If it begins to rise further south, how do you handle the entrance to Barclay Parade, the residential parkade entrance and the uproar from the Parkside residents now looking out to an elevated concrete structure.
Right now Anthem is selling the last two phases in the development, and I think they are rolling them out as the premiere units in the two low rise buildings right along the pathway on the north end. This bridge will absolutely ruin some/a lot of the view from them. I wonder if they will see an immediate slow down in interest in them as a result?
Ninja edit: Found the page for it, Landmark by Anthem. Not selling yet but coming soon.
As a SE resident, If I'm at Ogden road and Deerfoot, I'm just driving the rest of the way to downtown. I would not waste my time parking and taking a BRT at that point.
You'd already be on the bus, right from your own community. That's the beauty of BRT infrastructure...the vehicles can go off the dedicated routes.
What I'm envisioning is a Green MAX line (following the full route all the way down to South Health) running all day, AND express service busses for each community at rush hours (loop the main community drive, 1 stop along the 'green line', then straight to downtown).
Many different routes using the same time saving infrastructure.
The current train line has 7 additional trunk line stops compared to the express concept. I think a train will actually be a bit slower door to door, and a lot less convenient for most rush hour commuters. Green train will be far less functional (despite being more operationally expensive) for other users for the rest of the day.
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I’m not sure I understand your point then. Now you’re saying no tunnel downtown, so why were you talking about tunnel at all? You’re just saying Max BRT the whole route.
What ever would make sense within the budget of the project and deliver good service. I don’t know enough of how a downtown tunnel would be used in a BRT environment. It might be essential in which case build it it might not be in which case it could be deferred. That decision could be based on demand though rather than maintenance requirements. I think Seattle’s bus tunnel shows some of the advantages of tunneling even for buses.
I definitely think you need to go across the Bow and get to center on a dedicated line so you need a new bridge. Maybe with the cost savings you could be underground to 16th like the original plan.
But in general build BRT that is designed in future to be upgraded to LRT as capacity dictates.
I almost wonder if a single lane elevated busway through downtown would save a lot of money, and not affect the pedestrian environment to negatively. Bonus is exiting into the +15's. You would just separate the north and south to different streets to minimize the impact.
You would still have to deal with the stupid CPR tracks though...
But 16th Avenue crossing has to be grade separated. I do feel that road, and the pedestrian realm potential of that intersection would have a ton of lost potential and negative repercussions if you have to deal with train crossing arms.
The key change for Centre Street N include a surface alignment up the middle of Centre Street with a surface station south of 16 Avenue N.
I doubt there's enough space to go from surface to underpass if the station is anywhere close the 16th Ave. The old Option E which was very similar to this new alignment specifically had a tunnel and underground station under 16th Ave to avoid the problem.
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I doubt there's enough space to go from surface to underpass if the station is anywhere close the 16th Ave. The old Option E which was very similar to this new alignment specifically had a tunnel and underground station under 16th Ave to avoid the problem.
It's implied in that and the report that it's at grade, and I feel that's a mistake. At first I didn't mind, but now I believe that they should take this as an opportunity to improve traffic for 16th ave there by having at least trenching the line there so 16 Ave traffic doesn't interact with the LRT, and theoretically have longer light sequences during rush hour since traffic lanes on centre should be reduced.
The major crossing roadways further up the line at McKnight, 96 Ave, and Country Hills have the train going under those intersections to avoid traffic. So 16th has enough traffic that it should be the same. However I could see them not caring about this and why they have compromised in letting 16th be at grade is that road already has a billion traffic lights each block. So they figure the train wouldn't make things worse.
Good news, we don't need to worry about a level crossing at 16th. They aren't even building it past there. I thought all the tradeoffs were so there would be a useful north segment? So now they've gotten rid of all the expensive tunneling, but it is still worthless to the north? Well done.
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I think I remember them deciding because they were tunneling under the river, even if they couldn't get the NW section past 16th, it still made sense to do it all as one segment, which totally makes sense. But now that they've given up on the north, why even bother with the bridge?
I hate that they've given up like this, but it seems worse than pointless to destroy centre st just to run a mostly useless section of track. Why not just wait until there is enough money to do it properly?
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According to the Q&A article, they don't "know" (but perhaps they just aren't telling)
Spoiler!
CBC: There will be a level crossing on Centre Street at 16th Avenue N. Temporarily, that will also be the end of the line for the CTrain. So how do you do that in that intersection without creating a huge traffic snarl in all four directions?
Thompson: So the station will actually be just to the south of 16th Avenue. So we actually won't cross 16th Avenue and we'll have a station just to the south of 16th Avenue. So we're actually not crossing 16th Avenue at grade right now. We'll have a station to the south and the train, the project will start and go south from there.
CBC: Can you explain how a CTrain will get from running in the middle of Centre Street over to the new bridge that would carry it over the Bow River?
Michael Thompson is the general manager for the City of Calgary's Transportation Department. (City of Calgary)
Thompson: The Green Line is a low-floor LRT, so it's not the same type of LRT that we have right now. Lower stations, smaller vehicles — so it doesn't have the same physical impact on the environment around it. As we run down the middle of Centre Street, there are going to be no barriers between the train and the adjacent vehicles. So, think of a low-floor LRT like you would see in Europe or in cities all across North America. So it's not like 36th Street, where we have a concrete barrier between the traffic and the train. It's really integrated into the entire road cross-section. Then, as we go down from 16th Avenue to the south, we'll have a set of signals. The train will cross, go across the single lane of road traffic going southbound on Centre Street, and get onto the new bridge.
CBC: There's the escarpment there. There are houses up above. Are you going to cut into the escarpment or is it just a turn before the Centre Street bridge and away it will go?
Thompson: Those are details we're working through still to understand exactly what that will look like.
I understand the idea of a psychological barrier of getting across the river. I just don't see how 16th Ave doesn't pose the same kind of barrier.
It's about 1.2 km to get from the Bow River hillside to the far side of 16th Ave.
According to the Q&A article, they don't "know" (but perhaps they just aren't telling)
Spoiler!
CBC: There will be a level crossing on Centre Street at 16th Avenue N. Temporarily, that will also be the end of the line for the CTrain. So how do you do that in that intersection without creating a huge traffic snarl in all four directions?
Thompson: So the station will actually be just to the south of 16th Avenue. So we actually won't cross 16th Avenue and we'll have a station just to the south of 16th Avenue. So we're actually not crossing 16th Avenue at grade right now. We'll have a station to the south and the train, the project will start and go south from there.
CBC: Can you explain how a CTrain will get from running in the middle of Centre Street over to the new bridge that would carry it over the Bow River?
Michael Thompson is the general manager for the City of Calgary's Transportation Department. (City of Calgary)
Thompson: The Green Line is a low-floor LRT, so it's not the same type of LRT that we have right now. Lower stations, smaller vehicles — so it doesn't have the same physical impact on the environment around it. As we run down the middle of Centre Street, there are going to be no barriers between the train and the adjacent vehicles. So, think of a low-floor LRT like you would see in Europe or in cities all across North America. So it's not like 36th Street, where we have a concrete barrier between the traffic and the train. It's really integrated into the entire road cross-section. Then, as we go down from 16th Avenue to the south, we'll have a set of signals. The train will cross, go across the single lane of road traffic going southbound on Centre Street, and get onto the new bridge.
CBC: There's the escarpment there. There are houses up above. Are you going to cut into the escarpment or is it just a turn before the Centre Street bridge and away it will go?
Thompson: Those are details we're working through still to understand exactly what that will look like.
I understand the idea of a psychological barrier of getting across the river. I just don't see how 16th Ave doesn't pose the same kind of barrier.
It's about 1.2 km to get from the Bow River hillside to the far side of 16th Ave.
Yeah, NW of the Shaw house and those other properties that are there are going to be affected.
I think I remember them deciding because they were tunneling under the river, even if they couldn't get the NW section past 16th, it still made sense to do it all as one segment, which totally makes sense. But now that they've given up on the north, why even bother with the bridge?
I hate that they've given up like this, but it seems worse than pointless to destroy centre st just to run a mostly useless section of track. Why not just wait until there is enough money to do it properly?
I think the point is that the river crossing is big money - they have a (comparatively) large amount of money now, so by getting to the north side of the river, even if barely across, it makes it much more feasilble to build an extension further north in smaller stages with smaller pots of money.
I think the point is that the river crossing is big money - they have a (comparatively) large amount of money now, so by getting to the north side of the river, even if barely across, it makes it much more feasilble to build an extension further north in smaller stages with smaller pots of money.
It's just bonkers, because one of the reasons to go LRT in the north is to remove buses, since that corridor is pretty much at capacity. So now you add an LRT line and lose traffic lanes, but still will require all the buses you had previously. So you have just made more congestion with no tangible benefit. I mean, I guess if you wan the bridge now, build the bridge, but there isn't much point in disrupting centre. You could even use the bridge as a busway in the meantime, which would actually be useful. An LRT up to 16th is worse than useless, it's disruptive.
It's just bonkers, because one of the reasons to go LRT in the north is to remove buses, since that corridor is pretty much at capacity. So now you add an LRT line and lose traffic lanes, but still will require all the buses you had previously. So you have just made more congestion with no tangible benefit. I mean, I guess if you wan the bridge now, build the bridge, but there isn't much point in disrupting centre. You could even use the bridge as a busway in the meantime, which would actually be useful. An LRT up to 16th is worse than useless, it's disruptive.
No matter what they build, the south LRT and the north BRT have to have a shared station. Either at 16th Ave, route the BRT over to Eau Claire, or 2nd St & 7th Ave.
But 16th Avenue crossing has to be grade separated. I do feel that road, and the pedestrian realm potential of that intersection would have a ton of lost potential and negative repercussions if you have to deal with train crossing arms.
I don't think 16th Avenue would have crossing arms. Wouldn't a low-floor LRT just use signals like other vehicles? Obviously it would get a transit priority signal, but it's just a signal.
Looking at other low-floor LRTs out there, I can't say this looks any worse than how ugly Centre Street already is. It certainly isn't going to "destroy" Centre Street like the existing higher LRTs would have done. https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.45850...7i16384!8i8192
