Quote:
Originally Posted by para transit fellow
For me, the trouble with "good enough" would be that it is difficult to build the LRT underground (at a later time) while continuing LRT operations on the same routing above ground.
Edmonton did the hard part first. Calgary opted for "good enough" and fifty years later both the capacity of both the Red and Blue lines is limited by the capacity of 7 avenue to accommodate the interline trains and the north/south vehicle traffic.
Indeed, the Bearspaw feedermain was built "good enough" ...and again, fifty years later we are complaining how that was a poor decision.
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Good enough got calgary to ~235k daily riders in 2024
Doing it right the first time got Edmonton to ~89k
How do we know that the Bearspaw feeder main wasn't considered the overbuilt/future-proofed option at the time?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
You don't think the green line team would have considered many alternatives before settling on what they announced as options? And every forced change didn't have them considering these options along the way? I'm just going to be incredibly surprised if they come out with something different and affordable.
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I do not think they did, and that is the problem.
accord already provided a good timeline, but I'll try to fill it in a bit differently:
2015-17: determining phase 1 in largely the same process used to deliver the West Leg: city staff (under-resourced for a project this size) and a council committee (aka NOT experts) giving way too much input, including vibes decisions like low-floor cars because they seemed nice when in another city
Result = 2017 Plan: Shephard to 16th Ave; crazy deep/long tunnel
Decisions I don't think have ever been seriously reconsidered since 2017:
1. SE will be first
2. SE will be trains from day 1
3. Low-floor trains
4. The lines must connect
5. Shephard is the only option for MSF (until a month ago...)
6. 2nd St SW is the only viable N-S option through DT
We know they did reconsider a lot of other stuff like when/where to be at-grade/underground/elevated, stations to be cut, 10th vs 11th vs 12th, etc
But there has been a lot of preference-pushing along the way, which is pretty easy to do when presenting different options...like including feeder shuttle costs in some options but not others, or silly things like the SE terminus option on C2 where it is elevated by doesn't cross the CP tracks!
#6 is most interesting to me. They considered lots of options before 2017 (I believe they preferred to be even further west), but there is no indication that they ever reconsidered. 2nd St was useful for pushing the tunnel because there are like 6 +15s (including a double decker)...and it would have to use a TBM because of the buildings in the way.
1st St SW is easier in so many ways, whether underground or elevated and offers easier options to connect to the North (like expropriating a DT parking lot instead of 36 units in the midst of a housing crisis...). Only downside to 1st (if underground) is that you'd give up the four most redundant lanes of vehicle underpass. But I don't think it would have been impossible to design it with a vehicle lane or two for busses/emergency vehicles if that was necessary.
And if you want to get really crazy (which I do), you don't even need to re-cover the full width of 1st St to vehicle bearing spec! Calgary could really use a good N-S pedestrian corridor...I could envision 1 lane for BRT, another for a bike lane, and then you could even do something like this
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UZL3sQi4CqLGvgVe9 (if it were cheaper and helped facilitate stuff like tunnel HVAC/etc)