Calgary Public Transit - Discussion

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

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?"

Yeah, the side entering DT from the west is the less busy side. It could easily support another line with 4-car trains. But the difficulty is how to get a NC Calgary line to connect to the 7th Avenue corridor.






You can also see that studies have long showed how strong ridership from NC Calgary would be, that 6K estimate is from using the Nose Creek alignment, it would be even higher going through Centre Street. Really, the Red Line should have been South Calgary to North Calgary.

[Joborule]

I feel like the city really doesn't have much of a choice but to accept the elevated alignment from the province if they truly want to be financially conscious. The city has already spent A LOT of money on this, and the value of underground is just not feasible if elevated can do the same thing for much cheaper, and you get a further built out line for Day 1 as a result.

If the city says no, then they've wasted the money they have put into this for the past decade, they waste the 1.5B from the province, and they waste the 1.5B from the feds since that money evaporates also at the end of March.

If they want to give this another go down the road, whether there's a new provincial party as government or not (no guarantees), the costs are only just going to keep going up, and up. So the city will end up paying more still in all likelihood. And I think it would be foolish to try to force the underground alignment. Tunnel vision is what has caused this mess in the first place. Costs for that have escalated considerably (not just a Calgary problem), and I don't see the value for it when elevated would be a cheaper option that does the same thing. It would be very silly to walk away, and then end up doing elevated anyway, but paying more for it.

I feel the property impacts are sensationalized, and the design of it can be inoffensive. Plus, the proposed corridor doesn't really have much going for it currently; parkades, parking lots, small offices, and office towers that don't have any restaurants or social life amenities on the ground level except at Stephen Ave. There's not much being lost, and adaptations can be made to make the most of it on the street level. Plus, this would actually give the Beltline a train station. The underground proposal said it would box one in for future development, but that would never happen due to it being half the costs of the new arena.

So if I was the city, I would accept the hand dealt, finally reach the construction milestone, and focus on getting funding for the extensions of the line ASAP.

[Torture]

And what do you do when the barely planned project that you are 100% financially responsible for inevitably runs 25-50% over, landowners are sueing for loss of property value, and now you, the City are solely on the hook for another 1-3B?

Hope you like your taxes going up.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Torture

And what do you do when the barely planned project that you are 100% financially responsible for inevitably runs 25-50% over, landowners are sueing for loss of property value, and now you, the City are solely on the hook for another 1-3B?

Hope you like your taxes going up.

Yeah, I don't trust the UCP AT ALL that this project will cost less. So far, everything they've done has turned out to be a total mess. I'm very uncomfortable with the City taking on the risk of implementing the UCP's idea.

[Joborule]

I don't have confidence with the city either when the cost have keep increasing with each alignment reduction from their end either.

Also, wouldn't cost overruns have to be covered by the city by default? Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the previous agreements, the province or feds wouldn't be stepping in to cover overruns; that would be on the city.

What I am confident in is that no matter what, elevated will be cheaper than underground. The cost overruns that could occur with the elevated segment, should be most certainly be less than the underground option with no overruns whatsoever. And the probably of that happening with how challenging it appears to be to do underground is highly doubtful.

The way UCP has gone about this is why they are hard to swallow as the government, but I don't think they're actually wrong in regards about this. I think what has made this more controversial than it should be (which I wouldn't be surprised if it's intentional from their end) is the province initially said they were fine with the stub alignment at first, than backtracked once it was approved by council. They should've been transparent in saying that the shrunken line isn't good enough, and downtown's alignment needs to be reimagined to bring costs down and get the line down to Shepard still. If they were more upfront about that then, I think the end result could still be the same in the new proposed alignment, but it could've been viewed as a change done in unison, rather than an ultimatum.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I don't have confidence with the city either when the cost have keep increasing with each alignment reduction from their end either.

I agree. Part of the constant increases are the constant delays, because prices almost never decrease with time.

The whole project seems like a disaster to me. That's why I suggested pairing up the lines differently in my posts above. It seems like there is no way to make the green line work in its current imagining, without spending tons of money. Maybe the whole thing needs to be re-thought as an overall transit strategy versus how do we make a SE-NC line work (or even just SE)?

However, this new plan from the province totally seems to me like a way to manipulate/hurt city council. Either the City agrees to a plan they didn't come up with, on short notice and with little information, but huge liability. Or they turn it down and become responsible for the project being stopped.

Either of which (the UCP hopes) will benefit their chosen candidates in the next civic election. Since Danielle Smith came along, I've seen no evidence of the UCP doing things to benefit Albertans or Calgarians and lots of evidence that they do all kinds of things on a whim, if their supporters want it.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I don't have confidence with the city either when the cost have keep increasing with each alignment reduction from their end either.

Also, wouldn't cost overruns have to be covered by the city by default? Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the previous agreements, the province or feds wouldn't be stepping in to cover overruns; that would be on the city.

What I am confident in is that no matter what, elevated will be cheaper than underground. The cost overruns that could occur with the elevated segment, should be most certainly be less than the underground option with no overruns whatsoever. And the probably of that happening with how challenging it appears to be to do underground is highly doubtful.

The way UCP has gone about this is why they are hard to swallow as the government, but I don't think they're actually wrong in regards about this. I think what has made this more controversial than it should be (which I wouldn't be surprised if it's intentional from their end) is the province initially said they were fine with the stub alignment at first, than backtracked once it was approved by council. They should've been transparent in saying that the shrunken line isn't good enough, and downtown's alignment needs to be reimagined to bring costs down and get the line down to Shepard still. If they were more upfront about that then, I think the end result could still be the same in the new proposed alignment, but it could've been viewed as a change done in unison, rather than an ultimatum.

Spot on with all of this, especially the bolded. it's really hard to make sense of the costing at this point, but it's just insane for the city to claim that their Shepard-Eau Claire+tunnel is cheaper than Shepard-7th+elevated

[GGG]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Spot on with all of this, especially the bolded. it's really hard to make sense of the costing at this point, but it's just insane for the city to claim that their Shepard-Eau Claire+tunnel is cheaper than Shepard-7th+elevated

Remaining costs only should be considered here.

The city essentially was saying they had spent over a billion and had a billion in wrap up costs to cancel the project. A bunch of that is rail cars but a lot of the remainder was being spent on things like utility relocates

So do I think that under ground stup is about the same as elevated to Shepard? That seems reasonable and seems what the government is claiming the redacted report says.

Would I be surprised if the consultant didn’t have access to current sunk costs in the first option or wind down costs and that makes up the difference? Not really.

I also don’t think the city is saying Shepard -Eau Claire is cheaper. I think they are saying Eau Claire to nowhere is cheaper

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Spot on with all of this, especially the bolded. it's really hard to make sense of the costing at this point, but it's just insane for the city to claim that their Shepard-Eau Claire+tunnel is cheaper than Shepard-7th+elevated

Are you including the lost tax revenue for the entire lifetime of this project? An elevated track that causes shading, harbours social disorder and rips out a bunch of high use +15s is going to drop building values and create a significant hole in the downtown tax base.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

Remaining costs only should be considered here.

The city essentially was saying they had spent over a billion and had a billion in wrap up costs to cancel the project. A bunch of that is rail cars but a lot of the remainder was being spent on things like utility relocates

So do I think that under ground stup is about the same as elevated to Shepard? That seems reasonable and seems what the government is claiming the redacted report says.

Would I be surprised if the consultant didn’t have access to current sunk costs in the first option or wind down costs and that makes up the difference? Not really.

I also don’t think the city is saying Shepard -Eau Claire is cheaper. I think they are saying Eau Claire to nowhere is cheaper

I believe city said EC-Shepard would have cost $7.2B with the tunnel, and 7th-Shepard would be $7.5B with elevated. I'm struggling with which sunk costs are apparently useful to the tunnel but not elevated. The city claims they have to go back to market on this, but more informed folks tell me that they really don't (the selected vendors all do above ground work...including various other sections of this line), so maybe that's part of it.

It took us 9.5 years to get to 60% design, so I suppose I can almost understand their hesitancy to take any steps backwards...but its really just sunk cost fallacy compounding over and over these last 5 years.

I agree go-forward costs are what should be considered from a decision making perspective, but I see why the city views it differently from an overall accounting perspective.


At this point the cost to benefit ratio seems like #### either way. It's kinda hard to discern what a $1B difference really means at this point...but it really means a #### ton of money coming 100% from the city. Other levels are giving us $3.06B period full stop right now. The city is on the hook for everything else. To create a project totally dependent on future extensions to be useful/efficient, with other levels of funding feeling less reliable by the day.

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Are you including the lost tax revenue for the entire lifetime of this project? An elevated track that causes shading, harbours social disorder and rips out a bunch of high use +15s is going to drop building values and create a significant hole in the downtown tax base.

Tax revenue isn't lost; the distribution may be very slightly altered, but its all pretty dubious. At this point you'd have to weigh the various property value uplifts from the project actually happening vs. not.

The report calls for one +30 to go (though there are some errors on that page so its a little unclear). The other points aren't totally irrelevant, but in the context of 10th Ave and 2nd St, they are tremendously overstated.

I'm not a fan of the project as designed before even considering grade through the core, but if I have to pick I would take elevated for sure. It's not as scary as people think.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Tax revenue isn't lost; the distribution may be very slightly altered, but its all pretty dubious. At this point you'd have to weigh the various property value uplifts from the project actually happening vs. not.

But that's not what we're trying to do here. There will absolutely be negative impact to tax revenue for the elevated plan vs. the tunnelled plan. So if we are comparing elevated to tunnelled, that's what we care about. Not elevated vs. nothing, you don't remove an option before comparing the financial impacts of all options.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

But that's not what we're trying to do here. There will absolutely be negative impact to tax revenue for the elevated plan vs. the tunnelled plan. So if we are comparing elevated to tunnelled, that's what we care about. Not elevated vs. nothing, you don't remove an option before comparing the financial impacts of all options.

The tunnel is dead, so it's not worth comparing anymore. The options are:

1a. elevated through DT
1b. but on the 90% chance the UCP ####s around again it'll actually end up Shepard to 4th St (or hopefully a little further west in some form)
2. BRT
3. Cancel it all

As for tax revenue, in the year the unsightly structures get erected the total property value in the city will only jump from $430B to $$449.9B instead of $450B as it would without the unsightly structures causing an [alleged] $100M loss. So the mill rate would adjust ever so slightly. But a few years later when it's up and running we'd see some incremental bumps from nearby properties that would eventually offset that loss.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

As for tax revenue, in the year the unsightly structures get erected the total property value in the city will only jump from $430B to $$449.9B instead of $450B as it would without the unsightly structures causing an [alleged] $100M loss. So the mill rate would adjust ever so slightly. But a few years later when it's up and running we'd see some incremental bumps from nearby properties that would eventually offset that loss.

The tax situation goes beyond that. There are many reasons that people and businesses locate to a city, and the infrastructure and general attractiveness are part of it. If you take a desirable part of a city and make it undesirable, you lose out on part of your ability to draw in outside investment, which drives up the overall tax base.

[Wormius]

I probably missed something, but I thought the tunnel was only going to be super expensive only for the river crossing portion because they couldn't do the cut/cover method. Isn't cut/cover pretty easy to do? They need to dig for the elevated train supports anyway, don't they?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I probably missed something, but I thought the tunnel was only going to be super expensive only for the river crossing portion because they couldn't do the cut/cover method. Isn't cut/cover pretty easy to do? They need to dig for the elevated train supports anyway, don't they?

Much of the beltline tunnel also has to be bored due to very poor geology, plus the need to go under the existing Red Line tunnel and the reserved space for the 8th Avenue subway.

Low-resolution geology overview from a 2014 report:

Spoiler!

Some parts of it were going to be about 30 m below surface.

https://www.calgary.ca/green-line/co...-stations.html

The deep underground station(s) would also be extremely expensive; just deferring the Centre Street Station saved about $400M.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

The tax situation goes beyond that. There are many reasons that people and businesses locate to a city, and the infrastructure and general attractiveness are part of it. If you take a desirable part of a city and make it undesirable, you lose out on part of your ability to draw in outside investment, which drives up the overall tax base.

Having transit as an option for staff and/or customers is a positive. Residential towers have gone up right beside the elevated tracks in Sunalta. Sunnyside and Bridgeland have become desirable areas despite close proximity to similar(ish) structures that were built long ago with little understanding of attention to mitigating issues.

Moreover, vacancy rates are still quite high DT. Even if this made a few level of a dozen buildings uninhabitable (which it won't) it would be fine. It won't be that bad (though I'm doubtful it happens)

Originally Posted by Wormius

I probably missed something, but I thought the tunnel was only going to be super expensive only for the river crossing portion because they couldn't do the cut/cover method. Isn't cut/cover pretty easy to do? They need to dig for the elevated train supports anyway, don't they?

C&C is quite disruptive for a long time, and the whole point of the tunnel was to appease NIMBYs (which is fine to a certain point). It's too bad because cut and cover is way more interesting that the alternative, which is boring.

[GullFoss]

Imo the outcome is going to be that the city and province negotiate for the downtown tunnelling + SE portion of the line to happen now. Thats what's best for the city (downtown tunnelling) and best for the UCP (SE leg For donors)

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Having transit as an option for staff and/or customers is a positive. Residential towers have gone up right beside the elevated tracks in Sunalta. Sunnyside and Bridgeland have become desirable areas despite close proximity to similar(ish) structures that were built long ago with little understanding of attention to mitigating issues.

Moreover, vacancy rates are still quite high DT. Even if this made a few level of a dozen buildings uninhabitable (which it won't) it would be fine. It won't be that bad (though I'm doubtful it happens)




C&C is quite disruptive for a long time, and the whole point of the tunnel was to appease NIMBYs (which is fine to a certain point). It's too bad because cut and cover is way more interesting that the alternative, which is boring.

[Fuzz]

How about the best of both, an elevated tunnel?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The tunnel is dead, so it's not worth comparing anymore. The options are:

1a. elevated through DT
1b. but on the 90% chance the UCP ####s around again it'll actually end up Shepard to 4th St (or hopefully a little further west in some form)
2. BRT
3. Cancel it all

As for tax revenue, in the year the unsightly structures get erected the total property value in the city will only jump from $430B to $$449.9B instead of $450B as it would without the unsightly structures causing an [alleged] $100M loss. So the mill rate would adjust ever so slightly. But a few years later when it's up and running we'd see some incremental bumps from nearby properties that would eventually offset that loss.

4. Wait for a real government who builds it underground.