Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I understand what you're saying, and I'm not disagreeing with your points, but I work in Ogden and deal with a lot of the locals frequently and they are vocal locals. They are incredible passionate about their community...just the way it is.
The City already did the Land Expropriation scheme for the original Green Line Plan and it was like WWIII between them and the locals and the City eventually gave up and did something else.
And if you really, really want to go Nuclear? Change a Bus Route. The amount of anger and vitriol I've heard from the changing of Bus Routes? You genuinely wouldn't believe it.
As for CPKC, again, I dont disagree with you that maybe as a merged entity they should cede some of their protections, but its not going to happen...ain't nobody gonna fight the Railroad. They have what they have and they're damned well going to keep it. Come Hell or High Water.
They think its still the 1880s where if anyone messes with them or their stuff they release the Railyard Bulls to crack skulls.
And now that they're the single largest Railway Concern in the Western Hemisphere nobody is going to take on the Railroad.
As I recall during the Flood when the City needed Rail cars moved it was a borderline miracle that Nenshi managed to get them to do it and it was a polite request followed by a 'Pretty Please' and even then they largely only complied to protect their own assets.
You'd have better luck relocating the Brooklyn Bridge across the river.
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Understood and really, that is why I mentioned the potential profits they could generate through selling the high-value inner city land and replacing it with the cheap land outside of the city. The city would need to show them that they would ultimately win big $$$ in the transaction.
Looking at the
Alberta rail network map, they could drop the new yard down a bit southeast of Airdrie and easily tie all 6 tracks that currently come into Calgary.
Aside from the absurd land sale profits one could argue a few benefits:
- They would be able to build a bigger, more advanced rail yard than what they currently have.
- Their trains would gain some travel efficiency by not having to slow down when they come into the city limits.
- Whatever convenience they lose by having the yard in the middle of the city they could gain back by being closer to the ring road. If they can buy land between Hwy566 and the ring road behind Balzac then that would probably be the most effective for deploying product from the train to the ring road to wherever it may need to go.
- Getting the trains away from the bow river would be a win. As you mentioned, that was its own gong show back in 2013 and right now they need to maintain 4 or 5 bridges crossing over that river.
The city could not only buy the rail yard land but also all of the tracks in the city. Those tracks could either go to developing additional C-Train lines or Bike traffic or enable other housing development opportunities.
Then it would be on the city to develop the inner city land that they just acquired into enough housing and retail space to make their money back from acquiring and developing the land... the scope would be monumental. You could be building from the east edge of Ramsay (11st & 17th Ave SE) all the way down to the where the Bow river meets 42nd Ave SE. Once the rail yard conversion is complete then the opportunity would be to develop the commercial/industrial area between Ramsay and Inglewood and then develop south from there.
The best part being that the effort would be to push out corporations to make this redevelopment happen instead of pushing out the citizen home owners. Most corporations will align if the $$ makes sense.
The density opportunity there, in the middle of the city, is bigger than any other option.