Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[D as in David]

If the NC LRT was started first - which I agree was the better option - they still would have to put a significant amount of analysis into how the SE line was going to connect to it. Assuming that making them one line was the ultimate aim.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by kevman

I thought they had a NC plan at one point. The one that didn't have a station until 24th Ave NW and it was 8 stories under ground because they were tunneling under the Bow at that time.

They had done work up to the 16th Av station area but I'd hadn't seen any presentations of design work, community consultations or land acquisitions further north. Without any of that, even if Stage 1 had proceeded smoothly and opening in 2026, the northern extension would still not be ready to go. And in the original design, it wasn't until the Green Line got to Beddington did you get meaningful benefits in service and operational savings versus the current bus service.

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Maybe Sean Chu needed it explained in terms that he can understand. You see, Mr. Chu, you're the choo choo train. Let's paint it navy blue with a red stripe and put your police badge on the front. And Centre Street is a 16 year old girl, "probably".

Yeah I went there. Not sorry. His admission is on-record. He's a scumbag.

Never has someone done so little in 4 years

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Never has someone done so little in 4 years

If you only want to count his time on council, it has been 11 years.

Otherwise you could start from date of birth.

[Amethyst]

The southeast line should match up with the west leg, while the northeast line touches downtown in the east and then goes back up north via Centre Street. Both SE and west legs aren't as busy, so you wouldn't need so many trains to share the tracks on 7 Ave while the blue line (NE and NC) travellers could transfer to another train on 7 Ave if they needed to go further west in the downtown.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

The southeast line should match up with the west leg, while the northeast line touches downtown in the east and then goes back up north via Centre Street. Both SE and west legs aren't as busy, so you wouldn't need so many trains to share the tracks on 7 Ave while the blue line (NE and NC) travellers could transfer to another train on 7 Ave if they needed to go further west in the downtown.

That's pretty clever. Of course it disperses the hub a little bit, but in the long run it could have been 7th 8th and 10th as the corridors, with 6th and 9th having dedicated bus lanes and a couple N-S options to keep it all linked.

In a similar vein with total hindsight, I'd have connected the North and West legs with the low floor trains (running up 17th instead of Bow), while SE and NE are connected on 7th to preserve the free fare zone, and the red line eventually moves to 8th. Of course N-W would still need to navigate the 7th/8th/CPKC problem.

[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Yeah that's pretty much why emerging economies, or places like China and UAE, can get big projects done...somebody lays down the law, and things get bulldozed through regardless of consequence. It's not pretty, and often unjust to many, but it gets things done. Or you have countries like Japan, that get things built in a more efficient way, but that requires some serious cohesion and discipline.

Meanwhile we are stuck with paralysis by analysis... with endless consultations and studies, ballooning costs, and several rounds of political flip-flopping. Imagine trying to build the transcontinental railway in Canada today? I'm not even sure it would be possible. It's also why I'm skeptical of all the aggressive energy-transition talk...it takes 10-15 years to permit a new mine in this country, yet somehow we're all going to be living off of batteries soon? Good luck with that.

Obviously we need to maintain a certain set of standards and protocols, but there has to be some swing back the other way at some point, or we're just continue to be mired in this type of development purgatory.

Apologies if this has been posted, but this article on how Madrid built it their metro for a cost per km that is astonishing compared to similar projects has a number of good ideas https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how...metro-cheaply/

Cut red tape is a big one, but also continuity and competency of the owners engineering team, higher geotechnical spending up front and standardizing stations. And the funding mechanism at the municipal level really served to centralize the decision making. Plus there was a political element, politicians that delivered cost efficient projects got reelected. So they timed stages to election cycles.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by D as in David

If the NC LRT was started first - which I agree was the better option - they still would have to put a significant amount of analysis into how the SE line was going to connect to it. Assuming that making them one line was the ultimate aim.

I'm a broken record on this, but you raise an interesting time-machine thought experiment to ponder the value of the single line:

If we rewind to 2015 and the Harper Money Fairy is less generous (say $500M instead of $1.5B), then our next project would have been the SE BRT (shovel-ready and affordable). It would be fully built and operational by now. For simplicity, let's say the exact same fully dedicated ROW right up to 4th St SE*, where it goes to a dedicated bus lane loop of DT for all the MAX routes. Which would be awesome, but not turnkey ready for LRT conversion like the rest of the SE route.


Then we'd move on to the North LRT, which would be similarly straight forward except for 16th to the core, which has several options (tunnel and the bridge out of the bluff, at-grade down Centre all the way, or to a new bridge like the latest GL plan, etc). The N-S street chosen doesn't matter that much, but the point is to consider what we'd do from 4th Ave and southward. Would we:

1. at-grade across the car sewers terminating at 7th
2. cut and cover 3-4 blocks and terminate at 8th Ave subway
3. elevated to clear 7th and continue over CP tracks and head west to facilitate the eventual SE LRT conversion and avoid building a separate MSF in the SE
4. deep bore a tunnel like above

You'd analyze a bunch of factors like deadhead savings vs cost of a 2nd MSF vs cost of the crazy tunnel, vs anticipated through ridership, etc. But I don't think you'd be too stubborn on ideas 3 or 4 once the exorbitant costs became apparent. Option 2 sounds nice enough. The SE can find its own route.


So this is a long-winded way of wondering how we'd value the single line connectivity with a ridership data driven outside-in approach, instead of the hard-part-first/inside-out approach. The priorities look completely different when we approach the problem from the other direction without stacking the deck against ourselves.


* In this alternate universe, I think they might decide to take 12 St SE to go under the CP tracks into Inglewood, and then use a dedicated lane on 9th Ave with MAX Purple; similar to options 3 and 4 on the AECOM report. Which may or may not become the ultimate LRT alignment

[GGG]

Yep the nature of the federal RFP meant the project needed to be combined. That decision had a bunch of negative affects not really considered at the time.

[Acey]

As someone only casually keeping up with this gongshow of a project, given the provincial ultimatum is our most prudent move at this not to just bail on the entire thing and cut our losses? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Acey

As someone only casually keeping up with this gongshow of a project, given the provincial ultimatum is our most prudent move at this not to just bail on the entire thing and cut our losses? Correct me if I'm wrong.

i am thinking:

"They only way to win, is not to play their game"

[Wormius]

Agree to the project, get the funding, do some more preliminary work, and then hope for a change in provincial government.

[woob]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

So CBC is reporting tonight that the province says that the city is still responsible for all cost overruns and legal risk. I think that’s it then - I can’t see the city proceeding.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...-cgy-1.7414335

Aren't we responsible for the arena cost overruns and legal risks as well? No thanks!

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Acey

As someone only casually keeping up with this gongshow of a project, given the provincial ultimatum is our most prudent move at this not to just bail on the entire thing and cut our losses? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Unless you want the City (and taxpayers) to be left holding the bag for any cost overruns on a 5% designed project (ie. costs could easily be +/- 50%) that the City has already identified ~1B in costs that aren't accounted for.....yep.

Even if we accept this plan, the only way to move forward is for the province to agree to take on all or a portion of the risk or it has to be dead. The City simply does not have the fiscal capacity to manage this level of financial risk independently.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Agree to the project, get the funding, do some more preliminary work, and then hope for a change in provincial government.

This project went off the rails before the current provincial government took over. Unless a new provincial government is going to write a blank cheque they're not going to fix anything.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

The southeast line should match up with the west leg, while the northeast line touches downtown in the east and then goes back up north via Centre Street. Both SE and west legs aren't as busy, so you wouldn't need so many trains to share the tracks on 7 Ave while the blue line (NE and NC) travellers could transfer to another train on 7 Ave if they needed to go further west in the downtown.

I like it, you can still have a station near city hall to transfer without much hassle before going north again.

I'm not sure why Calgarians are so fixated on the idea that every lines needs to cross the heart of downtown. There are lots of efficient transit systems in the world with legs stopping short of their central hub that riders transfer at.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by kevman

I like it, you can still have a station near city hall to transfer without much hassle before going north again.

I'm not sure why Calgarians are so fixated on the idea that every lines needs to cross the heart of downtown. There are lots of efficient transit systems in the world with legs stopping short of their central hub that riders transfer at.

I'm guessing the efficient ones also have efficient transfers for riders to take to the central hub; does this idea have that?

ETA: I'm having difficulty imaging the route of the other poster's proposal so this is more of a general statement than a critique of their specific proposal.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Agree to the project, get the funding, do some more preliminary work, and then hope for a change in provincial government.

Your hope being that a new government will agree to Calgary's proposed alignment?

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Acey

Your hope being that a new government will agree to Calgary's proposed alignment?

I am hoping that Nenshi as premier, actually knowing and caring more about Calgary than Dreeshan, would be open to Calgary’s original vision.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by D as in David

I'm guessing the efficient ones also have efficient transfers for riders to take to the central hub; does this idea have that?

ETA: I'm having difficulty imaging the route of the other poster's proposal so this is more of a general statement than a critique of their specific proposal.

It wasn't so much a detailed proposal as it was looking at the system from an overall perspective versus trying to make a SE/NC line work despite it seemingly just not working. I believe the west leg of the blue line is a lot less busy than the NE leg while the same seems to be the thought on SE and NC. So maybe those are mismatched "pairs?"

But I currently take the train from Saddletowne to Westbrook every day and I love not having to transfer, so it's fine with me if we keep things as is.