High Speed Rail - Calgary/Edmonton

[wooohooo]

I read this in the Edmonton Journal and it was saying how Alberta being ultra conservative never does anything out of the ordinary. And comparing Calgary to Edmonton how formers infrastructure is vastly superior to the later.

Calgary took risks in building ahead the C-train to expand without a huge population to contend with. Edmonton waited and now they're suffering. Basically, build it now, and in time, it will be used well.

[zuluking]

I think a nice pedestrian bridge between the two cities would suffice.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

This has been talked about since the '70s though, so I don't see it moving forward until the provincial gov't is running surpluses again.

While you usually want to spend money when you have it, ideally you want to build this kind of stuff when things are going bad, so you have cheaper labour and construction cost to deal with (plus the added work should help rev the economy a bit). We can of course wait till we have the economy roaring again, but then you'll have people complaining that everything costs too much, it's hard to get skiller workers, and we should wait till things have cooled down to save on price.

It's a bit of a vicious cycle....if this thing really takes 10-15 years to build it's hard to time it right since you'll probably go through a couple of waves anyway.

[mykalberta]

Huh?

While I unfortunately agree with the Journals overall idea (uhh, lets vote for the lawn gnome farmer from east of Edmonton to lead this province), the difference between the LRT in Calgary and Edmonton throws that idea out the window.

I dont think any sane person would call Edmonton more conservative than Calgary (present city council aside).

An HSR between Edmonton and Calgary would be the smartest investment decision the Alberta governement would have made since Lougheed started the Heritage Fund. Its just unfortunate that it has taken 33+ years to hopefully come up with the next plausible decision.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Table 5

While you usually want to spend money when you have it, ideally you want to build this kind of stuff when things are going bad, so you have cheaper labour and construction cost to deal with (plus the added work should help rev the economy a bit). We can of course wait till we have the economy roaring again, but then you'll have people complaining that everything costs too much, it's hard to get skiller workers, and we should wait till things have cooled down to save on price.

It's a bit of a vicious cycle....if this thing really takes 10-15 years to build it's hard to time it right since you'll probably go through a couple of waves anyway.

True. I really hadn't considered the bigger picture like that, but you're right. Having heard talk about a high speed link between Edmonton and Calgary pretty much since Via service was discontinued, I'm still skeptical though. Sooner or later I suppose the population and demand will become great enough to push it into reality. Maybe now is that time. It wouldn't help me directly as I live in Drum, but I think it would be an asset for the province.

[BlackArcher101]

The HSR should NEVER be thought of as an investment. This has "operating on a loss" written all over it.
And for god sakes, get a competitor of Bombardier to bid!

[Muta]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

The HSR should NEVER be thought of as an investment. This has "operating on a loss" written all over it.
And for god sakes, get a competitor of Bombardier to bid!

Bullet trains, hey? How 'bout Lockheed Martin?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

The HSR should NEVER be thought of as an investment. This has "operating on a loss" written all over it.
And for god sakes, get a competitor of Bombardier to bid!

I think down the road as the transit system in both cities gets better, it won't operate at a loss.

But right now....it would be a huge investment, and the return wouldn't be that great for the first few years.

[ken0042]

The one thing I think about- they say the costs would be $3-20 billion. Let's say it's towards the low end and it's only $4 billion. What could we do with transportation with that kind of money? Can you imagine our LRT systems if Calgary and Edmonton each got $1.75 billion, and Red Deer got $500 million?

Red Deer could get a jump start on being a major city by building a system. Calgary could build a downtown subway and the West, SE, and Centre Street LRT lines. And I'm sure that much money could go a long way towards taking some of the "suck" out of Edmonton.

With all of that- how many "man hours" of travel time could be saved compared to what could be saved by building a high speed line? For example a SE LRT with a downtown subway would save me a couple of hours per week; and to save that much time I'd have to be going to Edmonton every other week. (Which I don't.)

[Table 5]

Yep, that's the problem with this thing. Even the cheapest option (which would likely mean a slow train and long trips, rendering it useless) would be able to fund 2-3 separate C-train lines in each of Calgary and Edmonton....which I think most citizens would agree would be more useful in their lives. For the full cost of a high-end option, Im sure we could build a very extensive network that would rival a lot of big cities around the world.

It's a cool idea, and I'm definitely not against it...but there sure are a lot of other transit projects you could build with that kind of money. Hell, we could hire Calatrava to do design all the new C-train stations!

[Zarathustra]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Yep, that's the problem with this thing. Even the cheapest option (which would likely mean a slow train and long trips, rendering it useless) would be able to fund 2-3 separate C-train lines in each of Calgary and Edmonton....which I think most citizens would agree would be more useful in their lives. For the full cost of a high-end option, Im sure we could build a very extensive network that would rival a lot of big cities around the world.

It's a cool idea, and I'm definitely not against it...but there sure are a lot of other transit projects you could build with that kind of money. Hell, we could hire Calatrava to do design all the new C-train stations!

You make this sound like there are any other options! Calatrava or bust!

[moncton golden flames]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Can you imagine our LRT systems if Calgary and Edmonton each got $1.75 billion. Calgary could build a downtown subway and the West, SE, and Centre Street LRT lines.

you can't get half of your wish list for 1.75 billion.

[fredr123]

If you spend the money beefing up Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer transit systems, what happens to the corridor in the meantime? Doing something about the congestion in that corridor now before it becomes any more problematic is thinking ahead. How many of us lament the lack of planning and foresight in Calgary's decision not to put the LRT downtown underground or the lack of lanes on Deerfoot?

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by fredr123

If you spend the money beefing up Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer transit systems, what happens to the corridor in the meantime? Doing something about the congestion in that corridor now before it becomes any more problematic is thinking ahead.

Maybe it's time Airdrie et all can start picking up the tab for the corridor. They've been getting a free ride into the city for decades...

[Eagle Eye]

I agree that inter city transit should be looked at first, but part of me wonders if HSR is built between the two cities does that then push local transit to become bigger and better?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by moncton golden flames

you can't get half of your wish list for 1.75 billion.

No kidding, the Downtown subway ($500 M) and phase 1 of the SE LRT ($1.2 B - only gets to Douglasdale) eat up 1.75 billion, of course, that's still FAR more worthwhile than the HSR.

Probably another 300-500 million to get the LRT to Mackenzie Towne; a little bit more if you want to take it to the South Hospital), the West is already being built for roughly $700 million, and the North Central line would likely be 1.5-3 billion, depending on the route it takes and how far it goes.

[Wookie]

Why bother, by the time any of these HSR's or Ctrain extensions are done we'll all be living downtown in condo towers walking over pretty designer bridges to get to work/school/shop/eat/hookers/blow/flames games/Fotze's brothel.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by fredr123

If you spend the money beefing up Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer transit systems, what happens to the corridor in the meantime? Doing something about the congestion in that corridor now before it becomes any more problematic is thinking ahead. How many of us lament the lack of planning and foresight in Calgary's decision not to put the LRT downtown underground or the lack of lanes on Deerfoot?

I think you beef up the Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer systems in a way that allows a high speed rail to be built right into that system down the road.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

I read this in the Edmonton Journal and it was saying how Alberta being ultra conservative never does anything out of the ordinary. And comparing Calgary to Edmonton how formers infrastructure is vastly superior to the later.

Calgary took risks in building ahead the C-train to expand without a huge population to contend with. Edmonton waited and now they're suffering. Basically, build it now, and in time, it will be used well.

1. Calgary's CTrain system has been built in stages over decades, a bullet train doesn't make sense to only be built to Red Deer initially. It has to be built all at once, present value that cash and it's a collossal waste of money.

2."out of the ordinary" expenditures are a good way to end up in the poor house. Until people who blow out thier ACL don't have to wait forever to get an MRI and treatment then there are more important things in the here and now to put money towards.

3. Isn't this 'out of the ordinary' type arguement just come from people who just want something cool built without much understanding to the economics behind it? There's a reason why it's out of the ordinary: It's fataing stupid. That kind of planning is better left to the Montreal government that seems to have endless white elephant 'out of the ordinary' infrastructure items built all the while vital infrastructure lies crumbling in a heap of ruins.

[BlackArcher101]

I hope this at least goes to a public vote.