WestLRT Construction Transgression thread

[GirlySports]

The manhole on the platform is awesome!

Looks like everything is going well.. I don't mind the big traffic delays if they can finish faster

[ken0042]

Is it just how the pictures turned out; or is there now less room for somebody stuck on the tracks to duck under the platform in an emergency?

[The Goon]

Baby Goon checks out the construction that has been interrupting his naps since birth.

[frinkprof]

May as well post this here as well.

Here is the proposed bus routing system for the area served by West LRT when it opens in 2012.



There is more info and a listing of what is happening with each route in the area in this PDF: http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/We..._June_2011.pdf

Basically the system will change from an "express to downtown" to a "feeder to LRT" system, with some other changes and a couple of BRT routes to MRU thrown in.

There are some public consultation open houses upcoming in June that will allow for input on the changes. Dates are as follows:

For residents west of Sarcee Trail:

Wednesday, June 1 from 5:00-8:30 p.m.
Strathcona Community Association
277 Strathcona Drive SW Upstairs Loft


For residents east of Sarcee Trail:

Thursday, June 9 from 5:00-8:30 p.m.
Glenbrook Community Association
3524 – 45 Street SW Main Hall


For Beltline residents:

Thursday, June 16 from 5:00-8:30 p.m.
South Calgary Community Association
3130 – 16 Street SW Main Hall


For Lakeview residents:

Thursday, June 23 from 5:00-8:30 p.m.
Lakeview Community Association
6110 – 34 Street SW Main Hall

[frinkprof]

Here's some awesome high quality photos taken by Surrealplaces on SSP. I've put them in NSFW tags since they are big and will make it so you have to scroll left<=>right on most monitors. Definitely worth a look though.

NSFW!

From yesterday

[frinkprof]

Some photos I took of the 69th Street Station area from yesterday.

Walls starting to go up on the westmost electrical/utility station on the line. It sits on top of and between the two tunnels just before they daylight south of the 69th Street Station.

[Codes]

No earthquakes please!

In all seriousness, those photos are amazing. Living in Lethbridge, I haven't bothered to pay close attention to the new LRT network, and I have to admit, I am taken aback by the above ground system employed at parts of the route. Should make for some incredible city scapes going into town. Reminds me of the Skytrain in Van.

[stevinder]

Another WestLRT photo walk from yours truly. This time I walked the entire alignment from 69th Street to 11th Street. About 10km all told. I know the route is 8km, but I needed to make a few detours along the way. Construction was particularly active at 47th St and 17th Ave.
Sirocco Station:

WLRT-06052011-11 by srp775, on Flickr
Tunnel Trench at 35th St:

WLRT-06052011-31 by srp775, on Flickr
Westbrook Station Office Building site:

WLRT-06052011-35 by srp775, on Flickr
Shaganappi Point Station:

WLRT-06052011-42 by srp775, on Flickr
26th Street level crossing:

WLRT-06052011-43 by srp775, on Flickr
Tunnel portal in Bow Trail median near 33rd St:

WLRT-06052011-40 by srp775, on Flickr
Guideway sweeping over EB Bow Trail onto the Bow median.

WLRT-06052011-47 by srp775, on Flickr
Underneath the western end of the guideway:

WLRT-06052011-50 by srp775, on Flickr
Sunalta Station. The escalators appear to be wrapped in the silver material:

WLRT-06052011-52 by srp775, on Flickr
West of the Science Centre on the approach to the guideway:

WLRT-06052011-53 by srp775, on Flickr

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by stevinder

Another WestLRT photo walk from yours truly. This time I walked the entire alignment from 69th Street to 11th Street. About 10km all told. I know the route is 8km, but I needed to make a few detours along the way. Construction was particularly active at 47th St and 17th Ave.

You know if you would have waited a year you could have just taken the train...


snicker snicker

[GirlySports]

Westbound Bow Trail down to one lane under the Crowchild bridge.. what are they dooooing, how long will it take?

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Westbound Bow Trail down to one lane under the Crowchild bridge.. what are they dooooing, how long will it take?

I know it's f'in ridiculous; it takes me damn near 45 minutes to get in . . . From Westbrook Mall!!!!

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I know it's f'in ridiculous; it takes me damn near 45 minutes to get in . . . From Westbrook Mall!!!!

Leaving downtown is pretty terrible as well (though I think that's more a function of the work by the Telus Science Centre.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Leaving downtown is pretty terrible as well (though I think that's more a function of the work by the Telus Science Centre.

Yeah for some stupid reason they decided to close two lanes out of downtown, causing major delays along 6th avenue.

As much as I love watching the LRT being built, I'm almost at my boiling point with the construction. I honestly believe they should have just done the whole thing in sections, rather than spread out the entire line, thin resources, and cause traffic woes for everybody.

[chemgear]

^ Wow, it's even worse today. Traffic is literally stuck all the way across downtown because of it. Some other people downtown I've talked to in the last while say parkades are backed up just trying to get on the road for a good 10-30 minutes. What a gongshow!

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by fotze

That one is really making me want to stab a child. There hasn't seem to be any progress at whatever they are doing with that PVC pipe for weeks.

One of my fantasies if I was a billionaire, would be to hire a crew overnight to just pave over that so the lines are reopened every morning. Just fill the hole with concrete.

I think it might even be quicker to walk to that point and grab a bus from there.

I saw alot of people try this but by the time the buses got there, they were full and nobody got on. Once the bus driver leaves downtown, he's flooring it to make up time. We're all standing and holding on tight!

[psicodude]

I get on 6th ave. literally a block and a half from the bottleneck, and it took me almost 15 minutes to get through it today. The least the city can do is adjust the stupid lights on 6th and 11th street to allow more than 8 cars through at a time.

[Ozy_Flame]

Whoever let that traffic bottleneck happen should be reprimanded. That's inexcusable city planning. 6th ave is pretty much the only main artery to west Calgary from the core. I walked to the Science Centre to see if that would help and it didn't. There were crowds of people waiting and full buses all the way. I decided to kill an hour by grabbing a beer and getting my hair cut.

[Ducay]

Ya, I'd like to know who'se idea this was. Clearly this is the sort of work that needs to be done on an overnight/morning schedule to limit the closures during the evening rush hour.

Got on the 104 @ The Bay, and 30 minutes later, I was still beside Bow Valley (less than a block). Oh, and my bus driver had a break down and bawled her eyes out after a fellow bus driver cut her off.

I promptly got off, had beers and dinner on Stephen Ave, and caught another bus at 7:30.

Time to call 3-1-1

[Jedi Ninja]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Ya, I'd like to know who'se idea this was. Clearly this is the sort of work that needs to be done on an overnight/morning schedule to limit the closures during the evening rush hour.

Got on the 104 @ The Bay, and 30 minutes later, I was still beside Bow Valley (less than a block). Oh, and my bus driver had a break down and bawled her eyes out after a fellow bus driver cut her off.

I promptly got off, had beers and dinner on Stephen Ave, and caught another bus at 7:30.

Time to call 3-1-1

When I lived in Vancouver, it seemed like they worked on major projects like this 24 hours a day and tried to minimize the daytime interruptions to traffic. Here they seem to have the exact opposite strategy.

[RW99]

Yeah it's been brutal the last two days, about 35 minutes extra Monday and about 45 minutes extra today. It really is hard to understand their planning sometimes.