnyside has a good amount of density buildings that are going up within the LRT vincity, and shows what TOD can amount to around here. Crescent Heights is similar with regards to its proximity to downtown, and the station being very accessible like Sunnyside. Actually if the station is underground or elevated, it would have a detrimental effect on accessibility due to dealing with stairs or having to use elevators if you have mobility constraints.

The other issue with a mixed use corridor with a train running through it is people will drive all over it, and the train will be forever dealing with people shortcutting across tracks as they get frustrated with congestion, until they have to put barriers in, making snow clearing suck and the pedestrian experience worse. I beleive the other part of the plan is that buses can use the train ROW, which means slow trains. People might see this as good, but it impedes the commuter aspect of it, and then people get back in their cars.

It'll depend what the design actually amounts to. There are factors that could slow down the train which isn't ideal. I would hope that it's ROW is protected to reduce the risk of vehicle train conflict. Calgary is certainly not the first city to do this type of train; I think there's some place in Europe that got it. Also I believe Ottawa does too? Though that one seems to have encountered a lot of issues during and after construction.

If buses can be on the transitway and not slow down train schedule, then it could be explored. The 301/300 currently stop where planned stations are, so that can continue until the green line is north enough that it makes more sense to transfer customers onto the train at the termus. The regular routes still need to make stop in between the stations, so then shouldn't be using the transitway.