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Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
I couldn't imagine Montreal or Toronto having elevated subway tracks downtown (Toronto's streetcars on their own are sources of contention). Couldn't imagine Vancouver's Canada Line being at grade either (going underground was the absolute right decision). And those aren't even alpha cities like London or Tokyo, which rely so heavily on underground lines.
Calgary couldn't use the tunnels they dug under 8th ave. Just crazy to think.
Personally I think if you just make the investment now, get it done proper, you'll have years to review and collect data (while inflation still grows). This "can at-grade achieve the same success" is a time-honored tradition in Calgary infrastructure planning which keeps bringing everyone back to the table every 10 years for the same debate. Over. And over. And over.
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Calgary didn't really dig tunnels under 8th Avenue. They left a bunch of space empty that would otherwise have been parking levels under the municipal building. (which does tie into the tunnel from Stampede Station that currently goes to 7th)
Quote:
Originally Posted by getbak
You can ignore the shading, but I'm not sure how you ignore the plus 15s.
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You go over them. You have to be like 14 meters over the CP tracks, which puts you at +45 level and above everything that already exists.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironhorse
I still don't understand why the Green Line needs low floor vehicles when the other two large lines are already running high floor trains. It makes no sense from a maintenance and integration perspective. Can someone enlighten me as to why this is so necessary?
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The answer is kinda hilarious. LF was needed to navigate the beltline at grade, and then make tight turns and grade changes to get through DT with cut and cover tunnels (which LF does better than HF). But all of that became irrelevant when the city developed deep bore tunnel vision.
One option in DT was to turn off 2nd St onto 3 Ave and then onto Centre St and up the bridge (90 degree turns possible with LF). But apparently it was better to expropriate a demolish a bunch of housing units and then carve a bridge through our nicest DT park so that it can join Centre St 600 meters further north.
The whole SE ROW was set aside with the expecatation of HF. LF is only necessary for Centre St from DT to 64th Ave.
But everybody who wants to future proof this thing has no issue with the lower capacity of LF trains, which won't work well in the long term as 3 car trains will be too long for stations on our shorter N-S blocks.