Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunk
The reason to move from Bus to LRT is fundamentally a capacity question. The North Central Corridor is really congested, buses are full, and the many buses there are clog Centre Street and in particular downtown streets. Further ridership growth becomes untenable on buses for a long time.
The SE on the other hand really does need improvements on the routes, more dedicated space to make it faster and more efficient, but it'll be a while before the SE bumps up against capacity constraints being served by bus.
I think Gondek's suggestion is that you need to build the north line to effectively serve the corridor, it is less costly to build (not having to build 10+ bridges and tunnels to traverse rivers, railways, industrial areas, and major roadway the SE has to) and therefore there could be budget to dramatically improve SE bus service as well as build North Central LRT.
There is merit to that argument for sure.
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How would you connect the Shepard maintenance facility then? Do you feel the city would somehow expedite the required land purchases, expropriation and eventual court challenges associated with going north for the whole route?
Also, the tunnel is a huge chunk of the cost. The only articles I could fine were from Nov 2016, but they peg the cost of the underground section at $1.95 billion. So you'd still be spending that money if you go north instead of south to start.
Do you have a cost breakdown for the remaining $2.7 billion on a per km of track/station basis for both north and south routes?