From what I remember at the time Keating became a champion for the SE portion of the line, while Chu was silent/invisible. Politics still plays a role and I have to think he definitely helped move things towards the SE being done first.
Related/unrelated: Keating was one of the good ones, asking lots of questions and wasn't afraid to change his mind/opinion on things after getting all the information and feedback. Definitely missed from council.
Yup. The truth is the main decision was made through a shoddy process from 2015-17 with way too much design input from councillors.
The steer report that we've been discussing the last day or two is literally the only other time 'all options' were reconsidered (but not really all options in good faith).
The GLB chair and CEO have both been crystal clear that they have not actually looked at alternatives (since July 2020) because it is outside their mandate. You can say this thing has been studied to death, but it has only been studied to death within the parameters of the 2017 alignment, trying to make the impossible possible.
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CP's 15th Most Annoying Poster! (who wasn't too cowardly to enter that super duper serious competition)
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I hope all you effers in Calgary who voted UCP are happy.
They probably are. The voters are a reflection of the party. Dangerous morons who are self-righteous, petty, unethical, and think they know better than any number of studies. Just watch them all cry when the UCP starts w/ that whole "removing Alberta from the Canadian banking system/FINTRAC" thing. i.e. The UCP wants to run the banks. I think Nenshi was alluding to that with the whole ATB comment.
Gee, it's almost like all these things were considered and discarded. Morons.
But the past week, CPers actually went and looked at those studies and found that these studies even if there weren't biased, made decisions that were heavily dependent on cost estimates that turned out to be too low and where costs only had a modest weighting out of the total scoring scheme.
Unlike what Nenshi is saying, the studies showed that the elevated lines were feasible. For the northern half, it was a mediocre/decent option that was well-behind the tunnel if you ignored costs. For the beltline section, the elevated option was discarded mainly because because the DT stakeholders didn't like the look. But in the beltline, the original recommended option was actually 12th Av Surface because of how expensive the tunnel would be.
The tunnels were the "best" option but only if you could manage their costs. They were already dangerously expensive in 2016.
And Nenshi also is fudging about the initial funding. The only reason Calgary got so much funding was it was supposed to build the entire line (or at the very least the 28 km core from Beddington-Shepard) in one phase. It was never just to build the hard part first.
And City politicians need to stop thinking like this is 2014. The trains on 7th Av are only "packed" because they're forced to run 3-car trains run now, actual peak hour capacity and demand is lower than it used to be. With the extra car and careful scheduling, you shouldn't have any problems fitting the SE LRT onto it (even with the IMO highly optimistic ridership numbers), certainly less problems then trying to run more buses on Centre Street N.
Last edited by accord1999; 09-20-2024 at 03:03 PM.
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Gee, it's almost like all these things were considered and discarded. Morons.
Confused about the elevated bit from him. Why couldn't the elevation climb start immediately by the Event Centre station? Google Maps distance from Event Centre to 1 ST SW gives 1km. He said you would have to start from 17th Ave S to get the required clearance, which would be the distance of ~650m. And he said he preferred the elevated alignment! So what am I missing? Seems like that should be doable, and I agree with him that it would be the best option even if subway was on the table still based on the cost/value.
How in the world is the UCP gonna figure this out with shorter distance to get to Jim Gray's City Hall?
And City politicians need to stop thinking like this is 2014. The trains on 7th Av are only "packed" because they're forced to run 3-car trains run now, actual peak hour capacity and demand is lower than it used to be. With the extra car and careful scheduling, you shouldn't have any problems fitting the SE LRT onto it (even with the IMO highly optimistic ridership numbers), certainly less problems then trying to run more buses on Centre Street N.
####. That.
Careful scheduling involving what? That absolutely nothing goes wrong so we don’t bring three LRT lines to a halt through downtown instead of just two? I’m sure that we could come up with math that could stuff a fourth line on there and claim that it would work, but just spending a few days across a couple different seasons on 7th Ave and it’s painfully obvious that there shouldn’t be two lines operating on it much less trying to justify a third as a detriment to the entire system.
If the push is to make a dumb decision to put the Green Line on 7th, it has to come with the funding to put the Red Line underground, which may be the best option in the end, but no concept of three lines should be taken seriously. Better to have no line at all than make what we already have worse.
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Careful scheduling to slightly reduce the frequencies of the Red and Blue Lines to what they need. In total you would still have about 24-26 trains per hour during peak hours, no different than what it is currently (and has been for 15 years).
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If the push is to make a dumb decision to put the Green Line on 7th, it has to come with the funding to put the Red Line underground, which may be the best option in the end, but no concept of three lines should be taken seriously. Better to have no line at all than make what we already have worse.
It would come with a funding schedule for an 8th Avenue tunnel if needed. But if it turns out SE ridership isn't that high once the SE LRT starts operation, then that funding can be released for the NC LRT.
If they try to put the green line on 7th, then I can't wait for the first accident they will cripple the entire light rail transit system because nothing can get through downtown.
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Careful scheduling to slightly reduce the frequencies of the Red and Blue Lines to what they need. In total you would still have about 24-26 trains per hour during peak hours, no different than what it is currently (and has been for 15 years).
It would come with a funding schedule for an 8th Avenue tunnel if needed. But if it turns out SE ridership isn't that high once the SE LRT starts operation, then that funding can be released for the NC LRT.
The goal should be to improve service, not worsen it. Reducing frequency solves a math problem, but it makes using the system worse. That’s not a solution worth considering. It’s not like 7th Ave is good or has been for 15 years, it’s the worst part of the system and that has nothing to do with it only having three car trains.
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Careful scheduling to slightly reduce the frequencies of the Red and Blue Lines to what they need. In total you would still have about 24-26 trains per hour during peak hours, no different than what it is currently (and has been for 15 years).
It would come with a funding schedule for an 8th Avenue tunnel if needed. But if it turns out SE ridership isn't that high once the SE LRT starts operation, then that funding can be released for the NC LRT.
There is more of a demand to increase frequency rather than reduce. People don't want to wait for trains, otherwise you're giving stronger incentive to just drive and pay for parking instead.
Don't force a bad decision just because it's the cheapest option.
7th Ave as it is today is being pushed as much as it possibly can be. We should be working to only have one line using it in the future. If it ends up being the case that the SE line will also run along it, there is no other choice but to move the Red Line to the subway at the same time. 7th wouldn't be able to handle 3 lines from day one.
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The goal should be to improve service, not worsen it. Reducing frequency solves a math problem, but it makes using the system worse. That’s not a solution worth considering. It’s not like 7th Ave is good or has been for 15 years, it’s the worst part of the system and that has nothing to do with it only having three car trains.
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Originally Posted by Joborule
There is more of a demand to increase frequency rather than reduce. People don't want to wait for trains, otherwise you're giving stronger incentive to just drive and pay for parking instead.
It would be going for 5 min/train to maybe 6 min for the Red Line and 6.5 min for the Blue Line which still aren't that bad. The issue for frequencies is more for American transit systems where you currently have bus routes with 20-30+ minute headways and halving it would be a massive improvement.
And the 302 right now is something like one bus every 12 minutes in peak hours (and around 20-25 minutes off-peak), so almost anything would be improvement for the SE.
And I'm only wanting to push 7th Av more so that improvements can be made to the Centre Stret N corridor faster. Right now, parts of it see more than 1 bus per minute making it also very fragile, especially during a snowstorm when numerous articulated buses are stuck. If 7th Av is sufficient for the time being, you can come back to it after getting the NC LRT to at least 64th/Beddington.
Calgary is still stupid for voting no on the Olympics as well
I didn’t really have a dog in that fight one way or the other but in hindsight it’s unlikely that a project like the green line wouldn’t be further ahead if we were expecting to host a major event like that. With that being said they would have probably just did the same thing as last time and rushed the project, but my guess is that it’s probably going to be rushed again anyways.
Why are we stupid for not giving billions of dollars to one of the most corrupt organizations in the world again?
Because its not our billions its Canada’s billions. Before someone says we pay tax so it our money, that money is going east unless we keep it in the West.
So we forfeit a lot of money to give over to places likeQuebec. It was dumb to pass up our few chances to get the Quebec treatment
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Careful scheduling to slightly reduce the frequencies of the Red and Blue Lines to what they need. In total you would still have about 24-26 trains per hour during peak hours, no different than what it is currently (and has been for 15 years).
It would come with a funding schedule for an 8th Avenue tunnel if needed. But if it turns out SE ridership isn't that high once the SE LRT starts operation, then that funding can be released for the NC LRT.
So you are going to throttle the entire red and blue lines and reduce the headways...
Did anyone consider that such a schedule will cap Red Line and Blue line passenger capacity for the next 10 years? (or until someone digs a tunnel on 8 avenue?).
So you are going to throttle the entire red and blue lines and reduce the headways...
Did anyone consider that such a schedule will cap Red Line and Blue line passenger capacity for the next 10 years? (or until someone digs a tunnel on 8 avenue?).
The future? That's crazy talk. This is all about right now. When the red line is impacted by this decision, that's the city's problem and they'll be tirelessly blamed accordingly. This is all about political points to be redeemed in the next 3-ish years.
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So you are going to throttle the entire red and blue lines and reduce the headways...
Yes I would if that saves $2B that doesn't absolutely need to be spent in a new tunnel and can be used for the NC LRT. After all, to save $500+M the Green Line had no problem turning the Bow River crossing from a tunnel to 20th Av to a bridge to Centre Street then at-grade.
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Did anyone consider that such a schedule will cap Red Line and Blue line passenger capacity for the next 10 years? (or until someone digs a tunnel on 8 avenue?).
With 4-car trains back, capacity will still be higher that what it is now. Peak hourly ridership today is lower than it was 10 years which is how Transit can get away with running 3-car trains without that much problems. The issue about 7th Av capacity is from 2014 before the significant loss of DT jobs and new commute patterns from COVID wrecked growth projections.
